Hollahan Shatters 200-Freestyle Mark

The choices facing Ted Hollahan would not merit a second thought for any other member of the Speedo set competing this week in the NCAA Division II national swimming and diving championships.

To train or not to train for the Olympic Trials is the question facing the freestyle swimmer from Cal State Northridge.

Others would not consider this a decision at all. Most of the people walking barefoot around New York State University, Buffalo, Friday would belly-flop off the high dive for the mere opportunity to compete.

The problem for them is qualifying. Often, a record-setting performance in Division II doesn’t meet the qualifying standard for the trials.

Hollahan’s effort in the 200-yard freestyle Friday was an exception. To say he broke the record doesn’t do him justice. Obliterate is a better verb.

His time of 1:37.37 beat the old mark by more than two seconds. It also qualified him for the Division I men’s national championships at Indianapolis in four weeks and the Olympic trials in Austin, Tex., in August.

It also threw a wrench into Hollahan’s life plans. Sometimes a guy can swim too fast for his own good.

Without such talent to burn, would it matter that he cares more about music than how many milliseconds faster his turns could be?

“He’s a great talent,” Coach Pete Accardy of Northridge said, “but I just don’t think he is willing to pay the price it would take to become the best.”

Accardy was referring to year-round training, which means lots of both swimming and weight-training.

Hollahan has never done much of either. “If I trained all year, I’d be a basket case by the time nationals came around,” he said.

Hollahan’s appearance--he is a slender 6 feet, 5 inches and has long locks of blond hair--could qualify for your typical laid-back Californian. But he’s from Denver.

“He’s a relaxed kind of guy,” Accardy said, “but he’s easy to work with. What’s frustrating is, I know what he could do.

“He could be amazing.”

And Hollahan? He also thinks he could be very good. But he’d rather play lead in a rock band.

“Ever since I was a little kid that’s what I wanted to do,” Hollahan said.

In Denver, he and a few friends formed a band called Single File that opened for several well-known groups, including .38 Special, The Outlaws and Stryker.

The band has broken up, but Hollahan’s future as a bass guitar player and songwriter is still promising.

“He’s really good,” said Jon Carpadarkas, Hollahan’s roommate. “All he does at home is practice.”

Which at times, apparently, can get rather annoying.

“He comes home and we’ll sit down and watch a movie, and halfway through it--even if it’s one of his favorite movies--he’ll get up and say, ‘Well, time to go play bass. Gotta go practice,’ ” Carpadarkas said.

“Then, he’ll go to his room and even with the door closed and the TV up as loud as it can go, I still can’t hear the movie. He plays so loud, I think he’s going to go deaf.”

Hollahan is as intense playing guitar as he is in a swimming race.

“He’ll be playing like crazy--I’ll hear all kinds of bass guitar coming out of the room--and I’ll open the door and he’ll look right in my face playing away,” Carpadarkas said. “I’ll ask him a question and he won’t even acknowledge me. He’ll just sit there and play bass. Sometimes it bugs me because I really need to talk and I can’t get through to him.”

And when he’s not playing, he’s listening. Hollahan had to leave his guitar behind when he left with the team for Buffalo last Sunday. But he brought plenty of tapes with him.

“I brought about 20 of my most obnoxious tapes that I have,” Hollahan said. “I listen to them to get fired up.”

Hollahan’s favorite songs to psyche by are fast and heavy metal. “It doesn’t have to make any sense as long as it’s fast,” he said.

Accardy only wishes he had the same enthusiasm when working in the pool. The coach compares Hollahan’s raw ability to that of Jeff Kubiak, a former Northridge All-American who set a Pan American Games record in the breaststroke last summer.

“His talent is untapped,” Accardy said of Hollahan. “He has as much or more than Jeff, but I don’t think his desire is near the same. But at least he’s honest about it.”

Hollahan’s record performance Friday seemed to frustrate him as much as it pleased him. He says he would like to give both the Division I meet and Olympic trials a try, but there are other considerations.

“I should have thought about this before,” Hollahan said. “I set up a real hard class schedule and I’ve already missed a lot. I’d like to go, but I don’t think I’d like to train starting when we get back.

“I have a couple of years left. If I don’t do it this year, it’s not going to kill me.”

Swimming, he says--even in the Olympics--is not his first priority.

“If it happens, it happens,” he said. “If not, it’s OK. I’ll just play it by ear and swim as long as I’m enjoying it. To make it that far takes a lot of training and I can see myself getting burned out in about six months if I go at it too hard.

“I don’t want to hate it like I did in high school.”

Accardy said Hollahan wrote to him about the possibility of coming to Northridge out of high school, but Hollahan says it must have been his father with the pen.

“My dad wanted me to swim,” he said. “I didn’t know what I wanted.”

A meeting with Accardy on a trip to Southern California renewed his interest, however.

“I came out to look at Northridge, Long Beach and UCLA,” Hollahan said. “But as soon as I met Pete, I didn’t even bother looking anywhere else.”

Accardy told Hollahan that he might be surprised how fast he could swim with a little coaching.

“I don’t put a lot of pressure on them,” Accardy said. “I tell them what I think they are capable of doing if they do certain things. Then it’s up to them.”

Hollahan, who swims in the 100-yard freestyle today, says the method suits him fine.

“It’s a low-pressure situation,” he said. “I tell Pete what I think of his workouts and he tells me what he thinks of mine. He makes it fun--if that’s possible. You push yourself.”