ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, June 13, 1996 TAG: 9606130015
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-3 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG
SOURCE: RAY COX STAFF WRITER
Your skin is under nearly constant assault from a relentless and potentially deadly barrage. The hours are long and the pay is often short. The furniture in which you sit for the main part of your job affords a nice view but is mostly uncomfortable.
The summertime life of a swimming pool lifeguard has tribulations that include sunburn, a paycheck that occasionally hovers near minimum wage, and a towering poolside chair whose seat is almost as hard as the entrance requirements for Harvard.
Yet despite not being even a remote approximation of ``Baywatch,'' being a lifeguard has to rank among the great summertime jobs. Those who are fortunate enough to hold such employment don't have it just because they look splendid with a zinc oxide nosecoat and a whistle hanging jauntily from their tanned neck.
The bottom line is they have to have a demonstrated ability to keep the customers off the bottom of the pool. To do so means that the intrepid lifeguard must be a swimmer of uncommon skill.
Marcella Broache of Christiansburg earned her seat on the lifeguard's tower at Ridgewood Swim Club with an aquatic education that started at an early age.
``I took my first swimming lesson when I was 3, and was swimming [competitively] in the summer league when I was 4,'' she said. `` I liked it so much that I continued with the team that winter.''
Now, as a recent graduate of Christiansburg High, she's still at it, keeping watch over games of Marco Polo and telling young speed demons not to run on the concrete apron. She also still swims competitively, being a member in good standing of the Radford-based Southwest Aquatic Association team, an organization known better by its acronym SWAT.
She's done well, too. Every year since she was 12, she's gone to the YMCA summer nationals to compete against others her age from all over the country. The past two years, she's qualified for the even more competitive YMCA winter nationals.
Her specialty is the butterfly, a jerky, sometimes awkward-looking stroke that when done correctly, resembles the rising and falling glide of a dolphin traveling through a gentle sea.
Before moving to Christiansburg during elementary school, she had grown up in Charlottesville, where she first joined a swim team. When the day arrived for the coach to demonstrate the butterfly, Broache turned out to be the most accomplished pupil.
``It just happened to be something I was good at,'' she said. ``I don't know why.''
The coach worked with her on the side, certainly glad to find somebody he could regularly pencil into an event that some consider swimming's most difficult.
Broache took to it instantly.
``That's true of a lot of good fliers,'' said swim coach Bill Beecher, who has worked with Broache for years. ``Part of the struggle of becoming a good flier is to overcome the mental barrier that it's a tough stroke. Once they get past that mental part, they find out that it really isn't that tough.''
The butterfly has taken Broache far, particularly the 200-meter version of the race. Soon enough, she'll be swimming at the collegiate level at Division I Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio, which is an interesting story in and of itself.
Broache and her father, a computer specialist, were flipping through the Internet one day and he came upon information about a book put out by the American Swimming Coaches Association that covered most of the college swimming programs in the country. Also included was the best times accomplished by its swimmers the previous season.
Thus knowing where her ability would allow her to fit in and contribute, Broache settled on Xavier.
``I liked everybody I met and they made me feel like a part of the team right away,'' she said.
Another selling point for Xavier, as far as she was concerned, was that it is in the Atlantic 10 Conference, meaning that she'll get to swim against old SWAT teammates such as Karen Manning and Whitney Norton, who will be competing for Virginia Tech.
Beecher is one who believes Broache faces a bright future as she splashes through the collegiate waters.
``She'll do well as a team member,'' he said. ``The team is much more important in college swimming than in United States Swimming [the governing body for junior swimming]. In USS, you're always swimming for time. In college, the coach comes up, puts his arm around you and says, `We need you to get a first here.' He's cheering for you, your teammates are cheering for you. I think Marcella will do very well in that type of situation.''
The story of her life could be summed up by saying add water and stir.
Said she: ``I have been swimming most of my life that I can remember.''
LENGTH: Medium: 92 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: RAY COX/Staff. Marcella Broache of Christiansburg earnedby CNBher seat on the lifeguard's tower at Ridgewood Swim Club with an
aquatic education that started at an early age. color.