SWIMMING / THERESA SMITH MUNOZ : Alumni Coming to Bruins’ Aid

The race is on to save the UCLA men’s swimming program. Olympian Robin Leamy and NCAA champion Tim McDonnell are among the alumni spearheading efforts to endow the program in the wake of the athletic department’s announcement Aug. 4 that swimming will be dropped after the 1993-94 season.

The program costs $300,000 per year, including scholarships, coaching salaries, equipment, travel and recruiting.

If an estimated $3 million is raised, the program could survive on the interest.

“It takes a while to get over the shock and then we’ll see what we can do to get organized,” said Leamy, who helped revive the water polo program three years ago with a similar campaign.

“This is not the end of it. There’s a lot of successful swimming alumni out there. It’s an uphill battle, but I’m sure we’ll be able to pull this thing together.”

Another option under consideration is the filing of a reverse discrimination suit, a tactic used recently by an Arkansas diver that resulted in the reinstatement of the Razorbacks’ men’s program.

Unlike the programs at Arkansas and Illinois, which were dropped, then saved by litigation, UCLA’s program is among the best in the country with an NCAA-leading 28 consecutive top-10 finishes and the 1982 national championship.

“This sends a bad message to the whole country,” said Ron Ballatore, the Bruins’ longtime coach. “This is the first time a school that has had success has dropped it.”

Ballatore said he will not work for peanuts nor run a program that cannot contend nationally.

“We can’t compete against Stanford, Texas, California and Florida with only three or four scholarships,” he said.

Leamy shares his concern.

“I don’t think we want to save the program so it can be a secondary program,” he said.

As it is, the Bruins finished fifth in the NCAA meet last season and a surprising third in 1992 with eight scholarships, two fewer than the NCAA maximum. Moreover, UCLA is the only top-10 program without a full-time assistant.

Ballatore, 53, makes do with a graduate assistant and does much of the pool maintenance himself. He has not had a cost-of-living raise in four years.

Of recent cuts in the travel and recruiting budgets, he said: “I can put up with a lot of things and I have been.”

James Krueger, former swimmer and water polo player who practices law in Hawaii, spoke for several alumni when he voiced fears that swimming was cut for the wrong reasons.

“Maybe we’re too cynical, but they could have dropped swimming because they knew that the private sector would salvage it, like they did water polo,” he said. “I just think that’s terrible.”

In the meantime, Wyatt Russo, an NCAA consolation finalist as a freshman last season, has transferred to Texas. The rest of the team is expected to remain, including the following recruits: freestyler-individual medleyist Sven Hackman of Germany, sprinter Nick Schackell of Great Britain, distance freestyler Sergi Roure of Spain, sprinter Todd Kannegiesser of Sacramento, Texas transfer Graham Ginn, diver Matt Dahl of Bell Canyon High, and Golden West College sprinter Todd McClung.

They are hoping the alumni will save the program and allow them to complete their eligibility in a program that has produced six NCAA post-graduate scholarship recipients and graduated 98% of its participants.

Swimming Notes

Kristine Quance rebounded from a sub-par performance at the U.S. national meet and won the 400 individual medley at the Pan Pacific Championships in Kobe, Japan, this month.

Quance, 18, of Northridge, struggled to a time of 4 minutes 45.21 seconds at nationals and was upset by rising star Allison Wagner, who clocked 4:41.93. In Japan, the USC-bound Quance swam a 4:39.25, the fastest time in the world this year and .30 faster than the winning time in the European Championships posted by Hungary’s Kristina Egerszegi, the 1992 Olympic gold medalist. Quance also improved her 200 breaststroke time, from 2:29.51 to a bronze-medal winning 2:28.75, at the Pan Pacific meet.

Most Americans swam slower at the Pan Pacific meet than they did at nationals with the exception of Quance, Alexis Larsen, Chad Carvin, Jenny Thompson, Josh Davis, B.J. Bedford, Anita Nall and Wagner.

In her first international meet, Larsen, 16, of Pacific Palisades showed the greatest improvement on the U.S. team, knocking 9.45 seconds off her 1,500 freestyle time.

Her time of 16:19.03 is the ninth-fastest time in U.S. history. Other than world record-holder Janet Evans of Placentia, no American has gone faster since 1989.

Carvin, 19, of Laguna Hills, shaved two seconds off his 800 freestyle time in winning a bronze medal. As did Larsen, he trailed two Australians.

Thompson, the world record-holder in the 100 freestyle, won three individual gold medals and three relay gold medals. The junior from Stanford went slightly faster in all three individual races. In the 50 freestyle, she improved to 25.60 from 25.65; in the 100 freestyle, she dropped from 55.34 to 55.25, and in the 100 butterfly, she posted a 59.33 after going 59.45 at nationals.

Davis, a Texas senior, won the 200 freestyle in 1:48.50, .84 faster than his second-place finish at nationals.

Bedford, who is also a senior at Texas, upset Stanford’s Lea Loveless in winning the 200 backstroke in 2:10.97, 1.19 seconds faster than her runner-up finish at nationals.

Nall, the 200 breaststroke world record-holder from Towson, Md., did not improve her time by winning that race in 2:28.40, but her victory in the 100 breaststroke in 1:09.11, was .54 faster than her winning effort at nationals.

Like Larsen, Wagner, 16, of Gainesville, Fla., was competing in her first international meet. And as did Larsen, she showed a veteran’s savvy, winning the 200 individual medley in 2:12.54, 1.8 seconds faster than the lifetime best she had posted at nationals. In the 400 individual medley, Wagner’s 4:41.22 was 0.71 seconds faster than her lifetime best at nationals.

COMING EVENTS: Friday, 3:15 p.m.: Four Nation Alamo Challenge diving meet, Rose Bowl Aquatics Center, women’s one-meter springboard, followed by men’s three-meter, followed by women’s platform; Saturday, noon: men’s one-meter springboard, followed by women’s three-meter springboard, followed by men’s platform. TNT will provide live coverage Saturday at 2 p.m. PDT. Saturday: U.S. Swimming open-water 10 kilometer national championships, Sacramento. Sept. 19-26: U.S. Aquatics Sports Convention, Los Angeles.