Kelly Long-Nordell

Richard Dunn

Her mother, Barbara Long, swears her daughter will come back one

day to Newport Beach, where the family grew up and many still live.

You can tell her mother misses her daughter being around a lot.

“Just as she took the job in Iowa (as head coach of the Des Moines

Swim Federation Club Team), all these other positions around here

opened up, like at UC Irvine and Golden West College,” Barbara said,

wincing at the idea of leaving Iowa after arriving only last

September. “One day, she’ll come back.”

Kelly Long-Nordell, a hugely successful women’s swim coach at the

University of Nebraska for 15 years, spent her first two years out of

college working in a different field and realized she was a fish out

of water.

An All-American swimmer at the University of Arizona and a former

Newport Harbor High standout, Long-Nordell answered a call one day in

1988 for an assistant swim coach position at Nebraska and has been

coaching ever since.

“I was fortunate to get (the job) in 1988,” said Long-Nordell, who

was living in Lincoln, Neb., because it was her husband’s hometown.

Eventually, Long-Nordell took over as association head coach at

Nebraska and guided the Cornhuskers to numerous Big 8 and Big 12

conference titles, including beating Texas for the first time in 1997

after the conference expanded.

She recruited, among other Nebraska All-Americans, Penny Heyns

(1992-96), a two-time Olympic gold medalist in the breaststroke for

South Africa at the 1996 Atlanta Games.

But Long-Nordell couldn’t resist taking over the largest swim club

program in Iowa and having the flexibility to raise her children

during their critical early years.

“It’s a good job, because it allows me to be with my three

children, too,” she said. “I have desires to be a head coach again at

the collegiate level, but sometimes you have to put family first. In

any sport as a head coach the demands on your time are incredible,

but it’s important to be home with your children.”

Long-Nordell and her husband, Robert, an English instructor, tag

team the child care of son R.J., 5, daughter Emma, 3, and son Peter,

15 months, and she also admits a longing to return to the

Newport-Mesa community, or anywhere near it.

“They keep moving me farther east, but I want to get back to

California,” she said. “They can take the girl out of California, but

you can’t take California out of the girl.”

When Long-Nordell (Class of ‘82) was a Newport Harbor standout,

after first learning to swim under Bill Jewell, the Sailors’ girls

team didn’t have the upper-echelon claim it does now.

“It’s funny -- my mom sends me newspaper clippings of the (Newport

Harbor girls) team,” she said. “When I swam, there were only one or

two high school All-American swimmers. Then there was Maureen McLaren

(circa ‘92), then all of the sudden all these really good girls

started to show up from Irvine Novaquatics. Now, for Newport Harbor,

it’s almost funny to see the success it is having after so many

years. The boys always did well, but not the girls.”

A former school-record holder in the 200-and 500-yard freestyles

at Newport Harbor, Long-Nordell these days is also Director of

Swimming for American College Connection, a nationally based

recruiting organization.

“Southern California has so much talent and there are a lot of

kids,” she said. “There’s so much money out there (for scholarships),

especially for women. A lot of kids think if they don’t go to

Stanford or Cal that they can’t get (a scholarship), but there are a

lot of schools out there, even Division II schools, that have money

to offer. It’s about helping kids find the right fit for themselves,

and that’s fun.” The company’s Web site is www.accrecruits.com.

As a club and prep swimmer, Long-Nordell was the undisputed star

on the girls team, while Newport Harbor’s boys featured standouts

such as John Moffet, Tom Harrison and Todd Lincoln.

Long-Nordell, who competed at the 1984 U.S. Olympic Trials, earned

NCAA All-American honors at Arizona her sophomore and junior years in

the 500 free and 800 free relay.

“Swimming has been good to me,” said Long-Nordell, the latest

honoree in the Daily Pilot Sports Hall of Fame. “I was fortunate to

be around great coaches and great athletes, and I carried a lot of

that work ethic into my own college coaching.”