OLD TOWN – How confident is Jim Willis that he will attend the 2000 Olympics?

First, Willis coached the U.S. Virgin Islands Federated team at the Pan American Games last week in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Although none of the seven V.I. swimmers made it to a championship final, one athlete was two-hundreths of a second off of the Olympic cut in the 200-meter freestyle.

Second, the Virgin Islands can, and will likely, send one man and one woman to the Olympics regardless of who qualifies.

And third, the former Old Town-Orono YMCA coach scheduled his wedding around the Sydney, Australia, games next year.

Willis is in town this week after the Pan Am games. More than 40 people attended an ice cream party in his honor Tuesday at the Old Town High School cafeteria.

Willis left the YMCA’s Canoe City Swim Club last fall to move to the Virgin Islands and take over the St. Croix Dolphins swimming club.

Willis’ week at the Pan Am Games were eye-opening – the high level of competition at what is one of the three most important meets of the year, the treatment that participants get at international events, and the potential of the V.I. swimmers.

Willis had plenty of other adventures in Winnipeg. During one of his own workouts, he swam with the U.S. synchronized swimming team. The V.I. team stayed in the same hotel as the U.S. squad, where the islanders were treated to massages.

Willis also spent time with the U.S. national coaches.

But to his surprise, Willis wasn’t as nervous as he used to get before Maine state high school championship meets or YMCA nationals.

“Here, I sat back, I was much more relaxed, I guess because it was happening and there was nothing much more I can do,” he said.

Willis said his team’s best chance for an Olympic qualifier is George Gleason, who took seventh in the Pan Am consolation final of the 200-meter freestyle. Gleason finished in 1:55.34, just over Olympic time. He swims for Yale during the school year and spent the summer with the University of Southern California squad.

“It’s a great opportunity for him to swim for the Virgin Islands,” Willis said. “In the U.S., he wouldn’t be close to the national team, but he’s on our national team. He’s just starting to get the drive to compete at this level and I think that’s rubbing off on our kids.”

Regardless of who makes the cut, Willis said participating countries are allowed to send one woman and one man. Willis said Gleason and Ashley Allaire, who swims regularly for the Dolphins, would likely be picked.

Willis and fiancee Tami Chessa, who teaches third grade on the island, have gotten used to St. Croix’s heat and constant sun. They do worry about the chances of another hurricane like Hugo, which tore through the island in 1989 and decimated St. Croix’s economy.

St. Croix native Tim Duncan, now a star with the NBA’s San Antonio Spurs, swam for the Dolphins. But the program shut down when Hugo ruined the pool.

Duncan is a sort of hero on the island, Willis said, and claims to hold a national record in the 400-meter freestyle. Willis is still searching for proof of that.

“I saw a heat sheet with a time (of Duncan’s) that would be a 400 free record,” he said. “But that’s not really official enough.”