Favorite USS experience(s) as Masters

Tim, Excellent post! Mentoring the "young guns" can be very rewarding. In addition to a good fight, it's what us Masters can provide USA Swimming. Henry

This is another old guy story. In my third meet as a USS Swimmer a 17 year old was looking at me as we stood behind the blocks waiting for our heat in the 100 yard fly. "How old are you. sir?" "44" "Well, at least I'll beat someone today." After two lengths I was only one body length behind this kid. I said to myself, "I think I can take him." And I did. Barely. But the best part was the comment I overheard from another of this young man's team. "What's the matter with you? You let that old geezer beat you." I'm 48 now and beginning my 5th year of USS Swimming. I LOVE IT.

OK, you've inspired me. This past summer our Base revived the Base Swim Meet, but with a twist, we had age groups for the kids, and the oldest age group was 15+. Prior to that, we had either kids' meets, or the "Base Meet" with only grown-ups. (OK, technically it's not a USS meet, but same concept.) It was a GREAT MEET; I'm surprised we never thought of this before. I was one of the co-coaches for the Base's Youth League team, and we got to swim against our swimmers, our swimmers' parents, on relay teams with kids and parents all mixed-up, including some family relay teams. Best of all, that 15+ age group had some real good competition--far better than 15-18 or an adult swim meet ever sees. But, my story: I was entered in the 50 fly & 200 free along with one of our better 17 yr olds. Neither one of us was talking big ahead of time, because we both knew it would be a real dog fight. My 50 fly was the perfect race. I shattered my PR (by .8 seconds, and I have been coming close to breaking it for only about the last three years), and out-touched him for 1st. I was thrilled, but the swimming parents on deck appeared to be as thrilled to see one of their own win the race. (Of course, my swimmer and another 17 yr old stud-muffin beat my brains out in the 200 free, so youth was ultimately served.) We then teamed-up on a relay. And BTW, I had given up on finding 3 other swimmers to form one, until my kids drafted me into their team. After spending a whole season juggling relay teams with last minute no-shows or scratches, I can't expressed how much I was pleased to see THEM pull the relay together. T'any rate, it seems to me that swimming USS meets is something we all should consider, especially if we would be there to see our kids swim regardless of whether we enter ourselves. Matt

Masters swimmers in USA meets aren't too common around here. I tried it this summer to get some LCM times. Unlike you speedy guys, I WAS dead last in one event. :D But in the 200m ***, I wasn't last, much to my surprise. Even being slow everyone was very supportive. I did overhear one kid, looking at the program, say, " Look, 44, that must be a typo. Nobody that old would swim here." Side note - I found warm-up with all those fast kids very difficult.

I've been in Masters swimming for just shy of 2 years now and started swimming USS meets again last Spring. Even at 26, it's a blast to get up and show some cocky kids a thing or two. It also keeps things in perspective: on our Masters team, I'm definitely one of the kids, but swimming USS I'm ancient. Go figure :) My favorite USS story is from a mini meet with my old club team last May. I was back in town for the weekend and my father came down to officiate as well. During the meet one of the parents timing was talking about his 10&under swimming in the meet and asked my father if he had a child in the meet. The parent then asked, "Well how old is your son?" Apparently the shocked look at "He's 26," was priceless. Of course, I just barely squeeked out the 100 fly over Bill Specht, so I wasn't even close to the oldest at the meet!

Since my husband and I have been swimming in USA Swimming meets for the last 5 or 6 years (in fact we're swimming in one next weekend) our participation doesn't garner quite the entertaining responses that it used to. The best one had to be at the Illinois Senior State Meet the summer of 1997 when Bob (at 33) had qualified for finals in the 50 free. After the morning swim we were talking to some of the kids we knew at the meet and overheard a couple of boys walking by talking about and in utter disbelief of "some old guy in biking shorts qualifying for finals". (The jammer had just started showing up at Masters meets but the kids had yet to start wearing them).

Me, I would stay away from teenage meets since many 9 and 10 and 11 and 12 year olds can beat me now. Being a middle age person who was average at their peak back in the 1970's and clocking a 100 meter breastroke time that is 14 seconds slower now than then, no way do I want to swim against age groupers. Now the 20 something lap swimmer is a different story.

I've been swimming on a 400y Medley Relay at local USS meets for several years now. We've even won a few times and made Senior National cuts a couple times. At present time our ages are 33-39-41-41. Each year the kids and coaches playfully make fun of us with all sorts of comments about canes, wheelchairs, etc. In a recent meet we took 2nd place. The next morning (it was a 4 day meet) I was in the locker room and overheard a kid in the shower say, "We finally beat those old guys last night; I've been chasing them for years!" Jeff Roddin