Summer Swim Teams: A Lesson in Insanity

by David P. Hillgrove  (copyright 1996)
 

These days, parents are justifiably concerned that their children are inextricably linked with boring, mindless summer activities that rot their souls, such as Nintendo, cable TV, and questionable cinema. In an effort to avoid any semblance of child abuse, parents spend a considerable amount of gray matter trying to discern the best use of their child's time. They often settle for the popular choice.

This can be a mistake.

Swimming, summer swim teams and summer swim meets are hazardous to your health.

Run, do not walk away from the very idea; engage your children in anything but. Avoid this black hole of energy for as long as possible; however, if you are as bad as my wife and I are, youíve already been sucked in to it and must now find a way to survive.

I'm stuck in my own Survivor nightmare. And that is why I'm here.
That, and to live my life as a table worker at swim meets.

First and foremost, summer swim teams are all about swim practices. And swim practices are all about time choices: come to practice or quit the team?

When is practice, you ask? When are you awake? is the response. When were you hoping to sleep? And, by the way, how are you and the smell of chlorine?

So . . .  your children make the team (the only way you cannot make a swim team is to be made of sponge), and they practice daily and they learn the intricacies of the strokes. They learn the swim meet rules, putting them way ahead of all adults who have never spent eleven hours a day participating on a swim team, and they prepare for that ever-important Summer Swim Meet.

Swim Meet is derived from the Latin word loosely translated as: "Bringing together hosts of suburban families for the purposes of selling lots o'baked goods.

It is here that too many cars for one parking lot descend on a swimming pool which does not have enough square footage to handle the flow of families, so that too many children can swim in a pool without enough lanes to allow the meet to last less than six hours.

Furthermore, there is a government regulation that requires that for every able-bodied fanny needing to sit down (ages 35 and older), there must be less than 1/6 the number of chairs available. And they all have to be mysteriously wet.

You're missing a major parental moment unless youíve tried to observe a loved one in a swim meet. Besides the loudspeaker that drowns out overhead jet noise, besides the children of unknown origin running around madly for no particular purpose other than giving parents examples on how THEIR children should NOT behave ("what do you mean that was my child?"), besides frantic adults in charge rushing around . . .  wondering when the planning broke down, you are entitled to the joy of watching your child compete in a wholesome sport designed to build character.

So you endure five hours of swim meet for that twenty-one seconds that your child performs THE task for which he has prepared more thoroughly than he will for his College Boards. And, most notably, he almost misses the starters signal because he is waving frantically at mom and dad, sister and brother, Aunt Cecilia and Uncle Mert, Grandmother Lange and Cousin Bertha. Fathers are required to operate a video camera, and are specifically mandated to step directly in front of everyone who has waited hours for their own child to finally swim this event.

And you must shout.

This is key to swim meets: shouting. You have to holler and scream and shout and encourage your little swimming buddy. You have to holler involved and intricate instructions to them ("The guy on your right is closing fast; donít forget to angle your head 47 degrees when taking a breath; reach and pull, reach and pull; look both ways before crossing the street and never eat sushi!") while they--and I cannot emphasize this enough -- CANNOT HEAR US.

We are topside, shouting to wake the dead (although the PA system drowns us out, while killing all inner ear bacteria), and the consummate swimmer has his head submerged in water that is being filled up by approximately 300 people sending sound molecules racing through it.

Between his heavy breathing, the muscle exertion, the turning of his head for breathing and the thrill of competition, the child hears nothing. We, however, find a way to vent the stress and anxiety of the swim meet phenomenon without realizing it, by living vicariously through our swimmers, and screaming like madmen.