As is the case with many of my fellow swimmers, during my teenage years I developed an interest in coaching. Apparently training nine times a week just wasn’t enough pool time for me, and so I decided to take on a position coaching young children who were just beginning their swim careers. Six years later I realize that my role as a part-time coach has had a uniquely positive impact on my progression as an athlete. You see, we tend to forget how exciting the sport is until we are surrounded by a bunch of children for whom everything about swimming is novel. And while this enthusiasm and interest is extremely promising for the future of the sport, it has also over the years provided me with a wide array of completely ridiculous stories…
My community has a wildly successful summer league, whereby children are able to compete in all four of the water sports (swimming, diving, synchronized swimming, and water polo). During my first summer as a swim team coach for one of these local pools, I had a young girl of six years old in my group who was extremely eager to participate in her first ever competition. She was so prepared to race, in fact, that when the starting gun backfired and the referee called for the swimmers to step off of the blocks, she…
