READY FOR THE TIME OF THEIR LIVES : Amanda Beard, 14 : With Rodman as Hero, Breaststroke Star Ponders Dyed-in-the-Pool Outlook

You aren’t going to want to hear this, America, but your newest darling of the swimming pool, this 14-year-old California girl with her deckside teddy bear, rainbow-colored bedroom, wall-to-wall menagerie of pets and 1996 U.S.-best time in the 100-meter breaststroke, has a role model . . . and his name is Dennis Rodman.

“I like his personality,” says Amanda Beard, whose favorite color is orange, which also happens to be on the short list of Rodman’s greatest scalp dyes. “He’s original.

A personal goal for Beard in ‘96: “I really want to go see a Bulls game.”

Often, while killing time between workouts, Beard plays Pretend Rodman. This entails applying intricate tattoos to the limbs of U.S. swim teammates--with felt-tipped pen, of course; washes off easily in the chlorine--and contemplating ways to do her hair just like the Worm’s.

“I’ve always wanted to dye my hair all sorts of different colors,” Beard says, “but Dave [Salo, Beard’s coach] doesn’t like the idea.”

Salo, however, might not have a choice in the matter.

Conspiratorially, Beard confides to an interviewer that she’s planning a sneak attack just before the Olympics.

“I think I’ll bleach it blond,” she says. “Not do something crazy. Then, once it’s blond, it’s easier to Kool-Aid it.”

Kool-Aid?

Nothing but.

“You put Kool-Aid, real Kool-Aid, in your hair,” Beard explains. “Whatever colors you want. Some of my friends do it. It just takes a few minutes. The longer you put it in, the longer it will last. It can last two days or two weeks.”

Two weeks, America.

Are you ready for your first grape- and lime-dyed Olympic swim medalist?

Dan Beard, who has heard the rumors, plans to keep his daughter far away from the powdered-drink aisle, at least through July 23. “I think she likes Dennis because he’s colorful, like a rock star,” Dan Beard says. “But, as a family, we’re not completely sold on body-piercing and body-painting.”

At the moment, Amanda Beard’s hair is a sun-streaked brown and, for many hours a day, wet. During races, it is hidden by the black cap of the Irvine Novaquatics, Beard’s swim club, which makes for easier viewing.

Just follow the bobbing dark swim cap, the one that never sinks too far below the water’s surface, as it rapidly pulls away from the other caps in the pool.

Beard will compete in at least two events in Atlanta--the 100- and 200-meter breaststroke and, possibly, a relay. She won the 100 and the 200 at the U.S. Olympic trials in March with times approaching Anita Nall’s American records. Beard won the 100 in 1:08.36 (Nall’s mark is 1:08.17) and the 200 in 2:26.20 (Nall’s mark is 2:25.35). Beard’s 200 time is the second-fastest in U.S. history.

Impressive numbers at any age, let alone a 14-year-old high school freshman, but consider this: At 13, her personal-best time in the 200 breaststroke was 2:41.57.

Four months before her 13th birthday, she was swimming the 100 breaststroke in 1:21.70.

A 15-second drop in the 200. Thirteen seconds in the 100. The incredible shrinking times of Amanda Beard have left swim coaches staring at their stopwatches and shaking their heads--all the while propelling Beard’s she-came-out-of-nowhere legend.

“I don’t know if we could have envisioned this even a year or a year-and-a-half ago,” Dan Beard says, and how could they? Amanda didn’t begin training in the breaststroke until age 12.

“A year-and-a-half ago, we set her swimming goals and they were to make the Olympic trials in ’96 and possibly put her in position to swim in Sydney in the year 2000.”

Now, she’s not only positioned to swim in the Olympics four years ahead of schedule, but also to bring home a gold medal. Or two.

“Both the 100 and 200 breaststrokes are going to be very exciting,” Salo says. “You’re going to have at least three women going for the world record in both those events. I think Amanda will be one of those people.”

Beard beat one of them, current world-record holder Penny Heyns of South Africa, in a pre-Olympic tuneup in Phoenix in May. Beard won the 100-meter breaststroke in 1:09.25. Heyns was second at 1:10.76.

It was a lifetime achievement for Beard, but when she phoned home that night to report on how her day had gone, she didn’t even mention it.

“I asked her, ‘How’d you do?’ ” Beard’s mother, Gayle, recalls. “She said, ‘I did good, Mom.’ She didn’t mention the time. She didn’t mention that she beat Penny. Just ‘I did good.’ ”

That’s a typical Amanda story. “Amanda’s just kind of in her own little world,” says friend and U.S. teammate Brooke Bennett. “Nothing gets to her.”

Happily oblivious--that’s one way to describe the inhabitant of this water-soaked little world.

Just another 14-year-old girl with a world-record-potential leg kick--that’s another, as other Amanda stories unfailingly remind.

Some fast Amanda facts:

1. Amanda didn’t begin competitive swimming until she was 12. Before that she played soccer, softball and took tap and jazz dance classes.

She hated giving up soccer, which she played for seven years, because “I’ve got strong legs. I’m aggressive and I can kick the ball far.” Phasing out the dance classes was easier. “I quit tap and jazz, and I’m glad. I just got sick of it.”

2. Amanda is a noted animal lover who, according to her mom, “won’t let you squish a bug; you have to pick it up and put it outside,” but she dismisses the much-told fable of how she used to donate a dollar of her weekly $6 allowance to a neighborhood animal shelter.

“I did that, like, once,” she reports.

At peak volume, her personal pet collection reached nine--four birds (Tweety, Goldie, Figero and Get Away), two cats (Angel and Dodger), two rabbits (Frosting and Thumper) and a dog (Jerry, named after the late Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead).

Currently, however, the Beard family zoo stands at eight.

“Thumper died,” Amanda somberly reports.

Potential replacements are now being mulled.

“I’ve wanted a horse, like, all my life,” she says. “But there’s no room at my house. There’s no stables. We’d have to drive miles and miles. With my workout schedule, I’d have to, like, wake up at 4 to go feed it.”

A third dog seems to be the eventual compromise solution.

“I’m working on my dad for a St. Bernard, but he doesn’t like big dogs. Maybe if I win the Olympics he’ll give me one.”

3. Amanda refuses to wear goggles when she races.

“Once during a race, they fell off,” Salo says, “and it became like Pavlov’s dog. She doesn’t want to take that chance again.”

Besides, she is convinced racing without goggles makes her a better swimmer, and at this point, Salo isn’t about to argue.

“It keeps her really focused,” Salo says. “She doesn’t see what the other swimmers see. Inherently, she feels the race.”

4. Amanda has been to Atlanta once before, for the 1995 Pan Pacific championships, and didn’t much like it.

“It’s OK, but I don’t think I’d want to live there,” she says. “It’s too big. And it’s kinda dirty.”

Amanda prefers the Great Northwest.

“When I grow up, I want to move to Washington, probably because I like the trees and the rain and the snow. I could probably get a horse then.”

5. When Amanda grows up, she also would like to be an interior decorator. Her bedroom currently doubles as her classroom, or a work in progress, depending on how one feels about a room with one purple wall, one pink wall, one yellow wall, one green wall and white furniture.

“Me and my mom wanted to do something different,” Amanda recalls, “so we went to Home Depot and looked through all the different colors. I liked all the pastel colors, so we decided to try four of them.”

It’s a contemporary design. Nothing timeless about it.

“I want to redo it,” she says. “I want to paint all my walls orange. Like a really bright orange. That’s my favorite color--orange.

“I want to change it. Not this summer, because I’m kinda busy, but next summer I’m probably going to redo it again.”

6. Amanda will be kinda busy this summer because she’ll be in Atlanta for a month, hanging out with the U.S. swim team.

She says she has made many friends on the team, but feels especially close to Janet Evans.

“She’s like my mom,” Amanda says of Evans, who turns 25 in August. “She takes care of me, tells me what to do.”

7. Amanda works out six days a week, 35 hours all told, but is permitted Sundays off. And those Sundays are sacred.

“One time we had a workout on Sunday and it totally messed me up,” she says. “Because it’s my only day when I get to sleep in as long as I want. I get up, eat a big breakfast and just mess around. Hang out with my friends, go to the movies, go shopping at a mall.”

Amanda’s mall of choice?

“South Coast Plaza.”

What about Fashion Island in nearby Newport?

She shakes her head.

“Too expensive.”

8. Amanda was a guest on “The Tonight Show” in late May, but the date of her appearance had to be juggled in order to place her on a panel with “appropriate” guests.

“She was originally supposed to be on the same show as Sean Connery,” Dan Beard says, “but for whatever reason, that was a day Amanda couldn’t do it. They didn’t want her on the same show as Dennis Miller, because he’s kind of a caustic guy. They didn’t feel his type of humor would mix that well with Amanda.”

Amanda was eventually booked with actor Paul Hogan--kind of a “Flipper” theme night.

Amanda brought her trademark teddy bear, the one she carried with her to the starting blocks at the Olympic trials, which gave Jay Leno a visual to play around with. Leno joked about the bear falling into Russian hands, teased her when she insisted she wasn’t superstitious (“And, yet, you take this bear everywhere you go?” “Yeah.” “But you’re not superstitious?”) and listened as the aspiring interior designer described her bedroom color scheme.

“I might stick to the swimming,” Leno quipped.

9. Amanda enjoyed “The Tonight Show” as a one-shot--”I don’t think it’d be as fun the second time”--but would rather swim an extra round of practice sprints than deal with most media requests.

“I hate it when the TV cameras follow you around at school,” she says.

She has more tolerance for the magazines, such as Harper’s Bazaar and Sports Illustrated, which recently booked photo shoots.

“I like it when I get my pictures taken and they do the makeup,” she says. “They do it really good.”

Just like Dennis Rodman.

10. Unlike fellow 14-year-old Olympian Dominique Moceanu, Amanda has no immediate plans to write her autobiography.

“There’s nothing exciting to write about,” she says. “ ‘I get up in the morning, work out, go to school, work out some more, sleep.’ It would be, like, a page.”

11. Amanda has no plans to appear at the 1996 Republican National Convention either.

The Bob Dole campaign recently came calling, asking Dan Beard if he would permit his daughter to appear with the candidate for a hand-shaking photo op during an Orange County visit in late June. Dan politely declined; Amanda’s in training right now.

Then came the counterproposal: How about Amanda stopping by the convention in September? She’ll be done with the Olympics by then, San Diego is just down the road.

True and true, but Dan Beard is also a registered Democrat. Again he politely declined. “I have a problem,” he says, “with the whole concept of a youngster getting involved in a political setting. I didn’t want her to get involved in that arena.”

Besides, Amanda has the post-Atlanta portion of her year already booked.

“My guy friends at school all snowboard and surf,” she says. “So when I get back, I’m having them teach me how to snowboard.”

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Amanda Beard at a Glance

Age: 14.

Residence: Irvine.

Sport: Swimming.

Height: 5 feet 3.

Weight: 92 pounds.

Olympic Events: 100-meter breaststroke, 200 breaststroke, possibly 400 medley relay.

Olympic Experience: None.

International Experience: Bronze medalist in 100 and 200 breaststroke, silver medalist in 400 medley relay at Pan Pacifics meet in 1995.