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.
I recall 2 factors getting me into swimming. First, my sister started swimming on a team (so I'm sure, inspirationally, it was her) but, secondly, we had an above ground pool installed in our backyard. I remember, prior to age 10, being scared of the water. Then, one day, about age 10 I was floating on the inner tube in the above ground pool when one of my friends came up on the back side of the inner tube and accidentally flipped me over. I can still, vividly, recall going face first into the water with eyes and mouth wide open. I came up laughing. It wasn't much after that when I joined the same age group team my sister was on. By age 13-14 I made "AAA" cuts in the 50 free and was hooked. I swam all 4 years in high school and, again, in college. Took 10 years off after college but then found masters.
I recall 2 factors getting me into swimming. First, my sister started swimming on a team (so I'm sure, inspirationally, it was her) but, secondly, we had an above ground pool installed in our backyard. I remember, prior to age 10, being scared of the water. Then, one day, about age 10 I was floating on the inner tube in the above ground pool when one of my friends came up on the back side of the inner tube and accidentally flipped me over. I can still, vividly, recall going face first into the water with eyes and mouth wide open. I came up laughing. It wasn't much after that when I joined the same age group team my sister was on. By age 13-14 I made "AAA" cuts in the 50 free and was hooked. I swam all 4 years in high school and, again, in college. Took 10 years off after college but then found masters.
