SWIMMING AND DIVING / THERESA MUNOZ : Lucero Has Gone Headfirst Into Her Quest

When she was 6, Wendy Schayes Lucero pictured herself competing in the Olympic Games. As she grew up in Denver, cleaning rental properties and baby-sitting to help pay for gymnastic, figure-skating and diving lessons, she held fast to her dream.

Lucero’s father, Don, an electrician, could not afford coaching fees, so her mother, Shirley, became her diving coach.

Shirley Lucero never dived, but she had an unusual, almost mystic feel for the sport.

“It was very avant-garde,” Wendy said. “Mom helped me to be a self-thinker. Mom didn’t have to push me, she helped fine-tune me and calm me down.”

A diving scholarship to Southern Illinois enabled Wendy to continue to develop, and with the help of her mother she prepared for the 1988 Olympic trials.

A prominent national team coach, whom Wendy graciously declined to identify, told her that she would never make it.

It was a familiar refrain: a blue-collar diver can’t succeed in a country club sport, particularly with a novice coach.

“I always felt I had to prove myself to people who didn’t believe in me,” Lucero said. “That’s what motivates me. I am a fighter.”

Eight months before the ’88 trials, Shirley’s condition was diagnosed as breast cancer. Her last chemotherapy ended shortly before the trials, enabling her to be there for her daughter.

“It was exciting being at trials,” Wendy said. “But it was even more exciting that Mom was there. I wanted her to enjoy herself. It helped me to make it not too important.”

In an upset, Wendy, who had never made a national team, earned a berth on the Olympic team on the three-meter springboard by .81 points.

Shirley Lucero, whose health had improved, took her first trip out of the country, to Seoul, South Korea, where Wendy, then 25, finished sixth.

Although Lucero thought it was time to launch a broadcasting career, Michigan Coach Dick Kimball had other ideas.

“He told me I had the potential to do better,” Lucero said. “That’s why I wanted to go on.”

But her financial situation nearly stopped her.

A lengthy campaign to secure a corporate sponsor failed, and she considered retiring.

“I figured my time was up,” Lucero said. “I knew to make it back to the Olympics, to do better than I did in ‘88, I couldn’t work full time standing on my feet eight hours a day.”

Hours before alerting diving officials of her plan to retire, a businessman read an article describing her plight. He agreed to sponsor her through the ’92 Olympic Games, freeing her from her job and enabling her to devote all of her time to training.

“I’m one of those rare people that has that luck,” Lucero said.

Her meeting with Milwaukee Buck forward Danny Schayes, her husband of nine months, was equally fateful.

Lucero passed up a television commentating assignment to keep a commitment to appear in Denver at a function encouraging residents to donate their organs.

At the function, Lucero was paired with Schayes, who played for the Denver Nuggets at the time.

“I thought he was handsome,” she recalled. “I assumed he was married.”

Lucero was especially impressed by the kindness Schayes showed to a homeless person.

Then, she wondered about his ego when he asked her if she wanted his autograph.

“Why would I want your autograph?” she asked, unaware of his status.

Schayes, who said he was testing her sense of humor, gave the autograph to her any way with a P.S. that read: “I will share my organs with you any time.”

Lucero didn’t take offense, laughing when she read the P.S. She later accepted a date with Schayes, who did not know Lucero was an Olympic diver.

When the 6-foot-11 Schayes got up to leave, Lucero, who stands 5-4, was amazed by his height.

By Valentine’s Day of 1991, Schayes proposed. Shortly thereafter, Lucero informed her sponsor that she no longer needed his help.

Last fall, Lucero and Schayes married in the Colorado Rockies and settled outside Milwaukee, where Lucero trains with Gary Cox.

She is also preparing for the trials June 17-21 in Indianapolis, with Kimball.

Lucero’s ticket to Barcelona depends primarily on four dives, a confidence-building forward 2 1/2 somersault in the pike position, a back 2 1/2 somersault in the tuck position, a reverse 2 1/2 somersault in the tuck position and a reverse 1 1/2 somersault with 2 1/2 twists. The latter has a 2.9 degree of difficulty, her highest.

Swimming/Diving Notes

Krista Klein of Laguna Hills is also competing in the three-meter spring board. The Southland will also be represented at the diving trials by platform divers Joy Burkholder and Brian Earley of the Mission Viejo Nadadores. . . . Stanford’s Richard Quick, coach of the defending NCAA women’s champions, appears to be headed back to the University of Texas, where he led the Longhorns to five consecutive NCAA titles from 1984-88. Quick was in Austin on Thursday visiting his newborn grandson and meeting with Jody Conradt, Texas women’s interim athletic director. Conradt said that Quick is her top choice to fill the position left vacant when Mark Schubert took the USC men’s coaching job. Quick was the head coach of the 1988 U.S. Olympic team and became an assistant on the ’92 Olympic coaching staff after placing four swimmers on the team, including world record-holder Jenny Thompson and world champion Summer Sanders.

Chris Martin, who became the first African American on the U.S. Olympic swimming team coaching staff last March, is Florida’s new men’s coach. Martin replaced Skip Foster, who asked to return to his assistant coaching position. . . . Olympic freestyle swimmer Joey Hudepohl, 18, of Cincinnati is recovering from mononucleosis. He is expected to compete in a meet at Mission Viejo July 2-5.