Coaching Memory

I've been coaching for a long time. If you count the years I was an assistant for the Selma Aqua Bears, I believe I am on my 14th year of coaching. With so many years, I have many great memories, and memories of so many great people; swimmers, parents, and coaches alike. I have some very distinct memories that are some of my favorites though, and I am going to write about one of those great memories I have.

This story is not about some amazing swimmer accomplished something great, but when I felt like I really did make an impact.

First of all some back story, I coached in a small town of around 23,000 people, and it is a farming community. I grew up in this town, and I had become the Head Coach of the High School Team at the young age of 20 years old. One year a young man who was a sophomore joined the team. This young man could barely swim (most high school coaches know what I mean, literally, could barely make it a 25). My JV Coach took him and put fins on him to show just the idea of not kicking with your toes pointed to the bottom as if trying to walk in the pool. This young man though was never academically eligible his whole high school career, and my JV Coach told me that he probably wasn't going to be eligible this time either. Well, he wasn't and he wasn't able to swim on the team. He was allowed to participate in some practices that didn't interfere with tutorial after school. He continued to come 100% of the times he could. He went to every home meet and supported the team, and was a timer at almost every meet. At the end of the season, I talked to him, and he really wished he could have been part of the team. That summer he joined the summer league team and swam for me. He made a lot of improvement, but still wasn't all that fast.

He came out to the High School team again his Junior Year, and this time, for the first time in High School career he got a GPA above a 2.0. He was able to join. I always talked about working hard with the team, and don't expect things to just come to you. I talked about not settling for mediocricy, and strive to be the best that you can be. He told me that he took that same effort I talked about for the pool, and finally applied it to school. That was cool, but the story goes.

This Young Man didn't have a lot of money. I'd guess his parents were both farm laborers. He talked about that he lived his grandma, and I'd always see him riding his skate board from the pool. I don't know if his parents had a vehicle. He described his skateboard rides to morning practice, so I had an idea of where he lived, and that part of town is not a nice part, and it sounded like it was a dirt road to his house. No one in his family was educated, and I'm sure he was one of the first to graduate high school. He accomplished a lot during the time that I coached him. He joined the football team his senior year, and actually got some playing time even though it was his first season. He missed his goal of making Divisionals in swimming, but he dropped over 4 minutes in his 500 Free over the two years he swam for Selma, and he loved that event.

The best moment was after practice one day he told me that he took the Special Forces Test for the Navy, I believe. He told me that he was there with about 7 other guys, all of which were athletes, and there were some water polo players, but he was the only one that was only a swimmer. Only two of the eight kids were able to pass the physical test, and he was one of them. He told me that he was surprised how conditioned he was compared to the others.

It's funny, but that moment was great. To hear from a young man who when I met him he was pretty much not good at much, and who had been failing academically, and he could join a sport like swimming, and be motivated to change the way he did things. Maybe I did have something to do with it, but the sport was the vehicle. Swimming allowed him to achieve what he wanted to do, and he was able to go on and go into the Special Forces Unit. Hard Work made him become a better person, and a better swimmer. He didn't become national swimmer, but he took away from the sport. Would he have found the motivation without swimming, maybe he would have, but what did happen, was that the sport did motivate him to learn how to work hard.