Aquatic Center In Federal Way A Far Cry From Old Swimmin' Hole

-- FEDERAL WAY

There's only one thing scarier to me than teetering on top of a 10-meter diving platform - plunging off.

Even though I was dressed right, the latter wasn't on my agenda. Even if there was a 17-foot-deep cushion of water and nobody was looking.

"Kinda makes you feel a little weak doesn't it, but the view is just wonderful up here," drawled Ramona Esguerra, 39-year-old assistant manager at the pool.

HANG-ON TIME

Esguerra, my guide on a tour through the vast Weyerhaeuser King County Aquatic Center, needn't have worried. I was hanging onto the railing with clenched fists, mindful of a pool expert's caution that a wrong landing meant an "instant sunburn."

If trying to find your reflection almost 40 feet below the tower doesn't make you dizzy, the sheer size of the $18 million aquatic center will keep you busy.

It holds 1,560,403 gallons of treated water in three separate pools, two of them with underwater viewing windows for coaches and photographers. It seats about 2,500 spectators. It has an elevator, concession stand and vending machine that sells "100 percent pure juice, no sugar added." It also showcases some of the world's best swimmers and divers.

A lot of people find the size intimidating.

"I'm not embarassed to tell you that when I first started working here I got lost," said Esguerra, a North Carolina native who has worked at several smaller King County pools. "Because it's so

big it's hard to build intimate relationships."

But many South King County residents aren't aware that the big facility with the powder blue roof at 650 S.W. Campus Drive in Federal Way, also is open to the public.

Many South End residents think it's just a pool for competition events.

GOODWILL RECORDS SET

Pool managers and workers say they hear the same story all too frequently, "We didn't even know it was here." Which isn't surprising, considering its remoteness.

The 50-meter competition pool broke in with a bang on the first day of the 1990 Goodwill Games - three athletes broke the world's record in the 200-meter breaststroke.

As one measure of the competition pool's size, it takes 16 hours to clean the bottom with a remote-controlled vacuum cleaner. Several of us watched the thing glide around like a giant sting ray, sucking up hair and grit.

When the competition pool isn't being used for a swim meet or training, it's open for public lap swimming. Usually that's every day from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. and 6:30 to 8 p.m.

But there's also a 25-yard-long recreation pool built to hold up to 65 people. The depth ranges from 1 inch to 4 feet and the water is kept at a temperature of 86 degrees, making it ideal for theraputic purposes and for kids like 5-year-old Whitney Rock of Federal Way, who is just starting to swim. If you like it hot but aren't such a hot swimmer it's also a great place for a workout, as I discovered one recent morning. An hour's outing cost me $2.

The men's dressing room is where I met Federal Way residents Barry Wolf and Lloyd Bourne, participants in an exercise class for arthritis sufferers. Started by Esguerra, the class was recently expanded to five days each weekday morning from 9 to 10 a.m.

"I feel guilty because I'm paying $1.25 (the senior rate) to come in here and it's like having my own private pool," said Wolf, a retired government official who broke his back 11 years ago. "But as a taxpayer I'd love to see more people get involved with it."

"Oh, this is a fantastic place," says Bourne, a retired machinist.

His wife Ruth also is a class member.

But Bourne says many people either are unaware the aquatic center is in Federal Way or lack transportation to get there. He wants South King County senior centers to bus the elderly to the pool.

WHEELCHAIRS WELCOME

The recreation pool also can accommodate people in wheelchairs - they just wheel them right into the water. The county may buy waterproof wheelchairs to keep handy for those who don't want to get their own chairs wet, Esguerra said.

Laird Chambers, manager of the aquatic center, said the county stresses competitive swimming and diving, water polo and synchronized swimming there.

Last month,, for example, a pre-Olympic qualifying swim meet was held with about 340 swimmers from the U.S. and Canada. Tomorrow through Sunday is the Canadian League water-polo championships and later this month the Washington state boys' high-school swimming and diving meet.

"Every event if it's a swimming event is slightly different," said Chambers, whose crews can move around two flow-through bulkheads for different configurations in the competition pool. He says running the center is almost like running the Tacoma Dome, another multi-use facility.

During most competition events, the recreation pool stays open and many people continue to use it even though they may have to park farther away than usual. It hosts lap, family and public swims, as well as aquarobics classes.

Or you can rent it by the hour and throw a party.

General admission for the pools ranges from $1.25 for senior citizens to $2.35.Gift certificates and pool passes for up to a year also are available.

"Things are starting to pick up some," said Esguerra, who took up swimming eight years ago after a friend drowned in the Yakima River. "I think a lot of it is New Year's resolutions."

But Chambers doesn't worry whether the aquatic center is being underutilized for recreation since it is relatively new and people still are getting used to it.