Inside of Ted Webster Pool, Kuba Kotynia can look downright mean.

You get the feeling if swimming were a contact sport Kotynia would be the resident enforcer. Prior to his races, the Poland native paces along the edge of the pool, with his headphones on, isolated from his teammates. Five events before the 100-yard breaststroke, Kotynia loitered in the corner of the building. He squatted into a froglike position and swayed left and right, staring straight ahead, with the song, ‘Mortal Kombat’ blasting in his ears.

Two and a half hours of continuous mental preparation produced the same results it has all year for the freshman. He dominated. In the Syracuse men’s convincing 199-87 win over Villanova, Kotynia (pronounced kot-TEE-nia) placed first in the 100 breaststroke (0:58.38), 200-yard breaststroke (2:04.95) and the meet-opening 200-yard medley relay.

‘I really try to focus on my swim,’ Kotynia said of his preparation. ‘I isolate from the environment.’

Added SU head coach Lou Walker: ‘He is a very focused young man. He knows what he wants to accomplish, and he gets it done.’

All it took was replacing one Polish star with another. Following the graduation of Luk Boral, who is also from Poland and qualified for the NCAA Championships three times at Syracuse, the men’s breaststroke hasn’t missed a beat. In Syracuse’s five dual meets, Kotynia has finished without gold in only one event. After the stress-free win Saturday, Kotynia’s stone-cold demeanor morphed into a relaxed grin. For only being in America seven months, his English is impressive. But it’s his facial expressions that do the talking.

‘I’m really happy for my times and for the team,’ said Kotynia as his cheeks stretched horizontally into more than the average smile. ‘We did a really good job today. The boys really dominated.’

Kotynia is in position to do damage at the Big East Championships on Feb. 20 thanks to a lights-out performance at Nike Cup in November. His first-place 200 breaststroke time in that meet (2:00.63) ranks second in the 11-team conference. The automatic NCAA qualifying time is 1:57.09. Kotynia is also is just a shade more than one second from first in the 100 breaststroke in the Big East, at seventh, with a time of 0:56.09.

Not too long ago, Kotynia planned on transferring to another school. Yet when athletic director Daryl Gross announced the swimming teams will stick around for three more years on Jan. 15, Kotynia decided he would too. And now he’s staring into Boral’s rear-view mirror and the school record in the 200 breaststroke (1:58.07) and 100 breaststroke (0:55.36). He even met Boral at the team’s meet at Seton Hall.

The intimidating presence Kotynia exudes during the meet only tells half the story. The man teammates call ‘Koobs,’ is known as one of funniest guys on the team.

‘He is a fun kid,’ Walker said. ‘Sometimes you might think that if you’re business in nature than you’re a sourpuss. But I think that when you are structured and get stuff done then it lets you be happy. (Kuba) is a lot of fun to be around. He’ll make you laugh.’

Added sophomore women’s swimmer Katelyn Schumacher: ‘Everything Kuba says is funny – just the way he talks with enthusiasm. He could be talking about the weather, and it’d be funny.’

Still, Kotynia had a rough introductory to the states.

‘The first two weeks were terrible,’ said Kotynia, who added that a soccer player, a soccer coach and a professor were the only people he could speak Polish with at SU. ‘I couldn’t understand anyone. My English was so terrible.’

Regardless of language, communication for Kotynia is rare during meets. With his mind on his race and either techno or heavy metal in his ears, Kotynia has only one objective, and it may carry him to the NCAA Championships in late March.

‘When I’m here, I don’t care about anything else but the race.’

thdunne@syr.edu

Published on February 3, 2008 at 12:00 pm