Dropped Into CSUN’s Lap : Swimming: Toady Kimble fled Northern California and became a national champion with the Matadors.

Mom wished her daughter would become a dancer. Dad wished she’d become a downhill skier. So, faced with the prospect of playing wishbone in a parental tug of war, Toady (“Don’t ask.”) Kimble did what any other self-respecting, rebellious teen-ager would have done.

She jilted both parents by running off to Southern California to become a swimmer because “neither one of them knew anything about it.”

Problem was that neither did she. Which is why, during her freshman season at Cal State Northridge--only one year before she would become a national champion--Kimble often regretted leaving Quincy, Calif., her hometown.

Quincy, which has an elevation (3,500 feet) greater than its population (2,700), is located in the Plumas National Forest, about 60 miles northeast of Chico. Residents of Quincy tend to be close-knit and friendly, the kind who smile and mean it when they chirp, “Have a nice day.”

No big deal? It was to this small-town girl. The weather was warmer down south but the reception was not.

“It was shocking to me,” says Kimble, who was nicknamed Toady as an infant because, in a sleeping position, her legs splayed like those of a frog. “I didn’t know I would miss things like that until it was gone. I felt very small (at Northridge).”

The adjustment might have been easier had Kimble made a big initial splash for CSUN’s swimming team. But that too was a struggle.

Quincy High had a ski team--her father was its coach--but it didn’t compete in the pool. Swimming had been a summer diversion for Kimble, something fun.

The swim club Kimble belonged to didn’t use the most sophisticated training methods, nor did it have particularly experienced coaching. Kimble, in fact, was assistant coach.

Still, her times were good enough for other coaches to predict a successful future in the sport should she ever decide to get serious about it.

In her third season at CSUN, Kimble is still finding out exactly what “serious” means.

For starters, she no longer associates the word “swimming” with “fun.” At least not when it comes to training. “Really, I’d much rather lift (weights) than swim,” Kimble says. “Swimming is hard, it hurts, it’s boring and you can’t talk. There’s nothing to do but look at the bottom of the pool.”

It also is time consuming. During the summer, college football players are subjected to five days of grueling two-a-day practices, commonly referred to as Hell Week.

In swimming, there is Hell Month. And at Northridge, that month is-- brrr --January. However, the climate for her 7 a.m. dips in CSUN’s pool didn’t concern Kimble as much as the muscles in her arms and legs, which, she says, “felt like big pieces of rock, just wanting to sink.”

Pete Accardy, CSUN’s coach, tried to explain that such sensations are fairly normal--particularly to one who has just taken full advantage of a holiday of home cooking.

At a meet in December, 1987, Kimble had come within 0.10 seconds of reaching the qualifying standard for Division II nationals. Less than a month later, after a trip home for the holidays, she was nowhere near the time.

Accardy is fairly certain that the only lifting Kimble did on her trip was with eating utensils.

“When she came back, it was obvious that she hadn’t done much of anything that we told her,” Accardy says. “She had gained a lot of weight.”

Kimble continued to have weight problems and she “cut corners” by missing a few workouts, Accardy says. As a result, she was held out of the 1988 California Collegiate Athletic Assn. meet, which was her last opportunity to qualify for nationals.

Instead, she got a lecture. Accardy told her what he felt she could accomplish should she put forth the effort.

“It was her decision,” Accardy says, “whichever way she decided to go.”

That direction became apparent last season when Kimble returned for her sophomore campaign. “She was,” Accardy says, “a totally different person.”

Instead of fretting over the pain of workouts, Kimble now asks questions.

“Yo, Coach. On that last lap, was I supposed to feel like I was towing a ’63 Cadillac?”

“Yes, Toady.”

“OK, Coach.”

The laps Kimble swims in practice are of similar distance as before, but there is less time for rest between them. Exactly how much less she really isn’t sure.

“Pete knows how to work you right at that edge where you aren’t sure if you’re swimming real slow, or if the intervals are real fast and you should be dying,” Kimble says. “So I ask him, ‘Am I supposed to be dead?’ ‘Yeah.’ ‘Oh, well, OK then. Let’s do it again. . .’

“I mean, I’m still basically clueless on exactly how to swim.”

Uh-huh. Just try telling that to those who were burned in the 100-yard freestyle at last year’s Division II meet in Buffalo, N. Y.

Having gained a measure of attention by finishing fourth in the 50-yard freestyle--the race she considers her best--Kimble set a CSUN record three days later when she out-touched teammate Jude Kylander to win the 100-yard event in 51.40 seconds.

Buoyed by that performance, Kimble has returned stronger than ever this season. She bettered Division II qualifying standards for the 50 and 100 during CSUN’s first dual meet in November.

In December, she swam the 100 in 52.0--1.4 seconds faster than the previous year at the same stage of the season.

“She is light years better this year than she was last year,” says Accardy, whose women’s squad will try for its fourth consecutive team title at the Division II meet in Buffalo from March 7-10. “It’s hard to say how fast she might go. There’s still so much for her to improve in terms of experience.”

Kimble, whose given name is Karen, hopes to follow in the footsteps of Jeff Kubiak, a breaststroke champion at CSUN from 1985-87. Kubiak went on to set a Pan-American Games record in the 200-yard breaststroke and was third in the 1988 Olympic Trials.

“Toady at this point isn’t in that category,” Accardy says. “But by the end of this year she very well could be in the national picture.”

For now, Kimble says she would be satisfied with that. But in the back of her mind are more lofty goals.

The 1992 Olympic Trials are on the horizon. Yet another opportunity for a small-town girl to make it big.