UC IRVINE NOTEBOOK : Parenting Is No. 1 Priority, but She’s Back in the Swim

Devon Coate Sandlin’s year away from competitive swimming cost her bunches of seconds on her best times, but she doesn’t fret much about that.

She gained 40 pounds while she was away, then lost 50 by the time she returned. First and foremost, she gained a new focus--her son Bobby, whose birth was the reason for her redshirt season.

Bobby, now 1 1/2, was born in May, 1990, Sandlin’s sophomore year at UC Irvine. She returned to the swim team last season. It proved to be a difficult year.

“It was really hard getting into it,” she said. “It was hard to work out when I wanted to be with him.”

Now that Bobby is older, Sandlin has turned part of her attention back to swimming.

“I wasn’t going to swim this year,” said Sandlin, 21, who lives with Bobby and her husband, Bob Sandlin, in UC Irvine’s married-student housing. “But last season I wasn’t satisfied with what I did. It’s hard to give up something that’s been part of your life for so long.”

She may never be better than she was during her freshman season--the days when the sport was her most serious endeavor are gone--but she is swimming with a purpose.

“I don’t have to improve my old times, I just want to get back to where I was,” said Sandlin, who expects to pass up her final year of eligibility next season. “I want to end with a good note. I want to spend time with my little son.”

Sandlin and her husband, a student at Cal State Long Beach, get by with help from their mothers, who pitch in and share in the caring of Bobby.

Still, there are times when parenthood and school and swimming combine to become too big a task. Swimming loses.

“Last year was tough,” recalled UCI Coach Charlie Schober, who has known Sandlin since she was about 10. “Emotionally, it was very difficult. There were a lot of new things. A lot of new stresses. When things came up, it was more important to get her life in line than to try to get her to swim fast.”

It is easier now that Bobby is a toddler. Sandlin recalls one time when she was stuck for a baby-sitter. She packed up the portable crib and took Bobby to the pool.

“I put it right over there,” she said, pointing off to the side of the pool. “He would stand up and look for me in the pool, and after he saw me he’d sit down and play with his toys. Everybody said he was so good.”

Still, there’s no question Bobby comes first.

“This is basically just to make me happy. I’m doing this for myself,” Sandlin said. “But he’s the most important thing. If this was hurting him, I wouldn’t do it.”

Even though her career was interrupted, Sandlin still ranks high on a number of Irvine lists. Her times rank in the top 20 of all but one of the 14 lists for individual events, and is among the top five in Irvine history in nine events.

Her best event is probably the 400-meter individual medley, but her top time this season has been 18 seconds slower than her career best.

“It seems like I’m off a lot, but just in the last two weeks I’ve felt like I’m getting into shape,” she said.

In the shorter events, predictably, the gap is closer.

“I’m still a little off, but each meet, they’re getting better and better,” she said.

Still, her priorities will never be what they once were.

“My freshman year, I was going to school and swimming, and I thought it was so difficult,” Sandlin said. “I look back and think it was a piece of cake.”

Rayna Cervantes, Irvine’s only runner in the NCAA cross-country championships, finished 137th Monday after being ill the week before the race.

Cervantes, a junior, was taking antibiotics after becoming ill with cold and flu-like symptoms. She was unable to work out for most of the days leading up the meet, and ran the course in Tucson in 18 minutes 52 seconds, finishing more than two minutes behind the winner, Villanova’s Sonia O’Sullivan.

Irvine’s team, which was fourth last year, did not make the field this season.

UC Irvine’s Steve Gill and Pablo Yrizar have been named to the first team in the Big West’s all-conference water polo selections.

Gill, with 63 goals, is Irvine’s leading scorer going into the NCAA championship tournament this weekend at Belmont Plaza in Long Beach. Yrizar is second on the team with 55 goals.

Irvine’s Skylar Putman was named to the second team.

After signing four players during the early signing period, the pressure to recruit is off Rod Baker’s basketball staff.

“I’ve never been in a situation where we’ve signed all the guys we were going to sign early,” Baker said. “We could actually just go look at juniors, which is an advantage. That’s what Duke, North Carolina and those guys do all the time.”

By signing players early, Irvine took advantage of the interest in its new coach--and ensured that any disappointments on the court this season won’t carry over into recruiting.

Baker probably will have one additional scholarship. He might sign another player in the spring or wait to see what transferring players become available.

As of Tuesday, the only radio outlet for the Anteaters’s first game under Baker will be KUCI (88.9), the student station.

Irvine has been unable to negotiate a deal with a radio station to broadcast its games, but assistant athletic director Bob Olson said he is still trying to find a radio home for the Anteaters.