Swim Club Makes Waves : Parents Rally to Boost Membership and Raise Expectations for Youth Group That Was Treading Water Just 2 Years Ago

A strong sense of civic pride propels the Downey Dolphins, a relatively obscure youth swim club that is on the rebound after years of decline.

“This club helps bring the community together,” explained club president Ray Sandoval, whose 14-year-old son and 10-year-old daughter compete.

Parents have been at the heart of the renaissance, just as they have been its driving force for the last 25 years.

Down to 25 swimmers two years ago, the club has grown to about 60 boys and girls ages 7 to 14. Parents pay $35 a month for each swimmer to participate in daily workouts at the city’s year-old aquatics center on Brookshire Avenue, on land belonging to Downey High School. The Dolphins have trained there since the center opened in June, 1990.

The Dolphins have been known in swimming circles as a “kiddie club,” a starting place for young swimmers.

Historically, the best swimmers in the city bypassed the Dolphins and sought better coaching at larger aquatic programs in Industry Hills, Bellflower or Lakewood. Years ago, that was fine with most Dolphin parents. They enjoyed socializing on the pool deck at Downey’s Warren High, where the club used to train, as much as their children enjoyed swimming.

The current board of directors, however, sees a need to attract good local swimmers.

“If a kid is talented enough to be in the Olympics, then maybe (you go to a better club),” Sandoval said. “But for most of them, it’s not necessary. A coach can help with technique and stuff, but you have to show that you have the talent first.”

In the past, the Dolphins have been criticized for not feeding enough athletes to Warren and Downey high schools. In addition, the adults who ran the club often got testy.

“There was too much parent bickering,” said longtime Downey High swim Coach Bill Sexton.

In fact, the Dolphins were founded by a dissident group of parents who split from the Downey High program in 1966.

The club’s goals were idealistic. Said Marilyn Rivers, a mother of four swimmers who has been affiliated with the club for 17 years: “The Downey Dolphins are my commitment to work to teach kids good values. I want it to be the best possible thing they can be involved in, a positive influence that raises their self-esteem.”

But the ideal has been hard to live up to. In the 1980s, Dolphin coaches came and went faster than the years.

Recently, parents decided to pump up membership, in part because the city and the school district had broken ground on the $1.9-million aquatic center. The club hopes to raise $10,000 and recruit an additional 40 swimmers.

The turnaround is pleasing to parents such as Rivers, who remembers “those frustrating days” two winters ago when the club teetered on the edge of extinction.

“It was really struggling,” she said. “We dropped to one coach. A couple of us were willing to float the club alone to get it through the winter.”

Rivers and her husband, Dan, put up $200.

Now, she said, new swimmers have brought in new parents with new ideas who have added vigor to the club’s board of directors.

“The last two or three years we have had a core group of parents who have been willing to get involved,” Rivers said, “and that makes a difference.”

City recreation manager Bonnie Kehoe has watched the turnaround with pleasure.

“They’re really on a roll now,” she said of the Dolphins. “There is a lot of enthusiasm. That’s good.”

The club’s commitment to locals has been enhanced by coaches Jayson Bernstein, 22, and Karen Miller, 25. Both swam for the Dolphins in the kiddie days, and they have brought new idealism.

Miller, who earns about $500 a month for her part-time job, has plenty of beginners to work with. Bernstein, who receives about $800 a month, is slowly attracting teen-age swimmers.

Four high school-age swimmers are now competing for the Dolphins, compared to just one previously. By the standards of other clubs, that’s still a small number, Rivers said, but it’s a start.

“Jayson has the background to give older kids what they need,” she said.

Sexton, a former critic of the club, agreed.

“They certainly have hired a guy who has his heart in the right place,” he said, speaking of Bernstein, a 1987 Downey High graduate who was an All-American water polo player and later an assistant coach under Sexton. “He’s been around. He loves the sport and has great interest in it. He’s got a better handle (on how to make the club successful) than (anyone) in the past.”

Last year, only one of the club’s swimmers recorded a qualifying time good enough to compete in a Junior Olympic meet, a standard by which most swim clubs measure success. This year, Bernstein said, he expects six or seven to obtain Junior Olympic qualifying times by next month, when the final meet of the season will be held.

Other changes are expected to help the Dolphins shed that kiddie image. The club recently affiliated with United States Swimming Inc., and on July 26-28 will play host to its first sanctioned meet. About 500 swimmers are expected.

The event should boost the Dolphins’ standing among Southern California swim clubs, Bernstein and parents said, because the Aquatic Center pool, a public facility, is one of the few designed to offer long-course (50-meter) competitions. Most meets are run on short courses, and many are measured in yards.

“My goal for this team,” said Bernstein, “is to build a club that can show up to a meet with 30 or more swimmers and finish in the top five. I want to cater to every swimmer, from 5 years old to high school.”

Young swimmers are still encouraged to join, he said. The Dolphins are maintaining membership in the Southern California Aquatics Assn., a group that holds league competitions mainly for youthful swimmers.

“You need those little kiddies,” Bernstein said. “But we want those little kiddies to grow up to be good swimmers here, not somewhere else.”

One of the top swimmers in the club, 11-year-old Conor Robles, is typical of the new generation of Dolphins, Bernstein and others say.

“My parents tell me it is better to represent the city of Downey because we live here,” Robles said during a break from swimming laps last week. “Besides, all my friends swim here, so I feel good about it.”

Keeping local swimmers at home benefits the city, which has had difficulty hiring summer water safety personnel, Kehoe said.

“Right now most of them are young, but in the future we will look to (the Dolphins) when the swimmers get 16, 17 or 18 years old. We will have good potential for lifeguards and swimmers for the city,” she said.

Obstacles still threaten the club’s plans to grow, a group of parents pointed out as children splashed through workouts at the Aquatic Center last week with encouragement from Bernstein and Miller. For instance, only a portion of the pool is available to the Dolphins. As many as four swimmers at a time swim in the same lane. Often they bump heads.

A larger team also requires more help.

“If we get much bigger than we are now, we’ll have to add another coach,” Sandoval said.

Practice is as much a social event for parents as a time for their children to swim. That fosters community pride, Rivers explained.

Added Javier Garcia, who has a son and a daughter in the program: “We have a great group of parents here.”

That, he said, guarantees a bright future for the Dolphins.

Of course it does, said Sandoval unequivocally.

“This is Downey. We live here.”