Newsday (Suffolk Edition) from Melville, New York • 114

C18 NATIONAL SWIMMING CHAMPIONSHIPS Sports Newsday Photo Paul J. Bereswill Stanford freshman Jessica Foschi, an Old Brookville resident, practices for today's Phillips 66 National Swimming Championships at the Nassau County Aquatic Center at Eisenhower Park Controversy is only a memory for happy Foschi By Alan Hahn STAFF WRITER So much has been said and written about her. So many fingers have been pointed, and so many voices have accused. Jessica Foschi's first moment in the national spotlight was more like a blinding lamp of interrogation. The sport that absorbed her since she was 6 years old, swimming at her family's country club, had suddenly thrust her into a confusing drama of international scandal and moral outrage.

Ever since the Old Brookville teenager was exonerated of charges that she used a performance-enhancing drug in an August, 1995, national competition, the harsh words quietly have been recanted. The fingers have stopped pointing, the voices reduced to mere echoes. And that unrelenting light finally has dimmed. In her sport, Foschi's name still bears a familiar ring. But she earned that distinction well before the accusations of steroid use and before she ever heard the word "mesterolone" or willingly took a polygraph test at age 15 to prove her innocence.

"It's hard to say exactly what has come of all of that," Foschi, 18, said. "It's definitely in the The healing time has allowed her to blend back into her generation's landscape. She is a college freshman now, and she's happy. "College has been wonderful," Foschi said, beaming. "I love Stanford." She spent the past week at home, fresh off a weekend in Georgia, where Stanford finished second at the NCAA championships.

She wasn't happy with her performance 17th in the freestyle final (16:39) and 11th in the 500 freestyle in the consolation final Foschi will compete today in the Phillips 66 National Swimming Championships at the Nassau County Aquatic Center at Eisenhower Park. She will swim today in the 800-meter freestyle and on Tuesday in the 200 free before heading back to Palo Alto, on Wednesday. EVERYBODY IN THE POOL What: Phillips 66 National Swimming Championships. Where: Nassau County Aquatic Center, Eisenhower Park. When: Today, 800-meter freestyle preliminaries begin at 9 a.m.

and the finals start at 4 p.m. Monday through Thursday, preliminaries begin at 9 a.m., with finals at 6 p.m. Tickets: For the preliminaries, tickets are $4 for adults and $2 for children. Tickets to the finals cost $6 for adults and $4 for children. Swimmers To Watch: Chad Carvin (Laguna Hills, Calif.) is back in the pool after quitting twice in the past four years because of injuries.

Tom Dolan (Ann Arbor, Mich.) and Ashley Tappin (Laguna Beach, Calif.) are looking to match their performance at last year's Spring Nationals, where each won four events. Lenny Krayzelburg (Studio City, Calif.) and Lindsay Benko (Los Angeles) are among the many top swimmers. Top Local Swimmers: Brendan Neligan (Molloy), Dan De Marco (Great Neck South) and Ryan Semels (Portledge) lead a group of local high school swimmers who qualified for individual races. Old Brookville's Jessica Foschi (Stanford) and Syosset's Adam Shaw (Harvard) also are scheduled to swim. The championships, hosted by U.S.

Swimming, are more of an excuse to extend her spring break, Foschi admitted. After swimming at the Pac-10 conference championships (March 11-14) and the NCAA's, she is exhausted. "Last weekend was so emotionally draining," she said. "I'm just looking to enjoy myself." Her longtime coach, Dave Ferris of the Nassau Long Island Aquatics Club, said he didn't expect Foschi to be at her best. "I can see a lot of people in her position passing it up," he said.

"I think she wanted to come home and swim for her family and for her team." She was one of Ferris' prized pupils for a club he started in 1979. In 1992, Foschi and Merrick native Ken MacFadyen became the club's first swimmers to make the National Junior Team. Foschi won national junior titles in three freestyle events that year, and in March, 1995, she finished second to Janet Evans, a four-time Olympic winner, in the 800 at the Spring Nationals. Foschi was only 14 then and already considered a hopeful for the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta. Then controversy flared in November, 1995, with reports that Foschi failed a drug test taken at the Summer Nationals that August, in Pasadena, Calif.

National and international swimming officials handed down punishments, and the sport's extremists, still upset about a host of drug positives from elite Chinese swimmers earlier in the decade, wanted to make an example out of her. Throughout the 19-month ordeal, Foschi maintained her innocence, saying she never knowingly took the performance-enhancing steroid known as mesterolone. There was even speculation that her urine sample was sabotaged. "I'm one of those people who are like, 'I'm a good girl, I try to do the right Foschi said Thursday. "It hurt me." She was banned by the international governing body, FINA, which later was ordered to drop the ban and pay her $10,350 after a ruling by an arbitration court in Switzerland.

She was placed on probation by U.S. Swimming, but later was allowed to compete in the Olympic Trials in 1996, where she finished fourth in the 800 freestyle, two places away from qualifying. The accusations finally ceased when she was cleared of all charges in June, 1997. To her credit, Ferris said, Foschi never wavered. "Grace under pressure, he called it.

"It was a great lesson for myself and others." She went on to earn scholastic All-America honors in 1997 and '98 as an independent swimmer for Friends Academy, which does not have a varsity girls swimming program. She parlayed her high school and national success into a scholarship to one of the NCAA's elite swimming programs. Stanford has placed in the top two nationally for 11 straight seasons. The school has a pretty good academic standing, too. "I'm really happy with my situation," Foschi said.

"You couldn't ask for a better Of course, her mom would prefer her daughter to be closer to home, but Margaret Foschi proudly announced, "I 1 figured out how to do e-mail this year." Jessica lives on the other side of the country, but an image of her dreams remains on a wall of her bedroom in the Foschi home. It is a photograph of the Olympic aquatics center in Sydney, possibly the site of her next moment in the spotlight. With all she has been through, it will be hard to deny her..