Corona Del Mar Swimmers Secure Without Club

His reasoning applies in every back yard but his own.

When Mike Starkweather, the Corona del Mar boys’ swim coach, said pulling high school swimmers out of club teams would change the entire chemistry of high school swimming, he forgot to exclude present company.

Because Corona del Mar has no club-affiliated swimmers, the Sea Kings would be affected only by how much they would gain from such a proposal.

“We have no club swimmers, not one,” Starkweather said with a shrug. “Maybe once or twice since I’ve been here, we’ve had one that swam for Novas, but overall, it’s all us. That’s unique for Orange County. They all swim for me.”

It’s almost unheard of for a top program not to have at least one or two star club names to add some high octane kick to a high school team’s roster. Nationally ranked Woodbridge and Mission Viejo draw heavily from the Irvine-based Novaquatics and Mission Viejo Nadadores.

One example of Corona del Mar’s almost comic inexperience in highly competitive swimming surfaced at last year’s Southern Section Division I meet. Senior Crosby Grant, known more for his water polo prowess, qualified in the 200-yard freestyle and 100-yard backstroke and was the last swimmer to qualify for the consolation finals in the 200 free.

“I was the 16th guy,” Grant recalled with amusement. “I was way out there in the outside lane.”

Understand now, the intense competitive atmosphere of the section meet is as routine for club swimmers as flip turns, but Grant didn’t have a clue.

“I got it all wrong in the prelims,” he said. “Because I have no experience, I tried to pace myself. So for the finals, I decided to swim as fast as I could.”

Grant, who will play water polo for Stanford in the fall, went out quickly. When he turned to breath out of the first 100, he didn’t see anyone else and figured he was out of contention.

“I thought, “oh no, where is everyone?’ ” he said.

Behind him, as it turned out. He was 15 yards ahead of the runner-up. His consolation victory in one minute 41.39 seconds would have given him a third-place finish in the championship final.

“My coaches were yelling and screaming, they couldn’t believe it,” Grant laughed. “The announcer kept calling me the outside smoker.”

That Corona del Mar hasn’t one clubbie on its boys’ team isn’t stop-the-presses stuff until the Sea Kings’ accomplishments are considered.

The Sea Kings have won nine Sea View League titles in 10 years--their dual-meet record since 1984 is 112-5 and they are 2-0-1 this season under Starkweather. It staggers the mind that they’ve have done it with seasonal swimmers, and they’re proud of what they’ve accomplished.

“It is a source of pride,” Starkweather said.

Or a source of “ironic humor,” as Grant explained it.

Senior Greg Sawyer said: “It’s kind of neat to do that well against schools with club swimmers.”

Not only has Corona del Mar managed to win, they’ve been successful despite losing some of their most talented athletes to the upper-classman plague known as senioritis, a malady that seems to hit water polo players harder than most other swimmers.

For the first time in Starkweather’s tenure, all of the school’s water polo players, a group from which the swim team has drawn heavily and relied on for depth, have stayed to swim during their senior year.

“Usually, we lose about 30% to 40%,” Starkweather said. “After you’ve built them up and trained them, it’s really a letdown.”

This year’s water polo playing seniors--Grant, Sawyer, Will Schulz, Steve Hamilton and Jason Yamamoto--had a change of heart.

Sawyer, who has played water polo and swam all four years and will attend UC Santa Barbara on a water polo scholarship, spoke for many when he said they owed it to Starkweather to swim this season.

“Mainly, it’s for our coach,” Sawyer said. “He’s done so much for us in four years, we felt we owed it to him to go out. I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for him. We made the decision last June to stick with Stark.”

Said Yamamoto: “We’re dedicated to our coach. We can’t let him down. But it’s also a way to keep other kids coming out for the sport.”

Loyalty to their coach isn’t the only reason they’re churning out the yardage and comparing their splits. Water polo players frequently approach swimming as a great way to stay in shape. Not this bunch.

“This is the first class to take swimming seriously,” Sawyer said.

Their 1993 league title and fifth-place section finish is a testament to that. After losing their dual meet to Woodbridge by 60 points, Corona del Mar rebounded to win the Sea View League championship by 100 points.

“That’s the kind of thing that makes it fun for kids,” Starkweather said. They stayed because they’ve set team and individual goals for themselves.”

But would everyone have all these warm and fuzzy feelings if the team were wallowing in the league cellar? In fact, would they even be here?

“Probably not,” Schulz said. “Actually, I know we wouldn’t be. What would be the purpose?”

Luckily, no one at Corona del Mar has had to answer that.