All Shook Down

Never conducted an interview during an earthquake, but it was bound to happen after living in Southern California for 22 years ... simply couldn't miss every single other one because of hockey road trips.

Rich Foster, president of U.S. Aquatic Sports and former president of USA Water Polo, was in his Long Beach office. I was a few miles away in my house. We had been talking by telephone about his newly released book, "Mark Spitz: The Extraordinary Life of An Olympic Champion."

"We're having an earthquake," Foster said at 11:42 this morning.

Seconds later, the shaking started at my house. But we kept on talking, and the telephone line didn't cut out, even though my house kept moving. "Uh, maybe I better get under a doorway," I said to Foster, half-remembering the one thing that you are supposed to do in these circumstances.

Equilibrium was restored. We went back to Spitz, who will most certainly be in the glare of the spotlight in Beijing as Michael Phelps tries to equal or surpass the seven gold medals Spitz won in the 1972 Olympics -- and rekindles the debate over who's the best-ever swimmer.

"The 'who was better' question is like comparing Mark to Johnny Weissmuller," Foster said.

His book project was hatched a couple of years ago during a long conversation with Spitz in an airport in Milan, Italy. Spitz started telling stories from his career, and Foster told him that he'd like to read his autobiography. Spitz replied that there wasn't one.

Foster tracked down almost all of Spitz's key rivals and teammates (sometimes they were one and the same) and wrote about his strengths and warts. The one elusive interview was Don Schollander (who won four gold medals at the Tokyo Olympics) and who did not respond to Foster despite six or seven phone messages.

The relationship between Spitz and Schollander was tense back in their days at the storied Santa Clara Swim Club. Spitz was driven to study Schollander, and all but stalked him in the pool. Here's how he tells it in the book:

Sometimes he would get irritated if I was swimming in the lane next to him and would move over a lane. I would quickly move over, too. If he moved to another lane, I would follow. I got a secret charge knowing I had the capacity to exasperate him.

For Foster, one of the more satisfying aspects of the project was tracking down Steve Genter in Switzerland. Genter, of UCLA, was Spitz's main rival in the 200-meter freestyle and finished second to him during the Munich Games despite suffering a collapsed lung a few days earlier.

His story and remarkable recovery are in Chapter 11, which is titled "What If?"

The night after the surgery to repair the collapsed lung, Genter stayed up and worked on exercising his right arm in five-minute intervals and could move his arm with no pain by the next morning.  Foster told him that long night of exercise must have been boring.

Foster recalled the conversation on Tuesday: "He said, 'Don't tell me about boring. I'm a swimmer.' "

(Foster's publisher is Santa Monica Press, which is retailing the highly entertaining book for $24.95.)

-- Lisa Dillman

Photo: Seven-time Olympic gold medal winner Mark Spitz places a medal on Michael Phelps after the 200-meter individual medley during the U.S. Olympic swim trials in Omaha on July 4. Credit: Mark J. Terrill/Associated Press Photo