Diehl Keeps Eye on Clock--and Calendar : Swimming: Mission Viejo High graduate, who’ll compete at Olympic Trials next week, knows dominance never lasts long.

MISSION VIEJO —  For most competitive swimmers, timing is everything. A fingernail scraping a touch pad hundredths of seconds ahead of the next guy can be the difference between an Olympic medal and telling your grandchildren about what might have been.

So they spend most of their lives looking at the clock. Often, however, the calendar is the greater foe.

Few swimmers maintain their dominance for more than a couple of years and even the elite usually can point to one record-setting season as the crest of their career. In this sport, you’re swimming’s new wave one day but never that far off from being pulled down by an undertow of young talent.

The fall from grace can be especially painful if you don’t hit your peak during the Olympics. There have been lots of great swimmers between Olympic Games, but you can’t name any.

Eric Diehl wants you to remember his name. He wants it so bad he’s putting off his college education a year. He’s eating “green sludge” shakes, laced with seaweed and barley and clam extract. And, of course, he’s dragging himself through the obligatory several miles of laps every day.

And Diehl is only 18. He figures to have as good a chance as anyone to still be competitive in 1996. But that hasn’t stopped him from taking a do-or-die approach into the Olympic Trials, which begin Sunday in Indianapolis.

“Four years is a long time,” he said. “I could break my leg and never be able to swim again. Sure, I’m pretty early in my career and it’s not like I know this is my last meet or even my last shot at an Olympics.

“But I really want to make this team. There’s no nonchalant attitude here. You’ve got to seize the day.”

Sunday, Diehl will line up with America’s best in the 200-meter freestyle, his best event. He will swim in the 400-meter freestyle Wednesday.

Four swimmers make the team in the 200 instead of the normal two because of the four-man 800-meter freestyle relay team. But Diehl--whose gold-medal time in the 200 freestyle (1 minute 49.67 seconds) at the 1991 Pan Am Games was the fourth-fastest in the United States last year--says the competition for the four spots will be fierce.

“Four spots doesn’t take any pressure off,” he said. “It just means I have better odds than some people because they’re taking four from my event. But so little time separates the top five or six Americans in the event that it’s going to be incredibly competitive to get one of those spots.

“And you have to swim out of your mind in the morning (qualifying events) just to get into the finals. There’s no holding back. That’s the way I’m looking at it.”

Considering that most U.S. swimmers say there is more pressure at the Trials than in the Games themselves, that’s probably a wise approach.

“I hear it’s a pretty big mental game out there,” Diehl said, managing a smile. “I’m trying to prepare myself for a really high-pressure situation. I’m trying not to be too naive about it, but at the same time not overwhelm myself.

“I know it’s going to be really intense, but there’s no way to really know until I experience it.”

Terry Stoddard, Diehl’s coach with the Mission Viejo Nadadores, doesn’t think Diehl will wilt under the pressure, though.

“They’re all going for those same tenths and hundredths of seconds,” he said. “There are only three people in the event who have ever been faster, so if he keeps his focus forward and looks at the people in front of him, he’s got a real good chance.”

Like a lot of swimmers before him, Diehl made the trek to Mission Viejo in January of 1989 with visions of gold medals dancing in his head.

He had wanted to quit the sport at 11, but his mother, Gaby, used a little bit of logic and momentarily pulled parental rank.

“I was in fifth grade,” he said. “I’d ride my bike home from school with my friends and they’d all be doing something and I’d always have to say, ‘Nah, I’ve got a workout.’ And guys would want me to spend the night on Friday and I’d have to say, ‘Nah, I’ve got a meet.’

“When you’re at that age, stuff like that is important. Swimming wasn’t as fun as it could have been. I wanted to quit and my mom said, ‘If you want to quit, that’s fine. But you have to wait until the meet at the end of the season. It doesn’t make sense to do all this work and quit now.’

“Well, I had a great meet, won the 50 freestyle and I’ve never thought about quitting again since.”

When he outgrew his program in Fort Worth, Diehl and his mother moved to Mission Viejo. His older brother and father still live in Texas. He misses them, but then he’s familiar with the sacrifices required to further his career.

Sure, he gets up before dawn and swims more miles every day then some people drive. But he also knows the pain of working out when it feels as if your muscles have turned to Jell-O and no one can tell you why.

After nine months of struggling through workouts, Diehl was diagnosed as having Epstein-Barr Syndrome last summer. Among a host of other symptoms, general fatigue is a common symptom.

“There’s no cure for it, so I went to a nutritionist to try some holistic medicine to help the body fight the infection,” he said. “It seems to be working really well, but all this stuff I’ve got to eat tastes awful.

“There’s the clam extract and everything from linseed oil to about 20 different herbs and a ton of minerals. I take all these powders and mix them with some fruit juice and it turns into green sludge.

“It’s disgusting, but whatever works.”

Just another small sacrifice in the quest for excellence.

Diehl, who graduated from Mission Viejo High School last June, made a deal with Stanford Coach Skip Kenney to put off starting college for a year.

“We discussed it at length and I believe Eric made a wise decision,” Stoddard said. “Over the years, we’ve watched a lot of people stay here and train for the Olympics and produce results.

“We’re a place where people train. There are no outside factors hindering what you need to do to prepare for the Olympics.”

Many swimmers view college competition as a refreshing new direction in their careers, but Diehl didn’t think a change of scenery would be beneficial.

“I think it was the right decision for me,” he said. “I thought I had a good shot (at making the Olympic team) and I wanted to stay with my coach and in a program that’s obviously been successful for me.

“It’s worked out well. I feel really good about my training and I have no regrets.”

And, no matter what happens next week, he still won’t have any.

Clearly, this is a young man who has managed to maintain a level of perspective in a sport where the best almost always include “obsessive personality” on their resumes.

“Eric Diehl is the best,” Stoddard said. “He believes in discipline and hard work, but he also loves to be social and have a good time.

“He’s got the perfect makeup. He knows there’s a time to work and a time to play.”

Up on the pool deck, Diehl is imagining himself as Michael Jordan, flipping kick boards into a large wire basket. Soon, however, he’ll be back in the water pushing his limits and imagining himself wearing a gold medal as motivation.

“I still believe that the people who work the hardest are the ones who will come out on top,” he said. “Maybe it’s just wishful thinking. But otherwise, what would be the use of doing all this?”

Going for the Games

Orange County-connected swimmers who will compete in the Olympic Trials Sunday through Friday in Indianapolis:

Fullerton Aquatic Sports Team Troy Dalbey: 400, 1,500 freestyle Todd Hickman: 200 individual medley

Golden West Swim Club Jim Sullivan: 1,500 freestyle Steve West: 100, 200 breaststroke Tom Westcott: 100 backstroke Scott Wester: 50, 200 freestyle

Irvine Novaquatics Steve Grams: 50, 100 freestyle Chad Hundeby: 400, 1,500 freestyle Brian Pajer: 100, 200 breaststroke Gordon Woolbert: 100 backstroke

Mission Viejo Nadadores Suzi Burt: 200 backstroke Ryan Cox: 400 freestyle Kathy Deibler: 200, 400 freestyle Eric Diehl: 200, 400 freestyle April Diez: 400, 800 freestyle Chris Gally: 100, 200 butterfly Kevin Henricks: 200 breaststroke Betsy Hugh: 400 individual medley Lisa Jacob: 100, 200, 400, 800 freestyle Ron Karnaugh: 100 backstroke, 100 butterfly, 200 breast-stroke, 200 freestyle, 200 IM Amy Ward: 200 freestyle

Saddleback Valley Aquatics Chad Carvin: 400, 1,500 freestyle

Southern California Aquatics Sionainn Marcoux: 400, 800 freestyle

University of Southern California Greg Larson: 100, 200 freestyle

Texas Aquatics Janet Evans: 200, 400, 800 freestyle, 400 IM, 200 backstroke