McClelland’s Move Puts Her Swimming Career in Sync : Swimming: San Diego native left home to pursue her Olympic dream.

It sounds like a way to describe an after-dinner drink, but it is the quality that earned Laurie McClelland a spot on the national champion Walnut Creek synchronized swim team.

Blendability , you say? Is that on the rocks or straight up?

Hear any coach rattle off attributes of a top athlete, and the list is bound to include buzz words such as strong, agile, quick or intelligent.

But “blendability” was how Walnut Creek Coach Gail Emery described McClelland’s recent ascension to Walnut Creek’s select A team.

“She blended real well with the group,” Emery said. “It’s what we call the blendability factor; how do they fit it with the group? It’s based on range of height, physical appearance, a whole bunch of things.”

A whole bunch of reasons compelled El Cajon’s McClelland to leave San Diego a year ago and move to Walnut Creek, where she now trains full-time and attends Carondolet High. But the bottom line was McClelland, a former Sweetwater Dolphins team member and Our Lady of Peace student, thought it was the best place to pursue a career that might lead to a spot on the 1996 Olympic team. In Atlanta, the team event will debut, taking the place of the solo and duet events.

The move already has paid off lavishly. McClelland, 17, is in Salerno, Italy, where the U.S. National team is competing in the FINA Junior World Championships today through Sunday. As if that’s not heady enough, she unexpectedly made the eight-member Walnut Creek A team, which took back its national team title--one it held 10 years running--this year after losing it to rival Santa Clara in 1990.

“I had been thinking about (the move) since eighth grade,” McClelland said. “My best friend (Margo Thien) left after her freshman year to go up, and I told her I would someday be up there with her.”

Thien, three years older then McClelland and a national team member, is another former Dolphin who moved to Walnut Creek’s greener waters. McClelland’s initial reaction to freedom and its built-in benefits soon was replaced by longings for home.

“At first it was really cool, not having parents around,” she said. “I didn’t have to tell anyone what I was doing. But after a while, it was the little things I missed, like running out of toothpaste and my mom’s not there to get it. She’s not around to talk to any time like before. It really made me check out my morals and values. I think I’ve made pretty good decisions.”

Norma McClelland and her husband left the decision to leave up to their daughter.

“We had to make it her decision,” she said. “If I had said, no, that would be bad or if I had said, yes, that would have been bad, too. From my point of view, it wasn’t a good decision, and I told her that. It was just too far away.”

Time, the telephone and transportation have helped them all through the adjustment period.

McClelland switched host families in April--she now lives with a girl her own age--and she is learning the ropes at school, where she will be a senior in the fall. The telephone has become an indispensable tool in the McClelland family, and Laurie’s parents make frequent trips up north.

“What I miss is not being present for day-to-day things, Laurie walking in saying this is what happened today,” Norma said. “But time has gone fast. In terms of monumental events, we’ve been there.”

What tipped the scales to the monumental side was her appointment to the A team in March.

“When I first went up there, there weren’t many expectations of me,” McClelland said. “It’s pretty unheard of for someone new to come in and take an A team spot.”

Coming off World Championships in January, Emery’s skills were put to the test: She had six weeks to fill a vacancy on her elite roster and get a team routine perfected for nationals.

“You usually have four months,” she said. “There were four or five girls on the B team we were looking at, and Laurie was one of them.”

Emery watched McClelland at Junior Nationals in February in Washington state, where McClelland took first in team and duet--with current partner Jenny Ohanesian--competition.

“I knew what she was capable of doing, and I felt I could count on her,” Emery said. “She had the edge in figures and all the other assets in routine swimming. It’s not just swimming your own part by yourself, but swimming your own part with everyone else. She had to learn quickly. There’s a tremendous amount of assimilation that has to take place for the brain to get the body to make it happen, and hold down the mental aspect as well.”

Since McClelland had to be coerced into trying out--her B team coach had to encourage her to attend the one-day tryout--her selection sent mild shock waves through the club.

“We had to go with the people who could come in and do the job,” Emery said. “She was a quick study. She really came through for us.”

As happy as she was, her appointment was hardest on friendships within the club. Ohanesian, her duet partner, was one of her B teammates not selected.

“Some B members were happy for me,” McClelland said, “but some have been there so long, I felt bad because if it weren’t for them, I don’t know if I could have done it. They really helped me. So it was both good and bad.”

According to Norma, McClelland’s excitement over her selection waned the more she was singled out for mistakes she’d continually make in practice.

“The the day she made it, she was elated,” Norma said. “But she’d hear her name called out all the time in the next month. . . But it got better and better, and by the time senior nationals came, you couldn’t pick her out of the group.”

When Betty Watanabe, a representative of Synchro USA, saw McClelland performing at nationals, Watanabe was startled by McClelland’s improvement.

“Laurie’s just one of those athletes who has just skyrocketed,” Watanabe said. “She’s swimming with the big girls now. It’s a lot of emotional and physical stress, but she seems to be holding up to it.”

The big girls include Kristen Babb-Sprague, the three-time solo champion who defended her title at nationals in New York, and twins Karen and Sarah Josephson, the six-time national duet champions, 1988 Olympic silver medalists and current world champions.

Her blendability factor ranked high. But the medical profession can only cringe at what McClelland, 5-foot-5, put her body through to get to swim with the girls who are “big” in a figurative sense only.

“She had dropped 20 pounds, and she has to continue in that vein,” Emery said.

Weight is an issue that, pardon the expression, neither McClelland nor her family takes lightly.

“One of the biggest pressure of being in this sport is staying in shape, keeping the physique,” said McClelland, who lost 15 pounds in two weeks before A-team tryouts.

Norma said her oldest daughter has dropped 20 pounds since the third week of June.

“We’re not a real thin, thin family,” Norma said. “Synchro looks for a certain image for its athletes. Laurie likes to eat and that’s a serious factor with a teen-ager. She’s tried all kinds of things to slim down, but it’s important that it doesn’t become a dysfunctional type of thing.”

One of the methods that has worked for McClelland is hypnosis.

“We didn’t want food to become a problem, so we sought out (a hypnotist),” Norma said. “It has reinforced good eating habits and has allowed her to understand focus better.”

Hypnotism, besides being a dietary aid, plays a small part in McClelland’s pre-competition routine.

“It’s a positive reinforcement,” she said. “A lot of problems you have outside the pool go right in with you if you don’t take care of them. You may not think they do, but they do. I don’t think a lot of athletes realize that.”