UC IRVINE NOTEBOOK / JOHN WEYLER : Fewer Yards Equal Faster Times in Pool for Sprinter Garcia

Distance swimmers like to wear a T-shirt that says: “When the going gets tough, the sprinters get out of the water.”

The suggestion doesn’t bother Gabby Garcia, even though she is a 50-meter specialist, the quintessential one-breath sprinter.

Oh, she will smile and politely protest that her training “is more intense, if not as long” as a distance regimen. Everyone else will swim for miles and miles, but Garcia believes less can be better. And she proved it this winter with a victory in the 50-meter freestyle during the Mexican national championships.

Garcia, 22, began swimming 17 years ago on a Mexican island so small it didn’t have a high school. She continued to churn out laps at high schools in France and Mexico City. While training with a German club team in Mexico City four years ago, Garcia discovered that most swim coach’s more-means-faster credo didn’t always hold water. The more she trained, the slower she swam.

“If I get bored, I just go through the motions,” she said. “I don’t want to be there and if I’m not motivated, I don’t get anything accomplished.”

Garcia quit, decided to coach herself and began working out alone. A friend showed her a book called “Sprint Salo,” written by Irvine Novaquatics Coach Dave Salo, a proponent of intense, low-yardage workouts.

She followed the plan and started trimming bits off her personal bests.

“Training all by myself, I started swimming faster than I had ever gone in my life,” she said. “So I called [Salo] and asked him if I could come here and train. He said, ‘Sure.’

“My dad didn’t want me to come, though, so it took me almost two years to get here.”

Garcia was happy with her progress in the pool with the Novas, but found the social situation lacking. Working out with a team of high school kids didn’t offer as much camaraderie as she hoped for, so she enrolled at UC Irvine. Coach Charlie Schober liked this idea a lot. In her first month as an Anteater, Garcia bettered--and then bettered again--the school record in the 50-yard freestyle.

“We don’t do the same work the distance swimmers do because we don’t need to, but that doesn’t mean sprinters aren’t tough,” Garcia said.

She smiled.

“The reason I don’t swim distance is because I can’t. I die. The 50 is OK, but even the 100 is hard, real hard.”

Actually, her 50 is fine, but reaching her longtime goal of representing her country in the Olympics is still in question. She has won the national championships, but at Mexico’s Olympic trials, winning isn’t always enough.

“The time of the 12th-place finisher at the last Olympics is the cutoff time and if you go that fast and win in the trials, you go to the Olympics,” she said. “But if nobody goes that time, then they can choose whoever they want to go.”

That time is 26.43, three-tenths of a second faster than Garcia’s personal best. The difference is “not just a little bit of time,” according to Garcia.

“I’m going to try and really concentrate on all of the college races this season, swim really fast and then go back to Mexico in March for the Olympic trials and just continue what I’ve been doing here.”

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Reversal of fortune? Last season, the men’s basketball team began the Big West season 0-6. This year, the Anteaters are 2-0 and some close to the program are quietly calling this week, “The Chance.”

The chance to be 4-0. The chance to put, gee, maybe even 3,000 people in the Bren Center.

Wednesday, the Anteaters face UC Santa Barbara and Saturday they play Cal State Fullerton, teams with a combined 6-15 record. But a Rod Baker team has never won in the Gauchos’ Thunderdome and Irvine fans know anything can happen in tiny Titan Gym.

So, for now, there are only whispers about “The Chance.”

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Go for the Grammy: The four-level parking structure next to the Bren Center was full Saturday night. Once inside the Bren, however, it was obvious where the party was: next door at Crawford Hall to see the Alanis Morissette concert.

“Didn’t she just get a bunch of Grammy nominations?” Baker asked. “And she played Crawford Hall? I wonder what her agent is doing today.”

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No complaints, but . . . Paul Foster, a 6-foot-8 transfer from Moorpark College who led the state in field-goal percentage last season, is taking the same kind of shots in Division I.

Foster, who was four for four from the field against Eastern Washington, six for eight against USC and seven for seven against San Jose State, is shooting 63% for the season.

He is also “the weirdest kid I have ever known,” Baker says.

“He doesn’t watch any TV, except a little Discovery channel and PBS,” Baker said. “He basically doesn’t even like it on in the room. And he never watches any other college games. I mean it is weird.”

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Travelin’ man: Sophomore Kevin Simmons traveled extensively with his New York City youth AAU team. He had been to Paris three times before he was old enough to drive and by the time he arrived at Brooklyn Tilden High, he was a veteran road warrior.

“When we played our first road game, he brought his bathrobe and slippers,” Tilden Coach Eric Eisenberg said. “He was like an NBA guy.”

Simmons is looking more and more like an NBA guy every day. Monday, he was named Big West co-player of the week for scoring 40 points and grabbing 26 rebounds during Irvine’s 2-0 start in conference.

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Anteater Notes

The men’s volleyball team plays host to Loyola Marymount, Pepperdine and San Diego State in the First Serve Tournament Saturday and Sunday in Crawford Hall. Irvine plays Loyola at 9 a.m. and then San Diego State at 7 p.m. Saturday. Irvine meets Pepperdine at 5 p.m. Sunday. . . . The women’s swim team, with a five-meet winning streak, travels to Malibu today to compete against host Pepperdine and San Jose State.