Flame flickering anew

Like a lot of club swimmers who begin training at a young age, Eddie Erazo eventually reached the burn-out stage toward the end of his high school career. But, unlike most, he was able to rekindle his competitive flame to become a factor on the national scene as a collegian.

Erazo, 22, who completed a noteworthy career at UC Irvine in the spring, will swim the 100- and 200-meter butterfly at the U.S. Olympic Trials, which begin Sunday and continue through July 6 in Omaha, Neb.

An 11-time Big West Conference champion who earned Male Scholar Athlete of the Year laurels at UCI in 2008, Erazo is ranked No. 4 in the United States and No. 15 in the world in the 200 fly, his best event.

He will be vying for one of two berths on the Olympic team in both events, though he admits his chances in the 100 fly are a longshot at best.

Erazo, who was sixth in the 200 fly at the 2006 national championships and was eighth in the event to earn All-American honors at the 2008 NCAA championships, said he entered UCI with the intent of swimming only to protect his scholarship.

“I was planning to quit swimming after my first year of college,” said the former star at Mt. Carmel High in San Diego, who made the junior U.S. national team when he was 15. “Then, I was going to quit after my sophomore year.”

It was after his sophomore season, however, that Erazo qualified for the 2007 Pan American Games, where he finished second in the 200 fly last summer with a breakthrough performance in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

“He dropped more than three seconds with a time of 1 minutes, 57 seconds,: UCI Coach Brian Pajer said. “That’s a huge drop.”

It is Pajer who deserves some of the credit for resurrecting Erazo’s career.

“I think he understood I wasn’t real motivated when I entered UCI,” Erazo said of his coach, who will accompany Erazo as well as UCI swimmers Randall Tom (100 fly), Chris Rosales (100 breaststroke), Chelsea Nagata (women’s 100 fly) and recent UCI graduate Lindsey DePaul (100 and 200 fly, 200 and 400 individual medley and 200 and 400 freestyle) to Omaha. DePaul is representing the UCI-based Aquazot Swim Club, for which Pajer is a coach.

“He was pretty lenient with me and didn’t put any pressure on me,” Erazo said. “I think he realized I needed a little time for my motivation to come around. And his patience paid off.”

Erazo said when he came to UCI, he looked at swim workouts as an obligation. But, after qualifying for the Pan Am Games, he said that changed.

“I decided that if I was going to put so much time and effort into training, I might as well have a goal and strive to achieve something,” Erazo said. “As a freshman, I was going to practice because the coach wanted me to. My junior year, I was going to practice to accomplish something.”

So, he began investing in future success on a daily basis, targeting the Pan Am Games as a tangible payoff. Still, the results in Brazil were as surprising as they were rewarding.

“When I went 1:57 and won a silver medal, I shocked myself,” Erazo said. “That really boosted my confidence level.”

Erazo then set his sights on the Olympic Trials, as well as his senior season at UCI. He said he could not have trained any harder.

“I’m pretty confident,” he said before leaving Thursday for Omaha. “There’s no question I think making the Olympic team [in the 200 fly] is a goal within reach. I’ve thought about it every single day for a long time and it has been a large part of my focus in training. I just need to swim and make all the hard work come to fruition. I shocked myself [at the Pan Am Games], so I wouldn’t rule out the possibility of shocking myself again.”

Pajer said Erazo is primed for another big performance.

“He is trained to go 1:55 or 1:54,” Pajer said. “I think it will take a 1:54 to make the team.”

Erazo’s hard work in the classroom helped him add to his honors in the pool. He will earn his degree in psychology and social behavior in the fall.

Erazo, who competed in the 2004 Olympic Trials, where he finished second to last with a time of 2:10, Pajer said, all but confirmed this will be his last year competing at the highest level.

He said he looks back on his first two years at UCI with mixed feelings.

“I’m not sure it was a waste of time or a needed maturing period,” Erazo said. “I think it was a time when I was trying to figure out who I was and what I was trying to do with my life. But I think I realized how much I wanted to work to make up for those years. I could not have trained any harder the last two years. I worked overtime and I had so much more drive. I pushed my body to the limit. I have no regrets.”

Erazo hopes the same will be true of his experience on Omaha.

BARRY FAULKNER may be reached at (714) 966-4615 or at barry.faulkner@latimes.com.