I was surfing the web for my swimming class to find a couple of articles on swimming, when I came across an anecdote that was so funny I almost died laughing:
I teach group and private swim lessons at our local Y and am constantly amazed and entertained by the comments from the kids. Last year, little Ben, 5 years old, was swimming backstroke, eyes to the ceiling, goggles bigger than his head, blonde hair falling in his face. I'm watching from the side, signaling to kick and streamline. All of a sudden he yells out "Miss Barbara!""What Ben?" I reply, still making kicking motions with my arms. And loudly comes this little voice echoing throughout the pool "I want to eat you like a strawberry!". I thought the lifeguards were going to fall out of their chairs. What could I say? "Keep kicking Ben, just keep kicking!"
I didn't use this for my class (it's not copyrighted by the way, and it's not my personal story), but it made me realize that there's got to be a lot more swimming humour out there.
(Of course I could mention the time where I smashed my head twice in one lap swimming backstroke. They moved the backstroke flags!)
I'm interested to hear more...
Summer swim season....cross-training by riding bikes then returning to the pool for workout. Kept the bikes on the deck so they wouldn't get stolen. Teammate lost control of his bike and splashed down in the deepend. Laughed the rest of practice!!!
Originally posted by CCSR79
I was excited when the stroke clinic coach let us use the last 5 minutes of practice to jump out of the board.
Since when do you jump "out of" a board? I always thought you jump off a board. You make it sound like you're being fired out of a cannon!
Maybe this is some sort of regional thing.
Anyway, back in high school a teammate accidently swam a 250 instead of 200 freestyle at a dual meet. Since he was ahead everyone turned and followed him. When he finished he told everyone he did it just to see if they would follow!
I hadn't been on a diving board since I was at least 12 (I'm 25 now). As a kid we used to jump out of it every week. So of course I was excited when the stroke clinic coach let us use the last 5 minutes of practice to jump out of the board.
So I was the first one there, and kept bouncing at the end, and when I finally went for my dive, I had gotten way too much propulsion from the board that I just flipped, with my body completely straight, mind you, and hit the water with my back. Very embarrassing and painful!
Not swimming, but it has water in it: I ran in the state JV cross country championships as a sophmore. I was leading at the halfway point, when I had to make a hairpin turn on a slick surface. I slipped, fell over an embankment and ended up in a creek. I got up and finished fourth. It was a very dry and sunny day and everyone else finished merely sweaty, while I crossed the line covered in water, mud and blood. The look on my coach's face was worth losing the race.
-LBJ
Just this weekend my six year old daughter came to my masters meet with me. My daughter was in her bathing suit since she was able to swim in the shallow side of the pool. Near the end of the meet she went to get change as I was talking to some friends. As I walked towards where our things were I saw her running back towards the locker room with her underwear in her hand. She ran by me, suddenly stopped, and whispered to me, "Mommy I had your underwear." If you can imagine how tiny she is compared to me I just can imagine her expression when she notice that she had mine and not hers.
Last year I was a part-time assistant coach for a beginner level USS team and heard this story from the head coach the day after it happened. The head coach told the swimmers to put their fins on for the next set. All the swimmers put their fins on and started the next set. Imagine the coach trying to keep a straight face after having to stop one of our swimmers, who was really having a hard time swimming, because he had the fins ON HIS HANDS!!We laughed so hard we had tears in our eyes when she told me about it. Every time I see that child or think about it, I can't help but smile!
About 25 years ago I was part of the Cederdale Swim Team along with a big handfull of other year round swimmers. It was a cold miserable summer day with ominous clouds looming above. We were all fully decked out in our sweats, under towels and none of us wanted to strip down or get wet. We knew we'd kill the other team because we had more "ringers" than they did and the other team knew it too. The people were standing around trying to figure out what to do when myself and a few friends decided to take matters into our own hands. We reached up and rattled the plastic corrugated roof of the shelter we were under. The other coach heard the noise and said to the officials, "I heard thunder and I don't want to risk the safety of my team so I forfeit." My friends and I and all our team mates in the area looked at each other in horror which quickly turned to knowing smirks. We had just won the meet without getting cold. :D
As an age-group swimmer, I swam at a summer pool that had only 5 lanes. Visiting teams always got to pick their lanes for the meet, and never before had a visiting team NOT chosen lanes 2 and 4 (so that their swimmers never had to have an outside lane.)
One of the guys on the team had this great idea of smearing vaseline on the walls at the ends of lanes 2 and 4 just at the very end of warm-ups before a particular meet.
And that day for some unexplainable reason, the visiting coach decided that he would select lanes 1 and 3 for his team.
