Swimmers

The Central High swimming team might be the best-kept secret among dynasties in Public League sports. Yesterday, the Lancers eased to their 11th straight co-ed league championship by defeating the Central Region, 52-25, at William Penn. Although the swimming talent is so spread out in the city that the league has four regional teams, Central High has been a legitimate scholastic power for years. One year, Lancers coach Frank Conway sent six swimmers to Division I schools.

Two Cuban swimmers who disappeared from a Puerto Rican training camp appeared on television last night, saying they planned to defect to the United States. Nubis Rosales and Daimara Munoz, members of Cuba's national women's swimming team, were interviewed by WLII-Channel 11 with Sergio Ramos, a lawyer known for helping Cubans apply for asylum. The pair had disappeared Tuesday from camp in Vega Baja, about 20 miles west of San Juan. "It was difficult to do. I left my mother, my sister," Rosales said.

With the help of 50 volunteer painters Saturday, the walls assumed their appointed colors: beige outside and white inside. The roofing, plastering and masonry already had been done by hundreds of other construction volunteers over several months. Barring unexpected delays, the 2 1/2-year dream of thousands of Northeast parents and young swimmers will be realized Dec. 7, when the Northeast Philadelphia Swim Coaches League swimming center opens at 11100 Academy Rd. It was community effort that built the center - with a lot of help from a $50,000 city grant and an estimated $800,000 worth of free labor supplied by members of area construction unions.

Two gutsy swimming performances brought the United States its first two gold medals of the Olympic Games yesterday, and coincidentally infused the second day of competition with gripping excitement. While the Games of Greed gouged thirsty fans $5 for a glass of lemonade, the water at the Georgia Tech Aquatic Center was user-friendly. Especially so for lanky Tom Dolan, a kid who could moonlight as a submarine if only he breathed correctly, and the U.S. 4x200-meter relay team of Josh Davis, Joe Hudepohl, Brad Schumacher and Brian Berube.

The endless practices and the mind-numbing weekly yardage in the pool can really affect a swimmer's psyche. So many swimmers find ways to get away from their monotonous schedules. Suffice it to say, Dave Gladney's choice for relaxation isn't the norm. Gladney, a Gloucester Catholic senior, is a drummer in a band called Absolute Illusion. It usually performs once a month at the Down to Earth Coffee Shop in Mount Holly. The band was formed during Gladney's freshman year and plays mostly modern rock mixed with blues.

In her first two years in high school, Upper Darby junior Beth Grube made an impact in three sports: cross-country, swimming and track. But she realized that for her to really excel at her best sport - swimming - something had to give. So after some hard thinking over the summer, she decided to pass on cross-country in the fall and concentrate fully on her winter sport. "It turned out to be a very tough decision," Grube said. "I feel like I grew up on cross-country, and I was so used to running in the fall.

Council Rock's Tricia Harm was equally thrilled and shocked yesterday at West Chester University after one of the best individual performances in District 1 swimming in years. Harm, a senior, set three meet records and helped the Indians' 400-yard freestyle relay team clinch the title with a meet-record effort as Council Rock outlasted West Chester East, 159-144, for its second straight Class AAA crown. Nick Fanslau won four gold medals and helped North Penn cruise to its 14th straight boys' team title.

Leon Holliday has 200 yards to swim. Waiting for the starter's gun, he hikes up his knee-length cotton shorts, with a pocket dangling inside out. Leon doesn't dress for speed. In fact, he doesn't swim for speed. He expects to finish last, and he doesn't care. When the gun sounds, he dives off the edge of the pool instead of a starting block. His coach stands at the end of his lane, rooting for him to finish rather than win. "I don't care if he comes in tomorrow," she says.

Dan Reichert, always gentle and genuine, agreed to an encore five years ago. They're still applauding for him - and the Fab Four. Not the Beatles, but the quartet of West Chester East swimmers Kelly Nelson, Caitlin Meehan, Erin Meehan and Meredith Chapla. For four years, all four athletes earned high school all-American honors. Reichert was with them every stroke of the way. "Danny is one of the great people any of us have known," Caitlin Meehan said. "You want to swim well for him more than yourself.

Two gold medal-winning U.S. swimmers were ordered sent home from the Olympics yesterday and kicked off the American team for stealing a bust from a Seoul night club. Just hours after collecting their second gold medals of the Olympics, American swimmers Troy Dalbey and Doug Gjertsen were in police custody, accused of taking a marble lion's head from a hotel and parading it around the streets of Seoul's honky-tonk district. Robert Helmick, president of the USOC, said Dalbey and Gjertsen had expressed profound regret and offered to resign from the team during a morning meeting with the board in same hotel where their trouble started early yesterday morning.