Teen Swimmer Is Wise Beyond Her Years : Swimming: Encinitas’ Lydersen is using the Olympic Festival as a checkpoint toward a possible berth in the 1996 Summer Games.

Now this was something to look forward to. Not just an interview with a high school teen-ager. This was a phone interview with a high school teen-ager.

In the case of most young athletes who are getting their first taste of media attention, it often is difficult to get more than a nugget of truth.

Swimmer Kari Lydersen, 15, is new to the media. Lydersen was born in Kansas and has lived in New York and Colorado. However, six years in Encinitas is long enough to pick up that distinctive Cal-gal speak that includes: like, for sure, totally, and no way.

This was doomed to be a conversation long on giggles and short on substance. But in the 25-minute interview, Lydersen, the San Dieguito High junior-to-be, offered insights demonstrating a maturity beyond her years.

Today, Lydersen--the top-seeded swimmer in her events--will swim in the 400-meter freestyle for the East, as the Olympic Festival continues in Los Angeles.

The spotlight has descended upon Lydersen in a flood. At the Meet of Champions in Mission Viejo last month, she was the surprise winner of the 400 freestyle--which qualified her for the Olympic Trials--and had reporters and meet officials scrambling to find out who exactly she was. U.S. Swimming had bio sheets on the meet’s top 20 participants; at the time, Lydersen didn’t rate.

Earlier in the year, against comparable competition, she finished 11th in both the 400 and 800 events at the U.S. Spring Nationals. Last year at the U.S. Open, she was 14th in the 400.

But Carl Fano, her coach since she started training at the Encinitas YMCA when she was 9, insists that Lydersen didn’t, “burst onto the scene.”

“Her improvement has been gradual, but consistent, almost to a point of scariness,” said Fano, who added that Lydersen has been swimming in major meets for two years now. “You expect a low, to go a long time without improving. She’s not gone through that. She hasn’t has any really bad times or meets.”

Only bad luck. Lydersen’s events, the 400, 800 and 1,500 freestyle, the 400 individual medley and the 200 butterfly, all happen to be the same events that Janet Evans, reigning queen of U.S. swimming, races.

“All except the 200 fly, and Summer Sanders in that,” said Pat Lydersen, Kari’s mom.

Not to worry. Lydersen considers the opportunity to swim against Evans and the other top swimmers a great challenge. The lone down note: Evans’ dominance makes her practically a shoo-in for the 1992 Olympic team and automatically leaves only one roster opening--out of two--in the events they both swim.

“It’s neat because she’s one of the best ever and I can compete with and against her,” Lydersen said. “I can’t picture beating her now, that seems completely impossible.”

Said Fano: “It doesn’t scare her to swim next to Janet. It brings the best out of her. (Kari) has that champion profile. She has that inner strength to give her very best on any given day. She goes all out all the time. And she doesn’t look at a well-known name next to her and say, ‘Oh, no.’ She says, ‘Let’s see how long I can stay with these people.’ ”

That she even stayed with the sport was somewhat a surprise to her family.

“When I first coached a novice team, I had one dropout. Guess who it was,” said Pat. “You got it, Kari.”

There were other problems when she first started swimming in Encinitas. Fano said Lydersen showed little sign of improvement the first three years, and he was very concerned about her arm strength--one arm was noticeably weaker. Fano never dreamed of the potential his pupil had.

“Sometimes you see (future champions),” Fano said. “In Kari, you couldn’t see it. She didn’t stick out of a group.”

What has contributed to her success is determination as strong as the day is long.

“I’ve always been real goal-oriented,” Lydersen said. “Whenever I saw someone better then me, I would go out and do what I had to do to beat them. As I started getting better, I started working harder.”

Practice is a sacred institution as far as Lydersen is concerned.

“She came to practice regularly and on time,” Fano said. “You could sense that she was serious. Whatever she had achieved, it was through concentration and from hard practice. There are very few people who can out-practice her.”

One of Fano’s coaching dilemma’s is how to keep Lydersen from swimming herself into the ground.

“She just loves to swim,” he said. “The only problem I have is keeping her from doing too much. She would swim from sun-up to sun-down if I let her.”

With things going so well, Fano said he has been tempted to overtrain Lydersen.

“But I’ve seen so many young swimmers do too much and quit,” he said. “I try to talk to Kari about that. My plan is to go steady with her . . . If by any chance she makes the 1992 Olympic team, it would be a great surprise to me and to Kari. The competition to make it is so tough.”

What about 1996?

“I think Kari will mature physically by her second year in college,” Fano said. “If we keep on this level of improvement, she can probably do it. She can be an 1996 Olympian. But it all comes down to one race and there are some good people who are expected to make it and don’t and those who aren’t and do.”

Those who spend their whole lives dwelling on making it to the Olympics are developing what Lydersen said was an unhealthy perspective.

“I would love to make it, it’s my biggest goal,” she said. “But it’s only one meet. You miss it by a hundredth of a second and you’re not going. I heard some skater, I think it was Debi Thomas, talk to some reporter about if it was all worth it. I don’t think you should have your whole career looking toward the Olympics, not make it and then have to think about all those wasted years training for it. There are a lot of other great meets and opportunities. I want to take each one at a time. I don’t want it to be the ultimate.”

Neither is Lydersen’s family taking drastic measure to ensure their daughter will get there. While some parents feel compelled to send their children to big-name clubs that churn out a high quota of champions and have marquee coaching staffs, Lydersen has brought a little fame to her hometown.

“She’ll go to meets and people will say, ‘You’re the one who swims in a hotel pool,’ ” Pat said. “It’s nice because Encinitas has never had a big name come out from such a small club.”

In the morning, Lydersen trains at the Olympic Resort Hotel in Carlsbad, where Fano runs a Masters swimming program for adults. Her afternoons are spent at the YMCA.

“Ten years ago you had to move away from home and go to the best teams,” Lydersen said. “I want to prove you can live at home and even have the coach you like and still do it.”

Fano came to the United States from Czechoslovakia in 1966. Lydersen is his most acclaimed pupil to date. Pat said he and her daughter’s relationship is “very close,” and sees no reason to change the arrangement.

“They’re doing very well together,” Pat said. “Carl has kept it fun for her. We wanted her living at home. There was no way we’d spend all that time commuting and break up the family.”

What Lydersen has to take a serious look at is breaking up her busy schedule when school starts.

Long hours in the pool have cut into her writing time. A published poet and playwright, she wrote “Swim, Sandy, Swim,” when she was 12, and won a California Young Playwright’s age division award. The play was produced at the Gaslamp Theater and the rights to it sold to a group in Canada. A second play won the same award a year later.

Last year Lydersen played on San Dieguito’s varsity tennis team and would like to play again, but . . .

“I have to keep dropping things as I add more swimming time,” Lydersen said. “I think I’ll end up not playing, especially because it’s an Olympic year.”