Between Times

Byron Davis stands on the pool deck at Heritage Park in Irvine looking not much different from the 30 other men and women, teenagers, college students and post-grads throwing and catching medicine balls.

Their distant dream is of making a 2000 Olympic swim team. Their nightmare of the afternoon is to throw the ball until they sweat, then swim until their pecs ache and their stomachs churn.

Davis blends right in, yet he is singular. Davis is a black man. Standing on this pool deck, surrounded by teammates, adjacent to water polo players and

recreational swimmers who swarm

around the aquatic center, Davis is the only black man.

Here is a fact: The United States has never had a black Olympic swimmer, man or woman. “Oh, my,” Barbara

Davis Johnson, Byron’s mother,

says, “it would make Byron so proud to be the first. It’s in his heart, that goal.”

Deep in his heart is where Davis keeps that goal. But he will not let that hope become a quest. If he concentrates on being the first black Olympic swimmer, Davis can’t concentrate on shaving tenths of seconds off his time.

“It shouldn’t matter anymore,” Davis says. Then he pauses. “But please don’t get me wrong. That would mean a lot to me. It would touch me deeply because I think it would make an impact and be a good thing for kids to see.”

Davis does not blame racism for the lack of a black U.S. Olympic swimmer. He just wishes that were he to make the team, it would not be a history-making moment. But some who know him think Davis put extra pressure on himself four years ago. At the 1996 U.S. Olympic trials, Davis set a world-record pace in the first 50 meters of the 100-meter butterfly finals, only to fade so badly at the end that he missed making the team by three-tenths of a second. Maybe, they say, he wanted too much to be first so that no one else would have to.

Davis, 29, is the oldest of Irvine Novaquatics coach Dave Salo’s Olympic hopefuls. He has a degree in political science from UCLA. Yet while most people in his graduating class have made firm beginnings in their career pursuits, Davis lives in a Tarzana townhouse and drives an hour and a half each way to Irvine four times a week.

He is a motivational speaker by profession. Along with a swimwear contract, his speeches to companies, clubs and groups of athletes are what pay the bills. Davis speaks passionately of believing in yourself and in God. He will quote Bible passages, but it is not to preach. Davis uses them as easily as others use slang. He sets aside an hour every day for reading the Bible and then thinking about what he has read.

Davis also has been a teacher in Compton and an assistant swim coach for the UCLA women’s team. He is married to Annett Buckner Davis, who is one-half of the highest-ranked U.S. women’s beach volleyball team.

In his life, Davis has fought stereotypes. But not on purpose. Simply by the way he lives. People may want him to be a crusader for his race, but Davis prefers to strive only for being the best swimmer possible--or else he couldn’t be the best swimmer possible.

Davis could be the poster child for all financially struggling Olympic aspirants, but he won’t play on your sympathies in that way, even if he has cause. His swimwear contract isn’t a big one. And while his wife does make some money on the beach volleyball tour, she also pays for travel and for a coach from her earnings.

As a three-time loser when it comes to Olympic trials, Davis offers a poignant story. So Davis laughs when he hears about a story circulating that he works in a gas station part-time to make ends meet.

“Where did you hear that?” Davis says, and laughs. “I don’t need to embellish this story.” While money is sometimes tight and pennies count to Byron and Annett, Davis isn’t pumping gas.

Davis’ swimming career started in an unlikely place. East Cleveland. Not the worst neighborhood, Barbara says, but not the best. “There were gangs. I heard gunshots. I had friends who got in trouble,” Byron says.

“It wasn’t so bad,” Barbara says, “but there weren’t opportunities for the kids. I had to take them around to find opportunities.”

When Byron was about 8, Barbara took him to a YMCA program structured to give inner-city kids a chance to participate in nontraditional sports. Byron and his friend Lamar were going to sign up for bowling, but that sign-up sheet was full.

“Being a typical kid, I went running around, looking into all the other doors,” Davis says. “I ran into the pool, slipped and fell halfway in. The coach pulled me out and instead of yelling at me, he started talking to me about swimming. My mom came in then and I was sure she was going to yell at me. Instead, she talked to the coach, then came up to me and said, ‘You’re going to be back here Monday to swim.’ And that was it.”

Byron heard things around the pool. The one he laughs about is that blacks were sinkers, not buoyant enough to swim. “The great thing about swimming,” Davis says, “is that all that matters is the time on the clock.”

Barbara worked the night shift at the Cleveland Clinic where she was a registered nurse. On weekends, she’d come home from work, honk her horn, Byron would rush to the car and together they would head to a swim meet.

“I’d fall asleep on the bleachers,” Barbara says, “but we got to those meets.”

Davis’ first Olympic trials were in 1988. He was a 17-year-old high school student who didn’t feel as if he belonged and was simply happy to be there. “I was a tourist at those trials,” Davis says.

In 1992, having just finished his junior year at UCLA, Davis arrived at the trials with high hopes. He was seeded eighth in the 100-meter butterfly but finished 32nd, leaving angry, bitter and not an Olympian.

“I choked,” Davis says. “Pure and simple. For a while I blamed everybody but myself--my coaches, everybody--but it was my fault. When I look back I realize that I just didn’t believe in myself.”

Davis quit swimming for a couple of years after that. He graduated from UCLA, thought about going to law school, got his emergency teaching certificate, taught in Compton. “But the pool kept calling me,” he says.

In 1996, Davis made it to the final heat of the Olympic qualifier in the 100 butterfly. He touched the wall after 50 meters on a world-record pace of 24.08 seconds. He touched the wall at the end of the race in fourth place, 0.3 of a second too slow for the Olympics.

Davis cried then and quit swimming again. He became a coach at UCLA.

“There I was every day, smelling the pool smell and two years ago, on Jan. 1, I realized I needed to be back in the pool, doing it myself,” he says. “I still have the dream in me.”

Davis joined the Novaquatics in January. “Dave [Salo] thinks differently, and his way is good for sprinters,” Davis says. “Most coaches want you to swim large amounts of laps. Dave believes in shorter, intense workouts, which is the way you race.”

Barbara has a mother’s fear now. She saw how devastated her son was 1996. “I worry what will happen if Byron doesn’t make it this time,” she says.

It is Davis’ near-miss, though, that persuades Salo that Davis could be one of the three U.S. Olympic qualifiers in the 100 butterfly this time around. “The talent, the ability is there,” Salo says. “It’s a matter of getting the head and body right.”

Davis’ career-best time in the event is 53.57 seconds. The top-ranked American is 21-year-old Bryan Jones of Austin, Texas, with a time of 52.90 seconds. After his two-year layoff, Davis is just now getting back into racing form. His first big meet of the season will be in April at the spring nationals.

There is about Davis, a surprising calm. He describes himself as “hyper” and, indeed, it was his absence of control, his inability to dam up his adrenaline in 1996, that caused him to race too fast and too hard in those first 50 meters.

Three-tenths of a second. That quickly Davis’ hope disappeared. Two years later, his hope came back and Davis tells you now why he is so calm.

“Because I’m going to do this,” he says. “I really believe in myself.”

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Diane Pucin can be reached at her e-mail address: diane.pucin@latimes.com.