Dana Vollmer reacts to a swim at the 2009 World Championships in Rome

01/04/10

Swimming West is a new column that beats with the pulse of the West Coast.

Dana Vollmer was in mid-sentence, her thoughts buzzing around the Cal women’s swimming team’s historic run to the 2009 NCAA title and the buildup that preceded it, when she suddenly paused to make an observation.

“I know,” she said, “I use the word ‘fun’ a lot.”

It’s true, but for Vollmer, such repetition is excusable given a bit of context.

It’s been nearly 18 months since a disappointing string of performances at the 2008 U.S. Olympic Swimming Trials left her disillusioned and questioning her future in the sport. Since then, however, she has learned to embrace the struggle and put her past behind her.

No longer is she concerned with living up to the lofty expectations she set into motion as a teenager, a gifted 16-year-old with an Olympic gold medal around her neck. She isn’t weighed down by an inner need to justify her decisions, nor is she dwelling on the collapse that left her off the Olympic team bound for Beijing. Instead, she’s rediscovered her love of swimming and is having fun again.

“Now, I’m smiling when I’m behind the blocks,” Vollmer said. “Everything is so much more fun. Swimming, I’m really enjoying every minute of it.”

Vollmer’s recent run – the NCAA championship she won with the Bears, the 2009 NCAA Swimmer of the Year award she claimed as a result, the bronze medal she pocketed at last summer’s FINA World Championships – is all proof of her stunning resurgence.

“I think a lot of it was a switch in the mentality from where I started in 2008 and not making the team,” said Vollmer, who recently received the Perseverance Award at the Golden Goggles. “There was so much pressure on me. I made (swimming) about so much more than just racing. Now, I’ve made it about having fun instead of trying to be all of these things to other people.”

It was Vollmer’s verve for racing that elevated her to elite status before most of her peers were out of grade school.

At 12, she was the youngest competitor at the 2000 Olypmic Trials. Four years later, she found herself at the pinnacle of her sport, atop the gold-medal podium at the Athens Games with Natalie Coughlin, Carly Piper and Kaitlin Sandeno, her teammates in the 800m freestyle relay, by her side.

Still, early success translated into heightened expectations. Instead of being buoyed by her previous experiences, Vollmer arrived in Omaha for the 2008 trials “a nervous wreck.”

Having recently transferred from Florida to swim at Cal for coach Teri McKeever, Vollmer desperately wanted to show the merits of the move. But every race quickly became a battle she couldn’t win. Vollmer missed the cut in the 100 butterfly, finishing fifth overall. She finished seventh in the 200 freestyle, the event that put her on the map, and was .03 seconds shy of getting into the 100 freestyle final.

“My first thought was I didn’t represent Teri well,” Vollmer said. “I had transferred from Florida and I took that personally. I wanted to do well and represent Teri’s style of coaching. For me, it wasn’t all about not making the Olympic team; it was about letting Teri down.”

The disappointment was so profound, Vollmer immediately returned home to Texas and wanted nothing to do with the water. Indeed, McKeever wondered if Vollmer would ever return to the pool.

“I thought there was a chance she was never going to swim again,” McKeever said. “The first couple of months of her senior year were very hard. I think she was wondering, ‘Do I even want to do this?’ Some of it, she had to walk through on her own. I think that’s what’s important. You just have to trust you’re going to get through it.”

That revelation was slow to come. Vollmer had little interest in swimming and didn’t budge until McKeever strongly urged her to go to Fiji for some open water training and to distance herself from what transpired in Omaha.

The trip marked the beginning of the rejuvenation, but to McKeever, the true turning point came a few months later when Vollmer informed her she was going to swim the 200 freestyle and 100 butterfly at the Pac-10 championship meet, a daunting double she once avoided.

“I think that’s where she decided, ‘I’m going to be the best I can be,’” McKeever said. “The way she handled that in Pac-10’s, I saw something I hadn’t seen for a while. It was like she was saying, ‘I’m not going to let this get away from me.’”

Faltering in 2008, reasoned Vollmer, made all of the difference.

“I needed 2008 to make that switch,” she said. “Without that disappointment, I might not have changed anything... It’s important that I reflect on how much I learned during that time.”

Now a professional swimmer with a Speedo contract in the works, Vollmer continues to train with McKeever in Berkeley. Missing a trip to Beijing hasn’t shaken her resolve, as her sights are firmly set on the 2012 London Olympics and possibly beyond.

“I want to keep swimming as long as I can continue to improve and get faster,” Vollmer said. “Right now, there is room for improvement, and that wills me to keep going.”