Water Helps Stumbling Collins Find Her Butterfly Wings : Swimming: San Dieguito High junior draws praise for her agility in the pool. Outside the pool, that’s a different story.

A fish out of water?

“A lot of swimmers are that way,” says Jeff Pease, North Coast Aquatics coach. “They’re great in the water, it’s so natural for them, but take them out of it and . . .”

A klutz is born.

None of Pease’s top swimmers are more prone to clumsiness than Michelle Collins, one of the fastest U.S. butterfliers not on the Olympic team.

“She’s a klutz,” Pease said, packing up equipment at the Carlsbad YMCA prior to departing for the U.S. National Championships at Mission Viejo.

Collins’ mother agreed that her daughter’s lack of agility amuses the family.

“Her brother used to get her to play tennis with her, but then he stopped,” said Mariann Collins. “Christopher didn’t want to play with her anymore because she was so uncoordinated.”

The stumbling ceases once the San Dieguito High junior dons cap and goggles.

Collins, 15, has what Pease described as nearly perfect mechanics in the butterfly, considered the most difficult stroke to master.

“Two Olympic coaches told me they haven’t seen a female butterflier with such a natural stroke,” Pease said. “They’ve compared her ‘fly mechanics to Summer Sanders, the best in the world. You don’t fool around when you have that going for you.”

Yet she didn’t even qualify for the U.S. Olympic Trials in either the 100- or 200-meter butterfly events--her strongest--earlier this year. In the 50 free, her third strongest event, she was the youngest trials qualifier.

“I didn’t have a very good season last year,” she said. “And it took me 12 times to qualify for the 50.”

This summer has been different. At the Santa Clara International Invitational, Collins was third in the 200 behind Olympic gold medalist Sanders and her Olympic teammate, Angie Wester-Krieg. In the 100, she was third to Sanders and Crissy Ahmann-Leighton, who also won a gold in Barcelona.

At the Mission Viejo Meet of Champions, Collins won the 200 butterfly and was third in the 100 butterfly to Ahmann-Leighton and Ashley Tappin, another U.S. Olympian.

This week, in the season’s last major meet, she is swimming at the U.S. Nationals at Mission Viejo. She did not make the finals Tuesday of the 200 butterfly, but later this week she will swim the 50 freestyle and two relays. She failed to place in the top eight in the 100 butterfly at Mission Viejo Thursday.

“I’ve done pretty well this summer,” Collins said. “Hopefully I’ll get better.”

Pease sees no reason she can’t. When she swam a 2-minute, 17-second 200 butterfly in the Meet of Champions, he was cautiously optimistic until she clocked a 2:18 in a meet the following week.

“What was encouraging to me was that she had two comparable fast times within the week,” he said.

If this week goes according to plan, Collins could break into the top 50 world rankings and do well enough to be courted by the national team.

“In terms of the upper echelon, she’s almost there,” Pease said. “For her age, she’s the fastest flier in the United States. And she’s within striking distance of the best.”

Lumping her among the best brings to mind the awards ceremony in Santa Clara, where Collins shared the stand with Sanders and Ahmann-Leighton.

“It was so weird to be up there with them,” she said. “They even knew my name. It’s funny, they’re like idols in the swimming community, but they’re not (my idols).”

Sanders received a glut of attention in Barcelona, but it started long before she arrived in Spain. Collins remembered a production crew that spent 90 minutes prepping Sanders for a promotional shot at the Santa Clara meet.

“She was standing on the diving board and the whole pool was just hanging around, watching her,” she said.

The enormous publicity Sanders has generated has helped the sport, but Collins isn’t the type who could live under that kind of microscope.

“Someone’s watching her all the time,” Collins said. “She has to think about her race and, when a camera comes up on her, she still has to smile. Summer has tried to sell herself not only as an athlete, but as a persona.”

The persona Collins admired most at Barcelona was Pablo Morales, the U.S. gold medalist in the 100 butterfly. Morales won silver in Los Angeles in 1984, but failed to qualify for the 1988 Olympic team.

“He swam because he wanted to,” Collins said. “It had nothing to do with getting into college or impressing his parents or his coaches. He did it for himself. You have to do it for yourself.”

Her parents insist on it.

Early in her career, Collins felt her mom was pushing too hard for progress. Both sides now agree that it was a lack of understanding.

“My mom used to get upset if I didn’t swim my best times,” Collins said, “but she didn’t understand that that’s not always going happen, especially if there’s one meet I’m preparing for.”

Mariann, who determined years ago not to be a swim mom, always stressed effort over production. It took time for her to figure out improved times weren’t always a direct reflection of the effort put forth.

“We understand each other now,” Mariann said. “After the trials, I made her promise that I’d support her as long as she made the promise to me that she’d do it for herself.”

All this inward focus ends when Collins’ teammates enter the picture. Collins was thrilled that her relay teams qualified for nationals. Because she’s so committed to her teammates, she’s an animal in the relays.

“She gets so psyched up for the relays, she loves the team aspect,” Pease said. “She’s really a team player. A lot of girls that age who reach this level aren’t like that. For as good as she is, she doesn’t demand a lot of individual attention.”

And she goes out of her way to avoid calling attention to herself. When she was named the San Diego Section swimmer of the year, she never bothered to tell anyone.

“We found out because (the announcement) came in the mail,” her mother said. “Her coach found out from someone else.”

Although her goals are to win a college scholarship and to make the national team and the 1996 Olympic team, she already has derived plenty from a sport in which she invested so much.

“If I don’t do what I want to do, sure I’d be disappointed,” she said. “But you train as hard as you can for years, and there’s always the chance that you won’t swim as well as you’re capable of. I think I can handle it.

“It would still be worth it. Through swimming, I’ve learned to grow, I’ve learned morals, I’ve learned how to be a team player and how to commit to something. If it all ended tomorrow, I wouldn’t be sad that I worked so hard.”

Nothing klutzy about that.