Karen agreed (reluctantly) to be our first swimmer in the Swimmer Spotlight section. With such a stellar career as an Olympic champion, world record holder, Div 1 swim coach and all around role model extraordinaire, it makes you wonder what there is to be reluctant about...or, more importantly, what the rest of us slackers do when we are called upon for the spotlight. (I am already pulling together a Milli Vanilli resume for the day I call upon myself for this duty.) But thank you, Karen, we really appreciate you doing this!

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Q & A with Karen Moe Humphreys

• You won your gold medal and set the world record in the fly. Was that always your favorite stroke or the one you were fastest at (or both)? I think butterfly became my favorite stroke after I started winning butterfly races, at about age 12. The 1650 was the first event I swam at nationals, at age 15. How about now? Now I would say that backstroke is my favorite, because I can breathe anytime I want. Except when we are in the shallow pool, then “push of the bottom porpoise stroke” is my favorite.
•  You obviously dedicated a great deal of your youth to swim workouts and now you still work out 6 days a week.  What keeps you going all these years? I didn’t swim regularly from 1976, after my second Olympics, until 2000, when I started with the (then) Lamorinda Masters. I started swimming again because I wanted to get more exercise and improve my flexibility and balance. Racquetball had been my main exercise/recreation and I was feeling lopsided. I started at two times a week, and then moved to three a week. It wasn’t until my nest emptied in 2004 that I started swimming 5-6 times a week. Now that I am retired and a caretaker for my parents, starting most every day with a nice swim not only helps keep me fit but also sane!
• What are the one or two biggest changes you have seen in swimming since your youth?  The biggest change I have seen is professional swimming; good swimmers can keep at it into their thirties if they want. Are they for the better or worse? I think that it is for the better. I would have loved a longer career.
•  Do you still compete at Masters events? I have competed in five meets or so in the last ten years and a few more open water swims. If so, do you get butterflies before an event (no pun intended)?   I always get butterflies before I compete or perform. I tell myself what I always told my kids – it just means I that I care and want to do well.
• You have been on both sides of the fence as an elite level swimmer and coach. What were your toughest challenges as a coach? A tough thing for me as a young coach was establishing boundaries between my responsibilities and the swimmers’ responsibilities. I thought that if I was a good enough coach and tried hard enough I could make everyone a good performer.  I learned that the swimmer ultimately has control of that. Has that changed your perspective as a swimmer? Not really, but if I were to coach again, I would make that point clear with every swimmer early in our coaching relationship.
• As an accomplished athlete, did you face added challenges as a mother so as not to push your kids too much?  I think the opposite. Because I had had success as an athlete I did not need to live through my kids like so many parents, who were frustrated athletes, seem to do. Did any of them end up swimming?  Both my kids swam summer league, and my daughter swam through high school. If so, how was that for you?  Because we like to take beach based vacations, it was important to me that my kids liked the water and were competent swimmers. I am definitely glad they swam and still love to swim and body surf with me in Maui!
• Have you ever had figgy pudding?  I can’t recall.
• What excites and frustrates you most as a Masters swimmer? I love diving into warmish water early in the morning at Soda for my regular swim. It is such a lovely “back to the womb” feeling.  I get frustrated a bit with repetitive, redundant sets and practices. Really, there are infinite ways of designing practices, even if you want to make them all total 3000 yards. J
• What changes do you foresee for swimming over the next 10 years? I think that the ranks of fitness swimmers may continue to grow as more and more people realize how important exercise is to healthy living.
• Why do you think the Australians go crazy over swimming yet in the U.S. it seems to only be popular during the Summer Olympics?  I can think of a couple of factors. One is that the vast majority of Australians live near a coast so they are naturally more aquatic oriented. Another reason is there are fewer professional sports and athletes there to compete for attention with the swimmers. Of course the great success the Australians have had in international swimming must help its popularity too.
• Do you still follow elite level swimming?  Yes I do. Who is a swimmer you admire (past or present) and why?  I admire Natalie Coughlin because she has persevered through so much and along with her Cal coach she “did it her way”. . She had an unbelievably successful NCAA career, and is a master technician and competitor. What do you do for fun?   Just about everything I do, I do for fun. “Fun is what you bring to the party” is one of our family mottos.
• You make swimming fly look so easy. What is a single tip you would pass along for swimming it better? Thank you for saying that my fly looks easy; it no longer is easy for me to do. One tip I would give is to focus on keeping your legs high in the water so you can “swim downhill”.
• What book is on your bedside table? I have a Kindle on my bedside table and two Christmas presents books: 1) Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game that Made a Nation and 2) Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide.
• Who do you think is better looking, Ronnie or Donnie? Which one is which? (smile)
• I know you are a Bruin but you have a lot of Cal ties. So, when do you think the Bears will finally make it back to the Rose Bowl for god’s sake? I don’t know about next year, but I can guarantee that the Golden Bears will be back to the Rose Bowl in 2011. Cal at UCLA, on 10/01/11.
• Do you have a point of view on the controversy over the fast suits that the elite swimmers wear, some of which have recently been banned? Since the sausage suits helped some swimmers more than others, I think it will be fun to see what happens in the next year without them. I kind of wish I had tried one out to see if I could feel faster. I competed in nylon suits so I was perturbed when my World Record was broken by someone wearing Lycra! Of course she was also taking steroids!
• What Olympic swimming event would you add if you were Queen?  100 IM, which would have a 2 yard stroke switching zone in the middle of the pool.
• What’s your greatest swimming memory? I can’t distinguish one greatest moment, there were so many great ones – and I am still making them! Each time I marched in the Olympic Games Opening Ceremony was incredible as was standing on the Olympic Podium, singing our National Anthem, watching three USA flags be raised for our 200 butterfly sweep.  I also have terrific memories from my swimming travels to the (former) USSR, East Germany, and People’s Republic of China, all places that were closed to most people at that time.
• What is the key to getting more adults interested in Masters swimming? I think that getting people to focus on the fun and fitness aspect can help. Plus it is an activity that can be done forever.
• As an elite level athlete and coach, it must make you crazy when you see a swimmer do something obviously wrong. If you didn’t have to bite your tongue and could smack someone on the head and say “Stop doing _____” what would your most common critique be? I AM known for doing the occasional intervention, though never with a head smack. My most common critique would be on freestyle, people starts pressing their arm straight down immediately on entry, without reaching forward (engaging scapula), getting their forearms vertical, keeping elbows close the surface and armpits open. EVF- early vertical forearm is the key to freestyle happiness. Swimming with a saggy, wiggly body is another common error. It is important to hold a rigid shape like an ocean kayak.
• What are the three things on your bucket list?  
• Maui Channel Swim
• Babysit my grandchildren (yet to be conceived)
• Return to the Philippines, my birthplace.
• What question haven’t I asked you that you wished I had? Don’t know.
• What was the stupidest question?  This one.
• Do you think I have a promising future as an interviewer?  For sure.
• Who should I pick on, I mean interview, next? Rob Lewis