SWIMMING / THERESA MUNOZ : NCAA Men Have an International Flair

Foreign swimmers are expected to have a major impact on the NCAA men’s championships, beginning Thursday in Indianapolis. That brings to the surface a debate about the place of foreigners in American swimming.

The way some Americans see it, every scholarship that goes to a foreigner deprives an American swimmer. Moreover, many of the foreigners who train in the United States beat Americans in the Olympic Games.

Others, particularly college coaches, welcome foreigners. Because their coaching is evaluated, in part, on conference and NCAA finishes, they believe they should be allowed to recruit the fastest swimmers, regardless of place of birth. The way they see it, the more competitive the training environment, the more foreigners and Americans benefit. Another advantage is the cultural diversity that a foreign athlete brings to a team.

California, Iowa, USC, Arizona State, Florida, Arizona, Tennessee, Michigan and Georgia are among the heaviest recruiters of foreign swimmers.

USC Coach Peter Daland, who retired last spring, recruited Olympians John Steel of New Zealand, Desmond Koh of Singapore, Arthur Li of Hong Kong, Mike Mason of Canada, Jeffrey Ong of Malaysia and three other foreign swimmers.

His successor, Mark Schubert, has not signed any foreign athletes.

More than a dozen UCLA swimmers have competed for foreign Olympic teams, but the current Bruin roster has only one foreigner, Greg Behar of Switzerland.

Stanford, the defending NCAA champion, and Texas, which won NCAA titles from 1988-91, rarely recruit foreigners. Rival coaches say they don’t have to because of their tradition and facilities.

Foreign swimmers are often recruited for their distance swimming prowess. At the 1991 NCAA championships, for example, six of the eight 500-yard freestyle finalists were foreigners, including top finishers--Artur Wojdat and Mariusz Podkoscielny of Poland, who represented Iowa and Arizona, respectively.

As their impact increases--eight of the 13 individual events at the 1992 NCAA’s were won by foreign swimmers--other events are affected.

In the 100 butterfly at the Southeastern Conference championships last month, foreigners finished 1-2-4-5-7-9-11-13.

They travel from a wide range of countries to swim for a variety of American colleges, as a closer look at the SEC 100 butterfly results reveals: 1. J.R. deSouza, Brazil/Tennessee; 2. Steve Clarke, Canada/Florida; 4. Rick Leishmann, Great Britain/South Carolina; 5. Hakan Carlson, Sweden/Georgia; 7. Giovannni Linscheer, Suriname/Florida; 9. Mats Rasmusson, Sweden/Georgia; 11. Jose Ballester, Spain/Florida; 13. Alan Rapley, Great Britain/Arkansas.

Some athletes, such as USC’s Mason, have dual citizenship. Mason was born in the United States and raised here and in Canada. Most recently he has lived in San Marino.

Similarly, Cal butterfly swimmer Ugur Taner, a member of the Turkish Olympic team, grew up in Washington.

Among the foreigners expected to contend for individual NCAA titles: Brazilian 1992 Olympic silver medalist Gustavo Borges of Michigan, the defending NCAA champion in the 100 and 200 freestyles; Polish Olympic silver medalist Rafal Szukala, Iowa’s defending NCAA 200 butterfly champion; Cal distance freestylers Kurt Eldridge of Australia and Martin Herrmann of Germany and breaststroker Alex Marcek of Czechoslovakia and Michigan breaststroke swimmer Marcel Wouda of the Netherlands.

Their American counterparts are: Greg Burgess, Florida; Joe Hudepohl, Erik Maurer and Brian Retterer of Stanford; Eric Namesnik, Eric Wunderlich and Royce Sharp of Michigan; Brian Kurza, Michael Picotte and Greg Schaffer of UCLA; Seth Pepper of Arizona; Trippi Schwenk of Tennessee; Josh Davis, Doug Dickinson, Jason Fink and Brad Bridgewater of Texas and Mike Merrell of USC.

Few 1992 U.S. Olympians have retired, partly because even those with such intentions do not want to halt the flow of commercial endorsements that has come their way since last summer.

Although an Olympian could lay low for a year or two, or even go into retirement for three years and emerge in 1995, as did ’92 Olympic gold medalist Pablo Morales, the majority of those who are serious about training until 1996 will compete March 31-April 4 at the U.S. Swimming spring championships at the Tracy Caulkins Pool in Nashville, Tenn.

It will be interesting to gauge the performances of the Barcelona Olympians against collegians fresh from the NCAA championships and the nationally ranked high school-aged swimmers.

The biggest adjustment for collegians and high school swimmers to make will be the distance, from the 25-yard pools they have been competing in all winter to the 50-meter facility in Nashville.

It is the first time U.S. Swimming is conducting its post-Olympic spring nationals in a 50-meter pool, the preferred facility for international meets.

At the most recent U.S. nationals, last August in Mission Viejo, only a handful of Olympians competed, primarily Mike Barrowman and Angie Wester-Krieg. As a result, several young swimmers won national championships for the first time.

The Swimmer of the Meet, Northridge teen-ager Kristine Quance, won four events. With a more competitive field, including 1992 Olympic gold medalist Summer Sanders, it will be interesting to see if Quance can be as dominant.

Sanders, an Olympic bronze medalist in the 400 individual medley, will not swim that event, so the 200 individual medley will be their only head-to-head matchup.

In Quance’s other events, the 100 and 200 breaststroke races, she will face Olympic silver and bronze medalist Anita Nall, world record-holder in the 200 breaststroke.

Morales is also entered in the field, as is 100 backstroke world record-holder and relay gold medalist Jeff Rouse; and Janet Evans, the four-time Olympic gold medalist from Placentia who has been training at USC and serving as an assistant coach.

Collegiate Olympians Burgess, Hudepohl, Namesnik, Nicole Haislett and Janie Wagstaff are expected to compete. So are relay gold medalists Jenny Thompson and Lea Loveless, who helped Stanford win the NCAA women’s title Saturday.

Among the Barcelona Olympians who are not competing: Barrowman, Melvin Stewart, Matt Biondi, Tom Jager, Nelson Diebel and Crissy Ahmann-Leighton. Diebel is injured and Ahmann-Leighton is pregnant.

More than 900 swimmers from the western half of the United States will compete in the Speedo Junior Nationals West from Tuesday through Saturday at Belmont Plaza Pool in Long Beach.