Wednesday, January 27, 1999
Spreading her wings
Former walk-on Beth Goodwin metamorphoses with her improvement
in the butterfly
By Steve Kim
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
There she goes again, that Beth Goodwin. Win, win, win, that’s
all she seems to do these days.
It’s quite a change from a year ago, how she now goes undefeated
this season in her best event, the 100-yard butterfly, and how
she’s reaching out to different events, such as the sprint
freestyle, with surprising speed.
Surprise is the word that best describes everyone’s reaction,
including herself, when this sophomore came out of nowhere to
unexpectedly place third in the Pac-10 Championships last year,
with her best time of 54.66 seconds. She burst onto the scene among
top-notch butterflyers and hasn’t looked back since.
Consider a caterpillar. Slow, awkward and inconspicuous with its
environment. Nothing worth a double take. Then it wraps itself in a
cocoon and becomes a hermit for awhile. What a bore.
Then watch what emerges out of that constricting layer. A mature
butterfly, spreading its wings to fly free. Talk about a
metamorphosis.
Goodwin didn’t necessarily pop out of a cocoon, nor did she look
like a worm as a juvenile, but with the way she swam at the Pac-10s
she might as well have. She was a virtual unknown prior to that big
meet, and her calm, quiet game face didn’t help her gain a
reputation as a stand-out.
"Actually, I was really shocked at what happened at the
Pac-10s," Goodwin said. "Then I realized I worked hard to belong
there. Weight training definitely improved my time, and the team
spirit here makes you feel like you can do anything."
Even more unexpected is that Goodwin is a walk-on. Although she
was a YMCA national champion in the butterfly, she wasn’t highly
recruited. So she took the initiative and contacted colleges
herself.
She tells a story of how she as a high schooler took out a map
of the United States to decide where to go for college. She
narrowed her choices down to a mere 25 states and wrote to all the
schools in the areas she wanted to live. One of her favorite
locations was Los Angeles.
"I wanted to go as far as I could just because I really wanted
to be on my own, to see what it’s like," the Maryland native
said.
Her solicitations were bold and unconventional, but they
worked.
"She wasn’t so fast or experienced that I would go out of state
to recruit and offer a scholarship," Goodwin’s coach, Cyndi
Gallagher said. "But she kept writing letters. She was persistent.
I liked her letters, I liked her attitude, so I thought if she
really wants to come here, let’s bring her out."
By the time Goodwin was a high school senior, she improved her
swimming to the point where some colleges offered her big
scholarships. Even though Gallagher’s offer was much smaller,
Goodwin was intent on attending UCLA.
So she made her way to Los Angeles only to find that life at
UCLA wasn’t exactly what she had in mind. First off, she wasn’t
used to all the swimming. Back home she only had one swimming
session a day, whereas here, she has two swims plus weight
training.
"It was discouraging," she said. "We do a whole lot more yardage
here than I was used to. Although I know I made the right decision
to come here, at the time, I felt like I didn’t know anyone and I
didn’t know if I really belonged here."
"She was so over her head and broken down," Gallagher said. "She
never had this kind of program. She was getting passed by her lane
mates, she didn’t understand what we were doing and she never swam
so much in her life. You could tell she was talented, but she
didn’t come in at the same level most of the kids came from."
Goodwin adapted. She said putting headphones over her ears and
getting immersed in her favorite music helps her relax and get over
that hump. She insists training is still difficult, but finds room
to have fun with it now and then.
"I try to make training a little fun," she said. "It’s hard
enough as it is, so I try to spice it up and tell some jokes to my
lanemates.
"And I really focus on the sprints," Goodwin added. "I use all
my energy to go as far as I can in the sprints. I like to make it
as hard as I can in practice so it’ll be easier in
competition."
After her "small town to big city" transition period, she got
herself adjusted just fine. In fact, the girl who was once a quiet
mouse is now rather a social butterfly.
"I came here and I was so shy," she said. "I’ve always had
trouble talking to boys. But when I get to know people, which takes
a while, I’m myself and crazy. I do have piercings and yes, I’m
kind of crazy but I’m mostly conservative."
Crazy? Not any more crazy than the average Jane, or Beth, or
whoever. Take away the training she has for half her day, and she’s
just another college student.
And like most college students, Goodwin’s had to find out that
if you want the grades, you’ve got to put in the time.
"Last year I wasn’t as interested in school as I was into
swimming and being social," Goodwin, who’s leaning toward an
anthropology major, confessed. "This year I’ve put in hours and
hours in the library, and I’m seeing a dramatic improvement. I’m
really excited because I now know what to do and how to do it. It’s
just going to get better."
Funny, so does her swimming.
Goodwin is making changes in her lifestyle to accommodate her
athletic schedule. No more late nights chatting with friends in the
dorms and no more undernourishing herself, she said.
"Last year I went through what freshmen usually go through, so
this year I’ve decided to change a lot of things outside the pool,"
she said. "I used to go to bed at two at the earliest but now, I go
to sleep around 10 to midnight. Eliminating all the bad habits out
of my routine will hopefully help me a lot."
All this sacrifice is geared toward one goal to swim faster. Her
times this year are considerably lower than her times a year ago at
this point in the season. As the Pac-10s approach again, Goodwin
wants to confirm her validity as a top butterflyer and do the same
at the NCAAs.
"I want to place at least third in the Pac-10s and hopefully
higher, so I know last year at the Pac-10s wasn’t some random
occurrence," she said.
Goodwin doesn’t care about how many of the nation’s fastest
swimmers, such as the NCAA champion in the 100 fly, are
concentrated in the Pac-10 conference. Her coach attributes
Goodwin’s competitive nonchalance to her relative inexperience in
the sport.
"Sometimes people get intimidated by swimmers in big meets,"
Gallagher said. "She just goes and races anybody because she
doesn’t know who they are anyway.
"She puts no limits for herself," Gallagher said. "It’s all a
matter of confidence, and she has the confidence to win. She had
confidence when she came in, when she shouldn’t have really,
against these fast swimmers."
She’s a tough cookie, that gutsy Bethany Allison Goodwin. You
never know what surprise she’ll pull next.PATIL ARMENIAN/Daily
Bruin
Sophomore swimmer Beth Goodwin has recently excelled in the
freestyle events.
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