By NICK BAUMGARDNER, The Daily News
It's been said that everyone has one true calling in life, and that what separates the fortunate from the rest is whether a person ever finds that natural niche.
For Claire Donahue, that moment came easily.
"My family always says that they just threw me in a pool when I was about 2 or 3, and I just started swimming," Donahue says. "I think I'm just supposed to be swimming."
Born to compete and born to excel in a swimming pool, Donahue's calling in life led to Western Kentucky history earlier this month when she placed a school-record second in the country in the 100-yard butterfly event at the 2011 NCAA Swimming and Diving Championships in Austin, Texas.
Donahue's time of 51.68 broke her own school record in the event and was 1.2 seconds shy of a national championship. Combine that feat with her school records in the 100 and 200 butterfly, along with her eight individual Sun Belt Conference titles, and Donahue's name could be forever cemented as the best women's swimmer ever to compete at WKU.
Even Donahue herself hasn't grasped the gravity of her accomplishments. But even so, the 5-foot-7 swimmer from Lenoir City, Tenn., won't just leave WKU as one of the best swimmers ever. She'll leave as one of the top student-athletes the university has ever had.
"It's hasn't sunk in all the way," she says. "But knowing that I've been one of the best is exciting. It's also a good confidence-builder going forward."
Making history
After breaking the school's 100-fly record as a freshman, then again as a sophomore in 2008-09, Donahue made more history as a junior in 2009-10 when she became the school's first female swimmer and the second person in WKU history to qualify for a finals session at an NCAA Championship meet.
An All-American as a junior, Donahue placed a school-best fourth in the country in the 100 fly as a junior, setting the stage for a senior campaign that had no ceiling.
"Usually my goals are very high and they're pretty realistic," Donahue said. "After (nationals) last year, I was 51.97, which was my fastest time. I started planning goals this summer and started to really look at them for the up and coming year and what I wanted to do was win.
"I was happy with fourth, but I wanted to do better. I wanted to win, and to get a better time by about a second because I've dropped about a second each year."
So Donahue set out to do the only thing she knew how to do - win.
She went about her business as usual, training for the upcoming season - spending long, grueling hours in the pool at WKU's Preston Center. And while she had several goals, including individual and team conference titles, for her final season at WKU, her ultimate sights were set on one final swim in March at the Lee and Joe Jamail Texas Swimming Center in Austin.
And after capturing her second straight Sun Belt Women's Swimmer of the Year award at the conference meet in February, the time had come to put four years of work into one race that would take place in the blink of an eye.
"Going to conference and getting a good time was cool, but there were two and a half weeks between then and NCAAs and I always get very nervous," she said. "It's a huge competition and one of the fastest in the world.
"There's a lot going through my head at that point. It's hard to explain, but when you get up on those blocks and you don't hear any cheering or anything, then you dive in and all that nervousness goes away."
From there, Donahue raced deeper into the WKU history books, coming up just shy of her ultimate goal of a national title, but finalizing an accomplishment that she never thought possible when she was tossed into a swimming pool as a child.
"I probably should've looked at my time first, but I looked up to my place and thought I saw third - and was actually OK with that," Donahue said. "But then I saw second, and was just really excited. I wanted to win, but second's still pretty good. Then I looked at the time and I was just very happy."
Leaving a legacy
Swimming and diving coach Bruce Marchionda has no doubt about where he thinks Donahue ranks as far as the all-time greats to swim at WKU.
"On the women's side you'd have to say yes, she's the best our program's ever had," he said. "Being that close to winning a national championship, it might be another five years or longer before we ever get someone at that level again.
"This was our goal all along, but for her to actually go out and do that was just amazing."
Though her accomplishments may seem to be solely of individual merit, Marchionda says Donahue's success has given WKU swimming something that perhaps has no finite value.
"What she's done for us is put Western Kentucky swimming on the national map," he says. "That will open future doors for recruiting that in the past we may never have had an opportunity to even talk to. For those recruits to see her success is worth so much just for that.
"And also for our swimmers already here, she's made it so that if you want to accomplish some high lofty goals, you can do that here in our program."
Dubbed as a "blessing in disguise" by Marchionda, Donahue first caught WKU's eye while swimming at Lenoir City High School, where she captured the Tennessee state 100 fly championship as a senior.
Marchionda said that he and his staff saw major potential in Donahue back then, but weren't able to see how far she could go until getting her on campus as a freshman.
From there, Donahue did the rest.
"If you look at her and lined up our team and asked someone to pick out who finished second at the NCAA national championships, you probably wouldn't pick her out," he said. "But what she has inside with work ethic, determination and heart is what's gotten her to where she is.
"Obviously she has natural talent, there's that intangible characteristic that all the great athletes have. For her, you can see it because she's so competitive with no matter what we do. With anything. And that competitiveness separates her from other people."
Surging forward
Claire Donahue's swimming career at WKU may be over, but her life in the pool is far from done.
The nursing major says she intends on sticking around with her Hilltopper and Lady Topper teammates for another year and a half while she trains for the 2012 Olympic Trials.
Donahue has already made the cut for the event, which will begin June 25, 2012, in Omaha, Neb.
Should she finish in the top two at that event, Donahue will then become a member of the United States Olympic Team for the London 2012 Olympics.
The ordeal still seems surreal.
"I've always had high expectations and set high goals for myself," she said. "But I never thought it would be like this."
So as one chapter closes, another opens for Donahue.
She'll leave behind a lasting legacy, some seemingly untouchable swim records and a new standard for all that follow her inside the highly-successful WKU swimming and diving program.
And though it hasn't sunk in just yet for Donahue, Marchionda says that once she's gone for good, the chances of anyone coming along quite like her will be small.
"When she finished that last race, knowing she wouldn't be able to compete for our team any longer it was just like 'how do you replace that?' " he says. "And the answer is that you don't. You hope you can only bring someone in and develop them to come close to that level again.
"When that last race happens, there will be an emptiness for sure. Because the opportunity to work with someone like her is very few and far between."
