Katelin Barone, a record-holding member of the JCC swim team, gets an autograph from Lenny Krayzelburg during a visit by the Olympic champion to the Scotch Plains JCC. Photos by Elaine Durbach
March 13, 2008
They got to wear one of his heavy gold medals, to ask him questions, and to pose for pictures with him, but probably the biggest thrill for the young swimmers was having Olympic gold medalist Lenny Krayzelburg get into the water with them and give pointers on how to improve their strokes.
“He told me to look straight ahead, not from side to side, and to keep my body streamlined as I swim,” 12-year-old Katelin Barone of Clark said, as she lined up with everyone else to get the champion swimmer’s autograph as he ended his March 9 visit to the Jewish Community Center of Central New Jersey in Scotch Plains.
With a shy smile, she admitted that she holds a backstroke record at the JCC — the stroke that Krayzelburg made his own in 1999 with world records and again at the 2000 Olympic Games.
The Ukrainian-born swimmer visited for a couple of hours with the JCC swim team and then — dried and dressed — talked with them and their parents in the gym.
Now 32 and no longer swimming competitively after three operations on his shoulder, Krayzelburg runs a successful swimming school in Los Angeles and will soon open another in New York City. He still has the lean, broad-shouldered build of a top-rate athlete. But it wasn’t just the mothers who were hanging on his every word; the dads in the gym were just as wide-eyed and attentive, pushing their kids forward to try on Krayzelburg’s gold medal on its broad brocade ribbon, a memento from the 2000 Sydney Olympics.
A quick round of questions showed that the kids already knew that he came to the United States from Ukraine when he was 12 and that he brought home the Olympic gold four times. What might have surprised them was hearing him tell, in only a faint accent, that until the age of 19 he was a better-than-average but not an exceptional swimmer. “In high school I was never the best on my swim team,” he said. “I didn’t dream of ever winning Olympic gold medals. I just swam because I liked the sport.”
And what might have taken aback JCC head swim coach Laura Bransky was his answer to her question about kids wanting to quit: He said maybe they should. At 14, he took time out himself, feeling that he was no longer enjoying the sport, and came back a few months later with renewed determination and pleasure. “It’s important to take a break if you need to. It’s very hard to keep going if you’re not enjoying it and you feel you’re being forced. If you love it, you’ll come.”
That doesn’t mean he encourages people to give up easily. He stressed the importance of giving 100 percent of yourself to anything you undertake. “I was never afraid to challenge myself to be as good as I could be” he said. “For example, keep trying to reduce the number of strokes you do each lap. Even if you set goals for yourself that are unattainable, that will ensure that you’re a success in every walk of your life.”
Keeping a smile on your face helps too, he added, and trust that all the adults pushing you — parents and teachers and coaches — are doing it for your own good. His own parents, he said, were his strictest critics but also his most constant supporters, whether he was excited about swimming or down about it.
Swimming at the JCC
Former world backstroke champion Lenny Krayzelburg tells young swimmers and their families about his life and outlook during a visit to the JCC of Central New Jersey.
The kids had plenty of questions for him. One girl wanted to know how he felt about competing against friends. “It’s harder when you know the person,” he said, but added that he still liked beating them. Another asked about the Maccabiah Games. He said nothing compares to the Olympics, with four billion people around the world watching, but taking part in the Maccabiah Games was also very special, because of “being in Israel, with so many Jews in one place, and seeing how important the games are to the Israelis.”
His visit was organized by the New Jersey Y Camps, which runs the sleepaway camps for the state’s JCCs. Krayzelburg spends one week in July and one in August with the campers at the Milford, Pa., site, giving campers four hours a day of swimming training. His Scotch Plains visit was intended as a tempting sample of that, and one lucky swimmer won a $1,000 scholarship to attend a week of the camp in August.
In answer to a question about his connection with the JCC, Krayzelburg said he had been linked to the organization almost since he settled in the United States in 1989. “I started swimming at the JCC pool in Los Angeles a year after we immigrated, and I swam there for three years,” he said. “It was definitely a big part of my staying in the sport. It was hard adjusting those first few years and the JCC gave me a place where I felt comfortable. I made so many friends through it.”
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