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 let him know from day 1 that I wanted to improve and he saw to it that I was routinely challenged. Coach Scott awarded me with Most Improved Swimmer my Sr. yr for the work I had done the last two years. This was an award I worked hard toward and was my proudest achievement in the pool until Worlds.
Muppet:
There is no better award in swimming than "most improved" or the "coaches" award. My triathlete son won that this summer with his summer league team. He's not really a swimmer, but he (and I) were very proud. Seeing someone focus intently on a goal of self-improvement or whatever goal is very rewarding. Glad your far side cow keeps you going. ;) You are doing so well!!
Happend by accident actually. I was training wrestling (greek-roman)...and one day there was a "open house" quiz organized where you were supposed to go around the facilities and answer all the questions. Some of the quizzes were located in the pool area...where other kids were practicing. I simply thought it looked fun to swim like that and told my father I wanted to try it out. I was 10 years old back then. One year later I participated in my first event, the club annual championship...and finnished 3rd (out of total 4) in my age group...the one inspiring /pushing me to participate was actually my coach "Cecilia" at that time (who I also had a crush on) :)
/Per
My older sister swam in jr high, and in to HS. Since I used to do everything she did, I joined the jr high swim team in 7th grade. She quit soon after that (having her little sister asked along to swim varsity invites was a bit too much for her), and I stuck it out. I credit the coach who took on our team in 10th grade, for keeping me in when life got troublesome, and later when figure skating and horse shows started to seem more interesting than swimming (I balanced the three for a long time, but started burning out going in to my sr year, and thought something had to give). Looking back, I realize he wasn't much older than we were, but he sure knew how to get the best out of each of us. In the three years I swam with him, our team broke very record the school had, and beat teams we'd never come close to before. He was great and we all loved him. :)
Trudy Coffman. She taught women's PE at my high school. she also taught all of the swimming related classes. I took Sr. Life Guarding, Water recreation, and polo from her. She got pregnant one year. It was great. All o fhte kids inthe class really thought it was a neat experience. She played water polo with us. One time she had us in cnoes in the pool and made us flip them over.
Last year she unfortunatley died of *** cancer. I think she was one of the best teachers I ever had. She really knew how to keep us interested inthe subject and how to explain things.
My three older brothers were swimmers so my mother made my brother Thurlow and I go to the pool. It all started because my brother Bill delivered the Hamilton Spectator newspaper to a very rich family in Hamilton and they gave my brother a membership in the YMCA for a Christmas present.
I started swimming 7 years ago, mainly to lose weight and get in shape. I was formerly a runner but had quit while in my mid-30's and chose swimming because I had no desire to take up running again. My children joined the local swim club and that is why I chose swimming. After swimming for 2 years, one of the kid's coaches talked me into swimming in the annual family fun meet. After that I was hooked. I might add that I had no prior swimming background so this sport is new to me and as a 50 something, I am setting pb's in just about every meet I enter, as my technique and fitness continues to improve.
It was a swimming lessons teacher who made me want to swim competitvely... after I got over the fear of the water... It was the highest level before you entered life guard trainging, so it was pretty much a simplified 30 min. workout... That got me hooked, I've been swimming since then. (I was about 8-9)
Both my father and sister swam, so naturally I just ended up in the water. Turns out that I outlasted them both. No one really inspired me to swim. It was my coach and friend, Jim Wood, who inspired me to work hard, be a good person, and race my a&# off. Without Jim, I wouldn't be the swimmer I ended up being. He taught me that life was about hardwork and that translated into long hours in the pool for me. So, while no inspired me to swim, Jim inspired me to be great in my swimming.
I can't remember why I started swimming but I was in my first meet at age 5. It was a small meet of only my pool but it was a meet none the less. I have an older sister and she was swimming so I guess I got into it because of her. I also had a cruch on my coach, Andy York so I'm sure he had something to do with me sticking with swimming.
Jump ahead to when I'm 29 and I've been out of swimming for 10 year, my sister travels to Baltimore to compete at LC Nats. She came back and told me how well she did and I thought "I can do that!". Yes, we're a competitive bunch in my family. I was back in the pool within 2 weeks. Now I've been back in for just over 6 years. Last week, while visiting family, we swam in the same lane at Dynamo and I have to admit, I did better than her :p Although she's a huge triathlete and would blow me away in a run or bike ride.
Alison
This is gonna sound lame compared to the other stories, but it was actually this board that inspired me to finally compete. :notworthy: I swam on the team when I was younger, but it wasn't a competitive team. Then just as I was about to move up, I stopped swimming for about 5 years. I started again when I was 18 and after searching on the internet I found Master's by accident. Then I started posting on this board and realized I wasn't the only one getting a late start. I had my first meet 2 years ago and I haven't looked back!
