This One-Man Team Is Not Alone This Time

OKLAHOMA CITY —  It wasn’t the finest two minutes and 11 seconds of Frank Wattles’ life, but it will have to do for now. Look at it this way: at least there was someone else in the pool, which is a bit of a change for this loneliest of swimmers.

Fresh from a flu bout, limping noticeably on a sprained ankle, Wattles, a member of the modest Mission Viejo Aquatics Club, climbed atop the starting platform for the first event of the 1989 U.S. Olympic Festival--the 200-meter individual medley--and proceeded to finish seventh in a race he considers his specialty. As debuts go, it wasn’t exactly what he had in mind.

Then again, Wattles’ swim career hasn’t gone exactly as planned. At 18, he finds himself swimming against conventional wisdom, the result, in part, of a nasty departure several years ago from the acclaimed Mission Viejo Nadadores. Lawsuits were filed. Allegiances were changed. Caught in the middle was Wattles, who essentially now trains for and by himself. The Aquatics Club? Except for the occasional workout partners, Wattles is the men’s team.

“It’s kind of like Rocky,” he said Tuesday evening.

As best as Wattles knows, he is the only elite-category swimmer in the country who does a solo training act. It is a lonely existence: a morning schedule that includes stretching exercises, weightlifting and running, followed by an afternoon schedules that features lots of work on stroke techniques. Swimming is a solitary sport to begin with--you against the second hand--but imagine the discipline needed to compete against phantoms every day.

His father, Frank Wattles III, coaches the Aquatics Club and its most celebrated member. He tinkers with his son’s strokes, trying always to streamline the effort needed to move 175 pounds through a lane of water. It isn’t an easy chore, a fact not lost on area swim coaches who, according to the younger Wattles, have tried to recruit the talented medley swimmer.

They’re wasting their time--Wattles & Son is here to stay.

“I’m fine where I am now,” he said. “I choose to do it the way I am.”

Ignore Tuesday night’s results at the newly christened Oklahoma City Community College pool, and Wattles has done quite nicely. He won the 100-yard backstroke at this year’s Junior Olympics championships and the 100-yard freestyle at the Junior Olympics in 1988. The Junior Olympics is generally regarded as the most competitive 18-and-under meet in the country.

Now this. Now he finds himself, curiously enough, assigned to the North team here at the Festival. At last, teammates and the chance to swim a relay. It is an odd, wonderful feeling.

“It’s fun,” he said. “It’s a new thing. I haven’t been in anything like this.”

And the most memorable moment of it all?

“Being on a national team and getting free sweats,” he said.

Despite his many successes--and the free wardrobe--Wattles said his training methods are not for everyone. Actually, he said, they’re not for anyone.

“It’s kind of me, I kind of like it,” he said, “but I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone else.”

Father and son were together again Tuesday night. Wattles III was the one with the video camera and the encouraging smile after the seventh-place finish. Wattles IV was the one with the limp.

“Frank is good to work with,” said the elder Wattles. “He does a good job. But he could have been better prepared for this.”

Two healthy ankles would have helped, as would would have a flu-less June. But some things can’t be helped, so Wattles did what he could. Too bad it had to be seventh.

Wattles, who spent last semester at Saddleback College, plans to take his swim stroke to USC soon. That should be interesting: a coach who isn’t a blood relative, a 50-meter rather than 25-meter-long pool to conduct his training, a more demanding training schedule. And someone to swim with.

By the way, there are signs that Wattles’ attitude toward solitary training is softening. Bored with a post-swim interview, he asked to be excused so he could watch, of all things, his North teammates compete. And later, in the final event of the evening--the 400-meter freestyle relay--Wattles did something he couldn’t do by himself: earn a gold medal. There’s something symmetrical to that.

HEAT SAPS SWIMMERS

There are a lot of personal bests at U.S. Olympic Festival, but no Festival records. Gene Wojciechowski’s story, Page 3.