Things People Do : His Methodology May Seem All Wet, but It Works : ‘Sickie’ Marcikic Is Holding the Attention of Masters Swimmers in Program at UCSD

Motivation by curiousity. It’s not a concept widely used by coaches training athletes with visions of either national recognition or Olympic fame.

But for one “Sickie,” it’s working.

Ron (Sickie) Marcikic is the man, sometimes clown, behind the UCSD Masters swimming program.

Marcikic has the task of holding the interest of 325 participants, swimmers who otherwise might stay away. To do so, Marcikic calls on his imagination to motivate.

“I wear a lot of weird clothes,” said Marcikic, 39. “A lot of times our swimmers will show up just because they want to see what I’m wearing.”

Marcikic’s odd outfits include bright shorts, mismatched shoes and funny hats.

UCSD’s program is the largest of 24 regional San Diego/Imperial Swim Masters clubs, all of which are governed by United States Masters Swimming. The La Jolla Jewish Community Center and Carlsbad Masters have 115 swimmers each, an Allied Gardens club called “Different Strokes” has 80 and Coronado has 50 members.

There are 1,300 masters swimmers in San Diego, making it the third largest region in the country and in California, the state with the most clubs and members. Northern California is first with 6,557 swimmers, and the Los Angeles/Orange County/Santa Barbara region is second with 2,356 members.

Many of these swimmers are like Larry Hill, 50, a computer programmer for the San Diego Unified School District. He returned to swimming in Marcikic’s program eight years ago after a layoff of 20 years.

“Sickie provides a lot of variety,” he said. “If I don’t come, I feel like I’m missing out. I’m a better swimmer now than I was in high school and college.”

Camille Thompson, a member of the U.S. 1976 Olympic swim team in Montreal, has been with the program for two years.

“The coaches are great,” she said. “Sickie makes it fun. He does crazy things. There’s always something going on to keep people interested.”

In a sport in which it becomes increasingly tiresome to stare at a painted line at the bottom of the pool, lap after lap, Marcikic dreams up wild workouts to arouse interest.

“I make up strange sets for them,” he said. “I’ll make them swim on their backs, feet first, going backwards, all sorts of different things. You treat them like kids but are able to talk to them like adults. The bottom line here is fun.”

Marcikic also has staged some unconventional dry-land activities.

Last year, he staged such a bizarre golf tournament--players were required to hit the ball with a baseball bat on one hole and with a pool cue on another--that the group was told not to come back to the course. And this summer, the group will hold its first bowling tournament, at an unsuspecting alley to be named later.

But to portray the program as a pool of games is unfair.

Of the athletes enrolled in UCSD’s program, Marcikic said approximately half are serious triathletes or swimmers in training.

“It’s definitely a well-organized workout,” Marcikic said. “And it’s not easy. When you’re training as many as 80 to 100 people in the water in one workout, you don’t want to hurt the people who are serious. But you don’t want to burn out the ones who are there for fun either.”

In fact, Marcikic hired Jeff Milton four years ago to work with more serious swimmers such as triathletes Scott Tinley, Mark Allen and Julie Moss and multiple masters world-record holders Barbara Dunbar and Betsy Jordan. Milton, 33, also is swimming coach at University City High School.

The less-serious participants swim to stay in shape, to feel good about themselves and to escape, for 1 1/2 hours a day, the grind of high-stress jobs.

Milton said: “They love to be told what to do. They have to be told to get off the wall just like high school kids. And they have to do a 50 butterfly on their birthday no matter who they are.”

In a pool, a doctor and a doorman are indistinguishable.

“We have a number of professors, doctors, lawyers, many well-respected people in the community,” Marcikic said. “But once they’re on deck, in their Speedos, you don’t recognize them. They’re just as crazy as anyone, and they’re looking for the same results. That’s the best part.”

Matthew Belshin, 29, is a former competitive swimmer turned retail developer for Trammell Crow Company. Belshin said he relies on swimming to keep his sanity, and he likes the absence of a hierarchy in the program.

“I really don’t know what a lot of the people do,” he said. “In the pool, everyone’s the same. This is a time to escape work. People don’t talk about it much.”

County Superior Court Judge Tony Joseph, 52, has been swimming under Marcikic for two years. In a masters meet in La Jolla in April, he won the men’s 50-54 500-yard freestyle. He says swimming is a great way to escape the pressures of the courtroom.

“It’s good to have something you do that is completely separate from law,” Joseph said. “It’s easier to stay awake all day if you start out doing this.”

“This is a great program,” said Thompson, 34, a silver-medalist in the 400-meter medley relay in Montreal. “It’s a good melting pot here, and you get the hours you need.”

Canyon View Pool is open for UCSD’s masters swimming at 6 a.m. Marcikic and Milton divide the pool for two different workouts from 6-7:30. UCSD is also open for workouts from 7:30-9 a.m., noon-1:30 p.m. and 6:30-8 p.m.

In masters swimming, the training is much less intense then when Thompson and Charlie Campbell, a first-year UCSD member and 1972 Olympian, were swimming four to six hours a day training for the Olympics.

After a 15-year break from the sport, Campbell--a member of the 400 medley relay team that set a world record in 1971--has returned to swimming.

“Swimming was a way of life for me,” he said. “When you’re a kid, you’re a semi-pro. Now, this is a chance to get a good workout. We do less distance then when I was a kid. This is a program that’s sophisticated and low-key. They give you whatever you can handle.”

Said Thompson: “It’s not like the old days. You can get out when you want. I swim with Jeff, and he’s a great motivator. He knows where to draw the line.”

Milton said family and job commitments force the shorter workouts.

“We can make it just as tough, but not as long,” he said. “They don’t have the time.”

Marcikic and Milton, who have both coached youngsters, enjoy the built-in discipline of the adults.

“It’s easier to coach adults,” Marcikic said. “We’re not just coaches to them, we’re friends. It’s not a customer/client relationship. Swimming isn’t their whole lives. I have to build that into their workout because they won’t always be able to be here.”

According to USMS Executive Director Dorothy Donnelly, there are 24,000 registered members swimming on 435 clubs across the country. There are more men than women registered nationally, but UCSD’s male-female ratio is fairly even.

Locally and nationally, for both men and women, the most popular age group is 25-35.

Originally, Masters swimmers competed in age groups that were divided into 10-year increments, beginning at 25 and stopping at 65-plus. Now there are five-year increments. The youngest group is 19-24, the oldest 95-up.

There are only two men competing in the highest age group. UCSD’s Tom Lane is one of them. He holds nine national and four world records in the 90-94 division, despite the fact he is blind.

“He’s pretty frail,” Marcikic said. “He can only swim in warm water, but he does the best he can.” Lane turned 95 on June 21.

Swimmers actually look forward to the birthdays that will move them up an age group.

“I couldn’t wait to move up and get away from the youngsters,” said Dunbar, president of San Diego/Imperial Swim Masters.

Dunbar, 40, holds of 18 national and 12 world records in the 40-44 age group.