It’s Time for Kohne to Make Her Splash : Swimming: Everyone tells her she’s the next big star, but the Rancho Alamitos sophomore isn’t thinking that far ahead.

Natasha Kohne never thought much about her swimming abilities. She just swam.

Of course, she did set 11 age-group records for the Mission Viejo Nadadores in 1983. And in 1985, she set a national age-group record in the 100-yard backstroke.

But what did times matter? They were just minor details.

“I was really naive about swimming when I was young,” Kohne said. “Sure, I noticed I was winning a lot of races and everyone kept telling me that my times were great. But I didn’t know if they were great times or not. I was just having fun.”

Swimming is still fun for Kohne, it’s just become a little more serious.

At 15, Kohne is on the threshold of greatness. Or, so she has been told.

Her coach at Rancho Alamitos High School has compared Kohne to Janet Evans. Her club coach said she’s about to “burst out” as a national-caliber swimmer. And questions about the 1992 Olympics have started.

The praise and predictions have caught Kohne off-guard.

“I’m really timid about my goals,” said Kohne, who lives in Stanton. “The question I always get is, ‘Do you want to swim in the Olympics?’ Of course I would. But that would be such a long-term goal that I can’t really think about it right now.”

Which leaves her to concentrate on the short-term goals: the Southern Section 2-A meet, the Olympic Festival and the U.S. Swimming Senior Nationals.

“You have to do the short-term goals before you can accomplish the long-term ones,” she said.

Because the Southern Section, Olympic Festival and senior nationals are within a four-month span, training will be a little tricky. Kohne won’t taper her training for the Southern Section meet, which could affect her performance.

But Nadadore Coach Terry Stoddard said that time has come for Kohne to establish herself at the senior nationals. She already has qualified in the 400-meter individual medley.

“Natasha has made a logical progression,” Stoddard said. “She has been a top swimmer in every age group all along. She has also done very well at the junior nationals. Now it is time for her to move on to the senior nationals. She needs to be focused on that meet.”

Kohne swam in the senior national spring meet this year and finished 14th in the 400 IM. She will swim the same event in the summer meet.

Kohne also hopes to use the Olympic Festival in Minneapolis to qualify in other events for the senior nationals. After that, she’ll see what happens.

“You don’t really have to set goals; when you reach a level they are just there,” said Kohne, a sophomore at Rancho Alamitos. “You want to do well in high school, then in the junior nationals, then in the senior nationals. Each time, it’s a new challenge.”

And with each success come more expectations.

Kohne made an immediate impact at Rancho Alamitos last season. Besides helping the girls’ team win its first Garden Grove League title, she won the 200-yard IM and the 100 backstroke at the 2-A meet.

Her time of 2 minutes 7.2 seconds in the 200 IM was her fastest in a high school meet. Less than six hours later, Evans set the national high school record in the event with a time of 1:59.96, becoming the first female swimmer to go under two minutes in a high school meet.

“If there’s any high school swimmer right now who has a chance of breaking that record, it’s Natasha,” Rancho Alamitos Coach Tom Clarke said.

Clarke has said as much to Kohne several times. In fact, at the Vaqueros’ awards banquet last year, he challenged Kohne to go under two minutes in the 200 IM before she graduated.

“It was a little embarrassing,” Kohne said.

Last year in the Garden Grove League finals, Clarke asked Kohne to swim the 100 breaststroke to help Rancho Alamitos win the meet, even though it was one of her weaker events. She not only won the race, but also set a league record.

“It really hasn’t been a strong league in the past,” Kohne said.

Kohne began swimming competitively with the Garden Grove Gators when she 4.

Her sister, Serena, and brother, Garth, swam for the team and Natasha spent a lot of time at the pool. One day, the Gators’ coach told her mother that the team needed one more swimmer for a relay team in the 6-and-under division.

“She knew how to swim, but had never trained for racing,” said her mother, Cecilla Kohne. “We asked Natasha if she wanted to, and of course she said yes. She wanted to be like her sister. They didn’t even have a team swimsuit that would fit her. I had to make one the week of the meet.”

The relay team won and Kohne stayed with the Gators. She soon developed into one of the team’s top age-group swimmers.

“It got to a point where she had won so many races that it became routine,” Cecilla said. “Instead of hanging every little medal up, we started putting them away in a drawer.”

After the Gators folded in 1982, Kohne switched to the Nadadores and became one of the club’s top age-group swimmers.

In 1983, she set six short course and five long course club records for the 7-8 age group. In 1985, she set a national record in the 100 backstroke with a time of 1:05.12.

But even then, Kohne said she really didn’t feel she was a great swimmer.

“It always seemed like everyone thought more of my potential than I did,” she said.

Said Stoddard: “It’s funny, because Natasha is so shy when it when it comes to talking about her swimming, but she is also very competitive when she’s in the pool. She loves competing and she enjoys winning. I think she has the potential to be a great swimmer.”