Swimming and Diving : In Hindsight, Mark Dean’s Olympic Rise Wasn’t a Surprise

Mark Dean never had won a national title, in fact never had won even a National Collegiate Athletic Assn. title in his two years at UCLA, when he stepped forward a couple of weeks ago in Austin, Tex., and beat out Pablo Morales for a spot on the U.S. Olympic team.

Dean took almost two seconds off his previous best time in the 200-meter butterfly to join Melvin Stewart as the U.S. entries in that event.

His coaches, Ron Ballatore of UCLA and Pete Malone of the Kansas City Blazers club, celebrated so wildly that they broke Ballatore’s watch.

“We knew he was coming on; we knew he was close,” Ballatore said that night, rattling off a list of times that indicated Dean’s recent progress.

Dean said simply that he thought his time had come, both physically and mentally.

“Mainly mentally,” he said. “I had finally gained a lot of confidence. I was able to accept the fact that I was one of the best swimmers in the country. It was time to step forward.”

Dean said it helped, too, that he left Los Angeles at the end of the school year to go home to the Kansas City area and work with his club coach, Malone, who was on Ballatore’s first swim team at St. Francis de Sales High in Toledo, Ohio. Dean lived at home and concentrated on getting lots of sleep and lots of good food. “It was a good change of pace,” he said.

It took a time of 1 minute 59.56 seconds to beat out Morales for a spot on the Olympic team, but Dean is calling his swim in Austin mediocre. He’s planning to go much faster in Seoul.

Ballatore, who was working with his Bruin swimmers in Austin before returning to L.A. Thursday, said that he, too, expects Dean to be faster in Seoul, since Dean’s recent workouts have been good.

“He’s similar to (Jon) Sieben of Australia,” Ballatore said. “Sieben went 2:01 at (the Australian) trials and then came here and won the gold in ’84 with a 1:57.”

All seven members of the U.S. Olympic diving team--Greg Louganis, Patrick Jeffrey, Mark Bradshaw, Kelly McCormick, Wendy Lucero, Michele Mitchell and Wendy Lian Williams--will perform Saturday at 5 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m. in the McDonald’s Sendoff to Seoul exhibition at the Belmont Plaza pool in Long Beach. Admission fees--$8 for adults and $5 for children under 12--will benefit U.S. Diving. Tickets are available at all Ticketmaster outlets and will be available at the gate.

Pat Hines, the 1986 winner, will be among the more than 70 swimmers attempting to complete Saturday’s seventh annual Manhattan Island Swim. Hines trained for the 31-mile race around Manhattan by swimming in Santa Monica Bay. Her preparation also included tetanus and gamma globulin shots.

Hines, an All-American swimmer at the University of Miami (Fla.) 15 years ago, has been competing ever since. Her days of competitive golf, tennis and surfing are behind her, but she still also competes in triathlons and cycling. In 1984, she won the women’s Race Across America transcontinental bike race.

Swimming Notes

Seven members of the Olympic swim team will spend 10 days in Colorado Springs, Colo., doing altitude training before coming to Los Angeles and then leaving for Seoul. Angel Myers, Troy Dalbey, Susan Johnson, Dan Veatch, Erika Hansen and Lars and Dan Jorgensen will work there with Mission Bay Coach Mark Schubert, and Angel’s father, Kirt Myers, who coached her to U.S. records in both the 100-meter freestyle and the 50-meter freestyle. The rest of the team stayed in Austin, Tex., to train before coming to L.A. to be fitted for team uniforms.

Ron Ballatore will go with the Olympic team to Seoul as one of the seven personal coaches U.S. Swimming is taking to coach their own world record-holders or former world record-holders. . . . At the U.S. swimming trials in Austin, U.S. men swam the best times in the world this year in seven events, the 100- and 1,500-meter freestyles, 100-meter backstroke, 200-meter backstroke, 100-meter breaststroke and 200- and 400-meter individual medleys. U.S. women swam the best times in the world this year in four events, the 100- and 400-meter freestyles, 200-meter butterfly and 400-meter individual medley. . . . Six former or current UCLA swimmers made Olympic teams for other countries. Peter Rohde and Franz Mortensen will swim for Denmark, Giovanni Minervini for Italy, Rodrigo Gonzalez for Mexico, John-Henry Escales for Spain and Darren Ward for Canada.