Swim Team: Concluded

Before camp started, swim team ended. And it ended with a citywide swim meet. As you may know from past posts, I have not been happy with swim team nor my swim coaches. In fact, I was to the point where I wanted to get them back. I'm not sure I'm proud of it, but I did indeed get them back, and I think it's a story worth telling.

So I went to the citywide. My events were the medley relay, 50 free, 100 breast, 100 free, and free relay, in that order. The medley relay and 50 free were the first day, and the other three the second day. For the medley relay, I swam hard and tried to get a good time for my team. But the 50 free... Well I front-flipped for the entry. In the grand scheme that's not that bad, But there is nothing that frustrates my coaches more. By the end of the day, they were livid. It was actually kind of funny to see how immaturely they acted about it. One of them actually flipped me off.

But that was the beginning of it. Second day, I showed up earlier than I needed to and played racquet ball with my fellow swimmers. I swam regularly at the 100 breast (to their relief). But at the 100 free, I repeated my original stunt. And this time, it turned out that the swim meet people weren't very happy about it. So I got kicked out of the swim meet.

What was bad about this was that I wasn't able to swim for my free relay, and my team had to swim exhibition (they got to swim but it didn't count). I realize now that what I did was kind of immature but that feeling of righteous anger made me feel really invincible. It was the last time I would see my swim coaches and there was nothing they could do to me.

Eventually I apologized to the swim coaches, because I did regret being such a jerk. But at the same time it was still kind of funny. Well that was the end of swim team. I'm not sure if I'm going back next year, but if I am there'll be new coaches and maybe a new experience, so who knows? We'll all have to wait and see.

More On Swim Team

I'm no good at waking up on time for things. I'm just not. It's not really my fault. It's just that sometimes, I don't really have a choice. I'll set my alarm clock, but then in the morning I'll wake up at ten as if it hadn't gone off. And it's not like I woke up and turned the alarm clock off because I was lazy; rather, I didn't wake up and I apparently turned it off without knowing it.

So yeah, it's a common occurrence for me to be late to swim team or to miss it entirely. And yes I understand that my swim coaches are upset with it (as am I, I wish I was more capable of being there on time). But when my bike broke down this morning and I had to use my little brother's midget-esque one to get to Lowell pool, I thought the water balloon that met me on the way in, with me fully clothed with electronics in my pockets, was a bit excessive. They thought it was hilarious.

As I took off my sogging clothes and put on my swimsuit, I could hear them shouting at me to hurry up and get in the pool. Ugh, I though to myself, it's seven-thirty! Shouting at me is not going to get me to go any faster! But they of course still shouted at me and got their water balloons ready for the next boy to show up late as I walked up the stairs and dived into the cool water.

There were three lanes for us that morning, as there usually was, and I quickly moved over to the far lane with my two good buddies, David and Lucas. With all respect that's due, I am usually a faster swimmer then them. So it was kind of frustrating when the swim coaches moved me to the back of the line. I asked them why and they said it was because they wanted us to swim that way. I just don't get that. We're swimming in the lane - aren't we the best people to decide what the order should be? If that isn't pointless micromanagement then I don't know what is.

Frustrations and annoyances kept piling on as they yelled at us and made us swim more whenever we forgot to to flips, or turns. Morale was low and I was pretty mad by the time I got out of the pool. The fact is, and I'm not exaggerating, my swim team coaches are the most anal-retentive people I know, and it is really getting to irk me. And whenever we complain they ask us, "Why did you sign up for swim team if you didn't want to swim?"

And here's my answer - "Sure we signed up for swim team because we wanted to swim. But nowhere did we say that we wanted to have to put up with getting up at seven in the morning every weekday, getting screamed at for not doing flip turns, yelled at for not being in the pool, and soaked for not being on time all for the sake of swimming! That stuff has nothing to do with the swimming - those things we could do without."

It seems to get worse with the coaches all the time. If it weren't for the fact that swimming is so healthy and such a good habit for me, I would really want to just quit swim team to get away from them. But I'll have to just keep swimming and try to show up on time for the remainder of July.