Kubiak’s Hopes Buoyed by His Climb in Ranks : Strong Showing Against Top-Level Competition Keeps CSUN Swimmer’s Olympic Dream Afloat

Jeff Kubiak’s Olympic dream is still afloat, which is all the more impressive considering he looked as if he could barely stay afloat just three years ago.

It was at the 1984 state junior college swim championships where Cal State Northridge Coach Pete Accardy spotted Kubiak thrashing around the pool.

The way Accardy recalls it, Kubiak was spinning more than he was swimming. “He expended a lot of energy for as fast as he went,” the coach politely put it.

But what Kubiak lacked in talent, he made up for in tenacity. “He was making quite a few mistakes, but I liked him because he was a tough kid,” Accardy said. “He gave it everything he had.”

Physically, Kubiak still doesn’t have as much to give as many of his barrel-chested colleagues, but that hasn’t slowed his climb to the upper echelon of U.S. swimmers.

He’s a 5-10, 160-pound paddle boat who turns into a hydrofoil when he hits the water.

Just how good Kubiak can be is still in question. Accardy calls him the best swimmer in Northridge history, which is nice, but not quite the same as if he were from, say, Stanford.

He’ll have a better idea in another week, when he competes for the U.S. team in the 200-yard breaststroke at the Pan American Games in Indianapolis, Ind. He is one of 19 athletes from the Valley area scheduled to participate.

Kubiak, 22, is, at once, one of the U.S. team’s oldest yet least-experienced swimmers. Although he has been swimming competitively off and on since the age of 4, his initial tastes of top-level competition have all come in the last few months.

After winning his seventh individual NCAA Division II national championship in three years for Northridge in March, Kubiak raced at the Division I finals in Austin, Tex., in April, and the national long-course championships in Clovis, Calif., last month.

The Division I meet served as a cold splash in the face. Kubiak finished 31st overall in qualifying heats for the 100 breast and fifth in the consolation finals of the 200.

“I crashed and burned,” he said.

But he resurfaced this summer training under Mitch Ivy in Concord, Calif.

“I’m not putting Division II down,” Kubiak said, choosing his words carefully by telephone from Indianapolis, “but I never had to swim super-fast until nationals. This summer I had to swim fast just to finish second or third.”

And that was in workouts.

“It’s great competition,” he said. “We all push each other and it makes us all better.”

By the time the long-course championships rolled around, Kubiak was ready. He finished a disappointing seventh in the 100 breast, but he was third in the 200 with a personal best of 2:16.40. Steve Bentley of USC won the event in 2:15.30, an American record. Brett Beedle of Pepperdine was second in 2:15.80. Kubiak’s time was the fourth-fastest ever by a U.S. swimmer.

Was he surprised?

“No. I was confident,” he said. “The time I went was my goal.”

And now his goals are a little loftier. “The Olympics have always been a dream,” Kubiak said.

That’s big talk for a swimmer whose interest in the sport took a nose dive just a few years ago. Kubiak stopped swimming competitively in high school because he was “burned out.”

Now, at the ripe old age of 22, he says he feels “like a little kid.”

“This is my first trip with the national team and it’s been fun,” Kubiak said. “It’s been a little hectic around here getting organized, but everyone on the team gets along great. I love to travel.”

Should he continue to do well, he’ll be packing his bags often. Next is the U.S. Open in Florida in December, then a European trip two months later and the Olympic Trials in Texas next summer.

Kubiak has earned his wings the hard way. He’s not exactly as graceful as a swan in the water.

As late as last year, Accardy, one of Kubiak’s biggest boosters, described his swimming technique in the following manner: “He’s not an outstanding kicker. He’s not outstanding at pulling. He doesn’t have a lot of arm strength or leg strength. He’s not as strong as I’d like to see him in the turns. If you look at him, it’s hard to say what happens out there.”

Whatever he does must work.