Mulville’s work pays off

Sean Mulville’s times fit in quite well with his teammates on the Laguna Beach High swim team.

The senior excels in the sprint freestyle events, as well as the 100-yard butterfly. Mulville and teammates Spencer Dodson, Robert Chew and Nile Koegel are also close to breaking the school record in the 200 medley relay, which Laguna assistant coach Ryan Fair helped set in 2005.

It all seems as if Mulville was one of those kids who was born in the water, swimming club from a young age and traveling to meets across the country.

But nothing could be further from the truth. He swam competitively for the first time last spring, after getting a phone call from Breakers Coach Kari Johnson.

“It sounded like fun, so I decided to give it a shot,” Mulville said. “I knew a lot of people on the team.”

Everyone knows Mulville now. He’s the kid who, through mostly just hard work, has earned a prominent place on the team that won league for the first time last year and looks for a repeat this year. Mulville is one of three captains for the boys’ team, along with Dodson and Chew.

Mulville started last year on junior varsity for the Breakers. Now, he’s swimming so fast that Johnson can hardly believe it. Improvements like that in a just a year’s time are relatively uncommon in swimming, she said.

“He was here last year for preseason,” Johnson said. “During preseason, not that many kids are here, because a lot of them are in polo, and the polo boys take time off after polo season until they actually have to be here. It’s a small group of about eight kids, and we go three days a week and he was there all the time.

“He started out at a 1:05 [in the 100 free]. That’s — I don’t want to say slow — but if you’re in competitive swimming and for a club team, it’s not that fast. He just kept improving, kept improving the whole season. He also just has a naturally beautiful stroke, as well. When we got to the end of the season, he went like a 53 [seconds]. To start at a 1:05, then four months later be one of the fastest guys on our team, it’s amazing.”

Mulville was formerly a runner for Laguna Beach, but he suffered an Achilles injury during his cross-country season last year that set him back. In a sense, though, he has transferred the dedication he used to show on the cross-country course to the pool deck.

After the swim season ended last spring, Mulville joined the Irvine-based Novaquatics club team.

“[Swimming] was the greatest thing to ever happen to me,” said Mulville, whose younger brother Colin is a freshman basketball player for Laguna.

“I thought it would be cool to do something besides running, because I had gotten injured and lost focus. My dad [John] was a swimmer, so I thought it would be kind of cool to follow in his footsteps. He warned me that it would be a lot of hard work and I probably wouldn’t get very fast, but it was really cool to get extremely fast.”

Mulville is getting to be just that. He broke a minute in the 100 butterfly for the first time earlier this season at the Mission Viejo Invitational.

He said he believes the boys — who did lose some talented swimmers from last year, such as Preston Head (UCLA for water polo) — have a great shot to repeat as league champions.

But Mulville’s reach is moving beyond just the Orange Coast League, too. Last year at CIF, he was part of a medley relay team that was an alternate but didn’t get to swim. Now, he said he has seven CIF Southern Section Division III consideration times and is hunting for those automatic times.

“He’s definitely one of our stars this year,” Johnson said. “He enjoys the sport and enjoys improving.”

Mulville also wants to keep swimming in college; he said he plans to go to Orange Coast College next year. But for now, he’s just looking to keep working hard.

After all, he’s seen the payoff already.

“It’s all up to you,” Mulville said. “What you put in is what you get out. If you work super-hard, then you can get really good. I like that part of it.”