I love the stories about who motivated you to start swimming. They're usually great stories. Let me start by telling you mine.
I was with about 7yrs. old and at a 20yd indoor Grand Rapids West YMCA pool, during a "free swim".
The lifeguard was the YMCA Director named Tom (about 25 or so at the time). I knew how to do the breaststroke pretty good for no formal coaching (my older brother swam competitively). It was a Saturday and there were about twenty screaming kids in the pool until Tom blew his whistle. He yelled at everyone to get out of the water and you could hear a pin drop (someone had to be in trouble). He pointed at me and told me to come over and see him. I thought I would pee right there. I didn't do anything anyway, I told myself, and he shouldn't be yelling at people so loud, I thought. I was thinking of what I might have done in the last few minutes as I walked slowly his way until I gulped and stood silent waiting for him to say something. He said to everyone, "You're a pretty fast swimmer and I want to race you across the pool". I was looking at him as everyone of the kids started hooting and hollering. "Well" he said, "Let's go". He told me that we'd be doing the breaststroke. I wanted to race, I wanted to win, even if he was bigger. When he said go, I raced and he sure looked like he was going as fast as he could, and ---- I won. He looked exhausted after that long 20 yard swim, I know I was really tired but I beat him fair and square. He spent about five minutes explaining that someone as fast as me should be on the YMCA swimming team. I couldn't believe it, he wanted me to join the team, heck, I didn't even know they had a team. Well, I almost hyperventilated as I told my mom and dad that I wanted to be on the swim team because I'm the fastest little swimmer that coach had ever seen. I've been swimming and coaching (I wanted to be a coach like him) ever since.
To this day, that one man changed my life by doing something I try to do as much as possible and that's; find something good someone's doing and, only if it's sincere, lavish as much praise as possible onto that someone. Tom did it for me and I hope I can keep doing it for other people and swimmers, young and old. He was a master at making people feel like a million bucks.
Let's hear your story. Coach T.
Parents
Former Member
My sisters and brothers used to spend as much time as possible at the pool each summer. Each year we'd take Red Cross lessons in the BRRRCOLD !! community outdoor pool. As a chubby kid the water was something fun where I didn't overheat in the summer heat and I loved being weightless in the water. Many afternoons Mom would load up the VW minibus and drop us off at 1 pm and pick us up at 5:30.
One day I went over to a gradeschool classmate's house and we were running through the sprinkler and doing gymnastics stuff on her front lawn and she had her swim team swimsuit on. It was a Hart suit (one piece nylon, high neck, zips up the back) and she was pretty athletic and I thought she was really cool. I wanted to take the next step and be part of a team .: also be very cool but the folks weren't having it.
Years later when I had a little babysitting money (Soph in HS) I took a 2-week class that was learn-to-swim-competitive that bridged my Red Cross lessons to where I could actually comfortably swim freestyle more than 25 yards without exhaustion and learned flipturns. Once I learned how to relax in the water, I was able to swim as far as I wanted. I loved watching the Olympics on TV.
When school started, I asked the HS coach if I could join the team and he said no, the girls don't have an "official" team so the 4 girls don't have any in-season meets and are just preparing for the championships. So I swam with a Y team that year to get some experience and do more work on my strokes. I had a blast and loved going to workouts. Yep, we had those Mark Spitz 7-medal full-length posters for our door.
I was a walk-on in college but in my soph year they started offering some swim scholarships and I wasn't able to keep up with the faster field, so I quit after not scoring a single point all year. That was in 1975 and there were no other opportunities to swim at that time. In 1990 I was "medically retired" from my adult rec sports that I was doing 6 days a week (volleyball, softball, soccer, bowling, racquetball) . The orthopedist said swimming would be great, so I joined a local Masters team in 1991 after rehab as a new thing to do.
To this day I would never dream of going out of town without taking at least one swimsuit (a Speedo for swimming & a "civilian" suit that the hottub can tear up) and goggles. My idea of a great vacation is to go to a beach.
My sisters and brothers used to spend as much time as possible at the pool each summer. Each year we'd take Red Cross lessons in the BRRRCOLD !! community outdoor pool. As a chubby kid the water was something fun where I didn't overheat in the summer heat and I loved being weightless in the water. Many afternoons Mom would load up the VW minibus and drop us off at 1 pm and pick us up at 5:30.
One day I went over to a gradeschool classmate's house and we were running through the sprinkler and doing gymnastics stuff on her front lawn and she had her swim team swimsuit on. It was a Hart suit (one piece nylon, high neck, zips up the back) and she was pretty athletic and I thought she was really cool. I wanted to take the next step and be part of a team .: also be very cool but the folks weren't having it.
Years later when I had a little babysitting money (Soph in HS) I took a 2-week class that was learn-to-swim-competitive that bridged my Red Cross lessons to where I could actually comfortably swim freestyle more than 25 yards without exhaustion and learned flipturns. Once I learned how to relax in the water, I was able to swim as far as I wanted. I loved watching the Olympics on TV.
When school started, I asked the HS coach if I could join the team and he said no, the girls don't have an "official" team so the 4 girls don't have any in-season meets and are just preparing for the championships. So I swam with a Y team that year to get some experience and do more work on my strokes. I had a blast and loved going to workouts. Yep, we had those Mark Spitz 7-medal full-length posters for our door.
I was a walk-on in college but in my soph year they started offering some swim scholarships and I wasn't able to keep up with the faster field, so I quit after not scoring a single point all year. That was in 1975 and there were no other opportunities to swim at that time. In 1990 I was "medically retired" from my adult rec sports that I was doing 6 days a week (volleyball, softball, soccer, bowling, racquetball) . The orthopedist said swimming would be great, so I joined a local Masters team in 1991 after rehab as a new thing to do.
To this day I would never dream of going out of town without taking at least one swimsuit (a Speedo for swimming & a "civilian" suit that the hottub can tear up) and goggles. My idea of a great vacation is to go to a beach.
