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- Subscribe - Contact Us - Rate Card - Place an Ad Archives Revels Classifieds Real Estate Guide Weather Subscribe Contact Us February 8, 2005 Future King of the pool By Ezra Mannix Tidings Correspondent The summer Olympics inspire countless young people to do great things. For one Ashland youth, the 2004 games turned a casual hobby into a full-blown passion. Swimming always came naturally for 15-year-old Dashiell King. Since the age of four, he paddled around the Pacific Ocean and the pools of Santa Monica, Calif., and, since age 10, was involved in club swimming and classes at the Ashland Family YMCA. Ashland High freshman swimmer Dashiell King pumps his fist after winning the 100-yard freestyle Feb. 1 at the Southern Oregon University pool in Ashland. Orville Hector | Ashland Daily Tidings Now, with just five months' training in tow, the high school freshman competes against some of the top prep swimmers in southern Oregon for the Ashland High and Superior Aquatics swim teams. "I watched it every Olympics, but never seriously. Then I watched it in Athens, and I found it very cool," King said. The August watching started a September frenzy of training and competing. Lenny Krayzelburg, Ian Thorpe, Michael Phelps and the rest of the world's fastest swimmers may have created more future competition for themselves. Of course, King has only been competing since September and the chances of making the U.S. Olympic team are slim, but his club team coach at Superior Aquatics of Medford claims King's speed as a freshman is exceptional. "I sent three kids to college on swimming scholarship," he said, "and none of them had Dashiell's speed as a freshman." "I am trying to become the fastest," said King. "Knowing there are faster swimmers out there, that's what keeps me motivated. I want to do this through high school and into college and past college. I want to try and reach a national level." Although others told him about his abilities, watching the Athens games gave him his inspiration "especially after learning about Krayzelburg coming back from a shoulder injury," he said. "I bugged him to go competitive since the second day I saw him," said YMCA coach Brian Brown, who tutored King for a year and a half for the Southern Oregon Stingrays, a club team. Despite a calm, soft-spoken demeanor, the aquatic racer doesn't take a "whatever" attitude toward the 50-yard and 100-yard freestyle sprints, his specialty events. "He has an internal fire," said Brown. "Besides internal fire he's a real hard worker. He'll find ways to be the best swimmer that he can." That internal fire needs to burn long and hot for the kind of training competitive swimming necessitates. In addition to on-land weightlifting and running, King swims anywhere from 2,400 to 7,700 yards a day in practice, depending on how soon his next meet is. It has been so intense the last five months that his body can't keep up. "I have been told I can be really good, so I am doing these really hard workouts. I haven't built up to it so my shoulders get tired real easily," he said. The results have come quickly so far for the racer, however. The term "personal best" is moot because he usually breaks those on a weekly basis. "Each time I get into the pool its like I'm getting my best time or near my best time." On Sunday, for example, King clocked a new personal best of 54.04 seconds in the 100 free and set his 50-yard mark at 24.64 seconds earlier that weekend. Both marks are from a club meet in Grants Pass. For his parents, Susan Marsden and Jeff King, their growing pains are in the form of a steep learning curve. "We walked in weeks ago and tossing this lingo around. We didn't know the difference between short-course yards and long-course meters," said Marsden, a part-time teacher. "It was all Greek and we've been stumbling around." A long course is 50 yards or meters and a short course pool is 25 yards or meters, by the way. Another challenge for the family was getting into the high school sports scene. King is home schooled and "when you're home schooled, team sports aren't always right at your finger tips," said Marsden. Oregon law allows home schooled students to compete with high schools as long as they pass required standardized tests. But the Grizzly swimmers, even the seniors, have been more than welcoming to King. "He was a little shy, but he has related quite well," said senior swimmer Geoff Berteau. "There's nothing to coach him on. Just some tips on his relay start. That's it." "I was a little shy, but they accepted me with open arms," King said. "I knew I could swim. It was just a matter of where I would place with everybody. "The class hierarchy doesn't matter. Everyone associates with everyone else." King knows how competitive the swimming world is. That's why he focuses on academics, plays guitar, tap dances and has his sites set on being a journalist. He's thought about reporting on himself if he does make a dent in the swimming world. "I wonder how I'd do that," he said. If he applies the same kind of energy toward journalism as he does toward swimming, maybe he could figure out how. John Berkovich is a correspondent for the Ashland Daily Tidings. 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