A lower tier in the pecking order of swim meet persona is that of timers, strokes-and- turns judges, and sweep judges. I stay away from these posts because of the higher level of skill required. For instance, in order to be a timer, you have to know how to operate a stop watch while carrying on the required conversation with three different people on the topic of your elementary school's administration's shortcomings. In addition, since this is a family show, any adjectives or adverbial phrases needed to spice up your editorial have to be enunciated quietly so that swimmers emerging from the water at heat's end will not have their perspectives damaged. All this, while filling out wet cards with dull pencils. Its not for me.
Neither is the task of being a judge. I am immediately disqualified (DQ'd, as we say in the business) because one has to have at least a minor grasp of swimming rules to act as judge; I think it would be easier to learn Chinese from Ming Dynasty dialect than to absorb the encyclopedia of rules. Also, I cannot determine exactly what "sweeping" the sweep judges are ruling on.
So . . . my role of choice is runner. Because no one in a swim meet environment is aware that technology has advanced to the stage where walkie-talkies would make our lives simpler, we enlist a corps of runners who dispatch information, lane cards, disqualification forms and applications for the tennis leagues forming next month. My job is simple: walk here, walk there, deliver this, and shove children out of the way.
They should learn early on that dutiful appointment of one's rounds takes priority over everything else.
It takes many dedicated volunteers to put on a swim meet and wrestle it into some kind of workable event.
Few parents do most of the work during much of the meet, and seem not to let it bother them that so many parents have set aside their energies for whining and complaining. I suspect that most are used to this phenomenon, and yet it has got to be a bit debilitating. Perhaps overexposure to chlorine damages parent's minds on both sides of the volunteer issue.
Soon the season comes to conclusion.
Coaches are required to select the hottest time of the most humid day of the summer to stage their awards ceremony. It is at this glorious event that children will receive trophies, even if the team came in dead last place, while volunteer parents spend hours sorting out the ribbons, medals and certificates, only to have them rearranged and disorganized by greedy and selfish parents who need to leave early (see Parental Non-volunteer).
The coach is given a microphone that produces more feedback than volume, and he or she generally thanks everyone, praises everyone, uses the same adjectives to describe everyone, and for the most part, forgets all of the frustrating times his senior boys team provided him.
Ice cream is usually the menu item of choice, however, due to the length of the thank you's and the heat of the day, most people opt for chocolate chip milkshakes, whether they like it or not.
Perhaps because we evolved from amphibious creatures, we are all seemingly called back to the water. Children are so taken by water play and water recreation, it is natural that they matriculate towards swim teams. Parents, out of love for their offspring, step forward to support their child's enrollment on the team. Well-meaning coaches relive their own upbringing by stepping up to instruct the little ones in the finer aspects of strokes and turns.
It is an amazing synergy of loving, respectful recreation fans, with their eyes on providing an environment for children to compete and grow in.
Hm-m-m: I wonder why the government has gotten around to taxing it yet?