Swimming Guide: When did you start swimming, and what led to becoming a competitive swimmer?
John Naber: Because of my father's business (management consulting) I was raised in Europe from age four to age eleven, playing European sports like soccer and cricket. I returned to the San Francisco Bay Area as an uncoordinated seventh grader, and joined the local recreational league swim team for a two week summer program. I did not swim again until I entered high school.
I enjoyed swimming on the team for a variety of reasons. First, it was a sport that was graceful and lacking in hard contact (I'm a lover, not a fighter, and on land I fell down a lot). Secondly, even though I was the slowest swimmer in the pool, I could gauge my progress against the stop-watch, and could feel successful, in spite of losing races. I earned the "Most Improved" award three years in a row!
SG: You were very successful in swimming, including the USA National and Collegiate areas and the Olympics. What do you feel helped you to recognize your potential? What was your motivation in the early stages?
JN: My motivation was always IMPROVEMENT! Starting at the back of the pack, the only reward I could consistently expect was the feeling of getting better (hence the name of my 1983 video program became "Gettin' Better: Championship Swimming with John Naber").
My father was most instrumental in helping me recognize this potential. Early in my career, he created a "spread- sheet" with the various swimming events across the top, and the various swim meets down the left column. After each meet, we would insert the time I did in each event in the corresponding boxes, and if it was a best time (fastest time in the column) we would circle it in a bright colored marker. At the end of the season, we could divide the number of circles by the number of entries to get an "improvement ratio."
Early in my career, I enjoyed a 70% ratio, meaning I did a best time seven out of ten races. That was the only number that really mattered to me. Later in my career, I decided if I went a full twelve months without a single best time, it would signal my time for retirement. (Luckily, that never happened).
SG: How did you, as a maturing swimmer, look at motivation - what was it?
JN: At the time I was swimming, I thought of motivation as an attitude you took to and from the pool. Like being polite, I thought everyone should try to be upbeat and enthusiastic, so I tried to keep a positive outlook on all things. My mom once gave me the "optimism test" where you fill a 16 oz. tumbler with 8 ounces of water. Instead of saying it was a glass half-full of water (or half-empty), I called it a glass FULL of water!
SG: How did that change as you developed and moved through increasingly challenging levels of competition...
