“She’s very light in the water,” KU swim coach Clark Campbell said. “Her stroke is real simple, without a lot of extraneous movements. It’s almost like a J.R. Giddens jump shot. It’s just very fluid, and it hits the target.”

Gruber is having a terrific senior season for the Jayhawks.

Earlier, she was named Big 12 Conference swimmer of the month and national swimmer of the week by CollegeSwimming.com. The latter honor caught her off guard when Campbell left word on her answering machine.

“I was totally floored and had to re-check the message,” she said. “It was a real big shock to me. I never thought I would get that at all.”

Gruber has come a long way since she was the only swimmer on her high school team in Bigelow, Ark., a town with a population of less than 500.

“We listed the principal as her coach because we didn’t have a swim team,” said Roger Palmer, a counselor at Bigelow High. “She had to go over to Hendrix College in Conway to practice.”

Gruber established Arkansas high school records in the 100 and 200 freestyle and in the 100 backstroke.

“She turned out to be a real golden nugget,” Palmer said.

Club coach credited

Campbell attributes most of Gruber’s skill to her background as a club swimmer.

Gruber swam with the Little Rock Dolphins under the tutelage of coach Paul Blair, who deserves most of the credit, Campbell says, for refining her techniques.

“Paul had her probably when she was 8 years old,” Campbell said. “Paul is one of the best club coaches in the United States, and that program has set her up for collegiate success.”

Gruber caught everyone’s attention with her performance at the Nike Cup Nov. 18-20 in Chapel Hill, N.C.

She won the 100-meter freestyle event with a time of 49.70 seconds, the sixth-fastest college time in the event this season. That clocking met the NCAA’s A standard, making her the first KU female swimmer to accomplish the feat.

Gruber added second-place finishes in the 50 freestyle (22.90), the 100 butterfly (54.58) and the 100 backstroke (56.14).

Three of those four times were personal bests.

“I think her setting that A standard, sort of like that Roger Bannister four-minute mile, is a barrier,” Campbell said.

Now that the barrier has been broken, Campbell thinks her teammates will benefit.

“Now that we have one that’s done it, they see that it can be done,” he said, “and I think we’ll have a few more do it.”

Full potential

Meanwhile, Campbell will count on Gruber to continue to set an example.

“Probably from the nonability side and from the mental side, it’s that Amy just made a choice to be great, and to achieve her fullest potential,” he said. “That is why you coach, to see athletes make that choice to just tap out their potential.”

Now, imagine how hard it will be for Gruber to hang up the goggles and swimsuit competitively at the end of the year. That is exactly what Gruber is preparing for, so, naturally, she has a new focus this season.

“Really, this year, I’m just giving everything I have, because I know that it’s my last year swimming,” she said. “I’m just trying to give 100 percent every race, be at the end and know that I gave my all and I have nothing left. I don’t want to look back and say, ‘What-if?’ or anything like that.”

Gruber’s ultimate goal is to finish at least 16th or higher at the NCAA Championships in March and qualify for All-American status. That would be the final bauble on a heavily jeweled crown.

Like nearly every other young swimmer, Gruber once had Olympic dreams. They’re still in the back of her mind, but it would equal another intense four years of training. Like many college seniors, she is ready for other things.

So is Gruber really going to call it quits?

“For now I am,” she said with a sly grin. “But things could change.”

KU’s swimmers will resume competition Jan. 15 in a dual at Nebraska, then point for the Big 12 and NCAA championships in late February and mid-March.