Swimmers Surface in a Strange Land : Olympic Hopefuls From Abroad Adjusting to Life in South County

At age 16, with an English vocabulary not too much larger than “Big Mac,” Peter Florcyzk chased his Olympic dream into the land of Mickey Mouse and perpetual sunshine.

Nothing in his Krakow, Poland, neighborhood had helped Florcyzk prepare for living in Southern California--the loneliness of separation from family or the rough adjustment to a new school where Polish is not the second language. Or the third.

But when he saw the sparkling, Olympic-caliber pool at the Mission Viejo Nadadores’ swimming complex, Florcyzk knew he was home.

“When I am swimming, it doesn’t matter what language I speak or where I am from,” Florcyzk said. “This is a beautiful place, and this pool is where I belong.”

Florcyzk, now 17, and 10 other teen-age swimmers who train with the Nadadores have been sent to Orange County by their countries to find Olympic gold.

These are elite swimmers who are highly ranked in places such as Poland, Sri Lanka, Taiwan and Mexico.

But they are also teen-agers far from home, growing to adulthood in a foreign country while trying to find a balance between the world of competitive swimming and the culture of teens in the ‘90s.

How well are they doing?

“When I left for college last year, these guys could hardly speak a word of English,” said Jonti Bacharach, a Laguna Niguel resident who trained with the Nadadores for five years. “When I came back, they were wearing surfing T-shirts and talking like locals.”

The Nadadores have attracted teen-age foreign swimmers since the late 1970s, when team members such as Brian Goodell and Tiffany Cohen brought Olympic gold and glory back to Mission Viejo.

One of the first prominent Nadadores was Jesse Vassallo, a Puerto Rican who held several American records. More recently, the program has produced Rafal Szukala, a silver medalist in the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, and Beata Kaszuba, who was named NCAA women’s swimmer of the year for Arizona State last month. Both are from Poland.

“The success of our program sold itself so well,” said Nadadores Coach Bill Rose. The foreign swimmers “are special people who are handpicked by their countries because of their training and discipline.”

In the pool, foreign swimmers train voraciously, impressing their American teammates who themselves swim six days a week, starting at 4:30 a.m.

“Competitively, they’re very tough,” Bacharach said. “If anything, it makes you admire them.”

While the pool is a familiar place, out of water, Orange County is still a foreign land, particularly in the first few months.

“We come from very different places,” Florcyzk said. “We [teens] don’t have cars in Krakow, and we can’t go wherever we want.

Even foreign swimmers with decent English skills have problems adjusting to a new school. Those with little or no English flounder.

Some teachers make few concessions to their lack of language skills, say the swimmers. Homework is tough, particularly after spending seven hours in the pool sandwiched around a full day of school.

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“Sometimes you don’t even want to do your homework,” said Agustin Guzman, a wiry 16-year-old from Chiapas, Mexico, who is ranked second in his country in the 100- and 200-meter butterfly. “You don’t really have any time to hang around like the other kids in school.”

The swimmers are placed with surrogate families in south Orange County, which helps ease the homesickness. But the first months are still the worst.

“I’ll tell you something, there was a time when I did not like it here very much,” Florcyzk said. “I missed my family, and so many things were different.

“I like it here a lot now,” said Florcyzk, whose grade-point average jumped from 2.3 his first semester to 3.1 his second. “It just took some time.”

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Their social world centers around the team. Rose assigns an American teammate to each new foreign swimmer, and the language barrier slowly melts.

“We spend a lot of time at the pool with the team,” said Bart Kizierowski, a lanky 18-year-old from Warsaw who is world-ranked in the 100-meter freestyle. “Training for the Olympics is the most important thing in our lives, so sometimes we have to say no to going out with friends,” he said.

But at least Orange County has come to feel more like home.

“When I came here, they thought I come from a Third World country. They ask me if we have McDonald’s and Pizza Hut,” Florcyzk said. “Now I feel that I am part of the team, and we know each other better.”