Now, Johnson Talks as Fast as She Swims

Jenna Johnson insists that she is shy. But the more she talks, the more you realize that she may be wrong in her self evaluation.

“Am I talking too fast,” she asks solicitously. “I really am shy. Honest, people who knew me before the Olympics can’t believe I talk now.

“I guess the Olympics forced me to come out of myself. I had to, just to get to meet and deal with my teammates, to make friends. It built my confidence. The experience made me a better person. But I haven’t changed. I’m still really shy.”

It really is hard to believe that mile-a-minute Johnson, full of freckles with a perfect smile, just recently learned to talk as fast as she swims.

Johnson, in addition to swimming about 8,000 yards a day, has managed to be an honor student at Whittier Christian High School, win a scholarship to Stanford in the fall, and pursue an unnamed swimmer from SMU in hopes of luring him to her senior banquet in May.

“I can’t tell you his name,” she said, lowering her voice. “We went to Bonn, West Germany, for an international meet in February and the two of us talked and talked. He’s very nice. I wrote and invited him and if he can get away during exams, he’ll come.

“But what if it’s in the paper and he doesn’t come? How embarrassing! I’ve missed some things because of swimming, but not this dinner and then the chance to go dancing. I really want to go.”

Going may be enough when it comes to proms, but in a swimming pool the 6-foot-1 Johnson, a La Habra resident who collected a gold in the 400 freestyle relay and a silver in the 100 butterfly, yearns to go faster than anyone who has gone before. This week, she will take on her chief rival, Mary T. Meagher, in the U.S. Short Course Nationals at East Los Angeles College.

“Mary T. is tough,” Johnson said. “And going into the Trials I had never beaten her in the fly. But in the morning I beat her and it gave me so much confidence. I thought, ‘if I beat her once, I could do it again.’

“You see when the two of us swim, I’ll get way out in front and then she’ll always catch me in the last 25 meters. But at night, I went out so fast I couldn’t believe it. I kept waiting for her to catch me but she didn’t. It was the fastest time of my life.”

After upsetting Meagher, the world record-holder, Johnson, who was ranked ninth in the United States at the time, was ready for Los Angeles. But it didn’t turn out quite the way she planned. “When you make the Olympics, you train with the team, but my coach (Ed Spencer) wasn’t one of the coaches selected this time,” said Johnson, who swims for the Industry Hills Aquatics Club. “And he really knows me. He knows my energy level and knows just the right workouts for me.”

She finished second in the butterfly in 1:00.42, well behind Meagher’s 59.26.

“I felt that I had come to the biggest meet in my life and hadn’t lived up to my expectations,” Johnson said. “I expected to go really fast and I didn’t. But it was a learning experience and that was good. Athletes face extreme pressure and you learn how to handle it and react to it. I swam well, but not as well as I would have liked.”

Johnson has had to deal with a great deal of pressure in the last two years. One trauma was the divorce of her parents. Her father is the basketball coach at Shasta College in Redding, Calif., her mother a dental hygienist.

Secondly, she had to part with her friends who swim for the Santa Rosa Neptunes, and Coach Guy Miller, the man who convinced her that allowing your skin to wrinkle in a pool three hours a day is not only fun but rewarding.

“He and I were so close and he taught me so much,” Johnson said. “He helped me develop my strokes and was the first person that thought I had potential.

“It was hard to move here, to start over. But I’ve made friends at Whittier Christian and I like swimming here. Actually, in a competitive sense, the move has been better because the pool is better.”

Four years is an eternity when you ponder the 81,000,000 yards of workouts it takes to get ready for the 1988 Olympic Games at Seoul, South Korea. But Johnson breaks the monotonous ritual into bites.

“Sometimes I ask myself, ‘why are you killing yourself.’ ” “It’s no fun to go through all this pain. But I’ve learned to make short-term goals. Right now, I’ve tapered for Nationals. Then when another big meet comes up, I’ll prepare for that.

“You can’t look at that huge span of time, otherwise you’ll get depressed. You’ve got to take each day, each swim, one at a time.”

According to Spencer, Johnson’s talent makes her a threat for a world record in any event in which she competes. Talking to Swimmer’s World reporter Karen Crouse, Spencer said: “I think she has the potential to become the greatest 100-200 freestyler in the world and also the greatest 100 flyer.”

Johnson would like to crack Meagher’s record of 57.9 in the 100 butterfly, but this week she just wants another crack at Mary T. She will get more than one opportunity, since Johnson plans to swim the 50, 100 and 200 freestyle and the 100 butterfly.

“Mary T. is always there,” Johnson said. “So, it’s not hard to see who I have to beat. It’s a goal. She’s the best and to be the best you’ve got to beat her.”