Early-Morning Motivator

<p>There's something about jumping into a swimming pool before dawn that can remove any fun from a workout.</p><p>It's Hermine Terhorst's job to be the early-morning motivator/inspirer and the results she's produced with the Santa Rosa Masters swimmers are eye-popping.</p><p>Terhorst, who can make Dick Vitale seem like an introvert, is your one-woman swimming shop center. She coaches, she instructs, she competes, she organizes meets and lake swims and in her spare time she campaigns for a 50-meter pool in Santa Rosa.</p><p>And the testimonials for Terhorst don't stop.</p><p>"She brought interest to the Masters and intermingled swimming with Pilates," says one of the club's top competitors and age-group record holders, John Morales, 49. "The Masters has quadrupled in size since since she started coaching."</p><p>"Until Hermine showed up, we weren't a real team," says Santa Rosa Masters swimmer Hilary Hafner, 47, whose swim times in her age group rank in the top-10 in the country. "Our team spirit is incredible. I just love it."</p><p>Some remember the Masters, actually a class offered through Santa Rosa Recreation and Parks for $50 a month or $5 a session, when it was a group of about 10 loyal pool goers.</p><p>Now the Masters, with about 40 regulars, 80 members and an average age between 45-55, is one of the most popular classes offered by the Rec department. The Masters practice each weekday at 5:45 a.m. at Ridgway Pool, a Santa Rosa city facility.</p><p>Terhorst, who has been the head coach of the Santa Rosa Masters program for six years and began coaching 10 years ago in Saint Helena, said she more or less stumbled upon her calling.</p><p>"I remember thinking the night before my first practice as a coach I had no idea what to say," Terhorst, 49, said. "I was terrified of the idea of talking in front of 20 people. That morning, I found my voice."</p><p>Terhorst, a single mom whose daughters Penleope and Sophia Yamauchi are standouts with the Santa Rosa Neptunes Swim Club and at Montgomery High, said her life revolves around swimming.</p><p>"Swimming has brought so many amazing things into my life," Terhorst said.</p><p>Joyce Hodgkinson, 62, joined the Masters four years ago for some exercise. She swam as a youth but not much as an adult. She quickly discovered the morning swims offered more than time in the pool.</p><p>"Hermine is a gold mine," she said. "She's making people healthy."</p><p>Hodgkinson trains teachers for USF and said the connection to teaching and coaching is readily apparent.</p><p>"Hermine can break down an aspect of every stroke, how to kick, how to breathe," she said. "A good teacher is a good coach."</p><p>Workout times are early because of the overuse of the pool. The Neptune youth swim club also practices at Ridgway as do high school swimmers during the school year. Terhorsts fights for whatever times she can get and won't take "No," when told extra pool time requires extra lifeguard time.</p><p>"Hermine is a strong advocate of staying fit and healthy," said Don Hicks, recreation supervisor who oversees Ridgway and Finley pools. "You have Masters swimmers who keep active in their 70s."</p><p>Terhorst doesn't really care about a swimmer's ability. She has taken virtual non-swimmers, like Jeff Scharfen, and turned them into water lovers.</p><p>Scharfen, an English Literature teacher at Cardinal Newman High, said he could barely swim 50 yards when he joined the Masters when he turned 50. Now he can swim 3,000 yards in a workout.</p><p>"My stroke was awful, my kids would make fun of me," Scharfen said. "Hermine is a wonderful coach and a good leader. She inspires us to work hard."</p><p>Scharfen even takes part in competitive meets and can swim a mile or two miles across lakes, which the Masters combine with campouts and barbecues.</p><p>Scharfen said he never imagined he'd be swimming the distances he's doing now or swimming competitively, but attributes his new love of swimming to Terhorst and his Masters teammates.</p><p>"All the swimmers help each other out; there's a lot of assistance," he said. "Hermine invests her whole heart in coaching. She really cares how you're doing. She doesn't break you down, she builds you up. Some coaches are screamers, but she's not that way."</p><p>While Terhorst doesn't require all her swimmers to compete in meets, most of them wind up taking part.</p><p>This year the Santa Rosa Masters have won both short and long course Pacific championships for medium-size teams, even beating the strong Olympic Club of San Francisco in the latter meet.</p><p>Hafner, whose specialties are the breast stroke and individual medley, said the camaraderie among her teammates is unmatched. They've printed up T-shirts with the words, "Our coach is hotter than your coach."</p><p>Team members also wear shirts with the city of Santa Rosa emblem with a thunderbolt through it, "Flower Power."</p><p>Recently the Santa Rosa Masters held a Donner Lake swim and this month there will be an Alan Lui Memorial swim in Mountain View, for the Mountain View coach killed on his bicycle in Santa Rosa.</p><p>Earlier this year, Morales won his second consecutive Pacific Masters Swimmer of the Year award and Terhorst won Pacific Masters Coach of the Year, as well as being nominated for U.S. Masters Coach of the Year.</p><p>Morales, who, like Terhorst, is looking forward to turning 50 so they'll be the youngest in their age group, said the only downer about masters swimming is having to get up so early in the morning.</p><p>"Sometimes at 5:30 it's hard to drag yourself to the pool," Morales said. "Having a coach who is always enthusiastic helps."</p><p>You can reach Staff Writer Rich Rupprecht at 521-5275 or rich. rupprecht@pressdemocrat.com.</p>