In 8th grade, I made the spontaneous decision to join the swim team, something I had never done before. My first practice, I was nervous— pretty much everyone else had been swimming their whole lives, while it was my first time doing more than one lap. Once the anxiety wore off, I grew to love the sport; I loved it so much that I decided to continue it into high school. High school swimming was ten times more difficult and time-consuming, yet I continued along, and four years later, here I am.
As my final swim season comes to a close, I have found myself reflecting on the past four years with the team. I made the risky choice to join the swim team in high school despite having less than a year of experience under my belt, but swimming has been so much more than just a sport to me and it has taught me valuable lessons that I will carry with me my whole life. To sum up everything I have taken away from Groves Swim and Dive would take hours, so I’ve narrowed it down to four of the biggest lessons I have learned from this team.
1. There are truly never enough minutes in a day.
Most high schoolers find themselves scrounging for free time. Balancing academic coursework with extracurriculars is no doubt an extremely difficult task for teenagers to handle. This is obviously no exception for swimmers, however, when my non-swimmer friends and family hear my schedule in detail, they are shocked. While I think I have grown accustomed to it, typing out an average day for me during swim season really makes me realize just how busy I truly am:
My alarm rings at five in the morning, to which I reluctantly get out of bed and head to morning practice. I run, lift weights and do difficult cardio workouts only to have to sit in classes for seven hours. I’ve already finished my energy drink, yet I’m still exhausted, desperately just wanting to go home and take a nap, however, once the final school bell rings, there is yet another practice to go to. After countless yards in the pool, I can finally go home and relax… after completing all of my homework, of course.
This is the average schedule I follow during swim season on a double-practice day— clearly, not much downtime. At first, figuring this out was hard, but something I came to learn as a swimmer is that I had to use every second of the day to its fullest potential. Getting all of my homework done as soon as possible allowed me to free up more time for myself during the day. This sport not only helped me with time management, but truly made me realize just how grateful I am for the little breaks I get during the day.
2. Swim cult is forever.
Groves Swim and Dive (GSD) is an extremely tight-knit group, so much so, they are often referred to as a “cult.” Sure, other sports teams are close, but combining daily practice (sometimes two times a day) and various meets throughout the months, swimmers are with each other more than they are with their families during high school season. I found that essentially all of my high school friendships were formed in the pool.
Swim season starts before the school year even begins, so as a freshman, I came into my first day of school already knowing at least thirty new people, which helped me greatly when it came to finding my classes. Before the school year starts the team goes on their annual overnight bonding trip, which never fails to unite us. Years later, alumni continue to return to the pool deck where they spent their high school years, and it is always fun to reunite with old teammates. Anyone who has been a part of GSD knows that the forever bond you have with your teammates is one unlike any other sport, and it is something I am so grateful to have been a part of.
3. The 200 IM is the worst event ever.
While this isn’t exactly a lesson, I had to include my hatred for the 200 Individual Medley (IM) in here somewhere. Throughout my four years, I have had the opportunity to swim every single listed event at meets. There were good races and bad ones, but nothing compared to the 200 IM.
I swam my first (and last) 200 yard IM my senior season, and I insanely underestimated it. For those unfamiliar, swimming consists of four strokes: butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke and freestyle. The 200 IM is an eight lap event that combines all four of these strokes – two laps of each. We were at our travel meet in Holland when I swam this, and around halfway through is when I started to realize that this event is so much more than what I anticipated: the combination of the distance, the complex turns, and the fact that I just wasn’t swimming great that day made this event terrible. Sure, we swim countless stroke sets during practice, way more than 200 yards, but an all out IM race with a crowd of people watching is completely different from doing 100s on a set interval. When I got out of the pool after my race, I knew I never wanted to swim that again, and I truly respect anyone that willingly swims this event.
4. Progress takes time.
One thing people don’t realize when they start something new is that they aren’t going to be good overnight. As mentioned, I have only been swimming since 8th grade, which is an insanely late start for a sport like swimming that requires years of practice to master. I remember being disappointed in my first month of high school swim, watching all of my friends go faster than me, despite the fact that they had years more experience. Once I got past this mental block, I remembered that I was swimming for myself, not other people. There was nothing I could do to change the fact that I hadn’t started swimming earlier, so rather than focusing on the past, I had to look forward.
What’s special about swimming, is that everyone, no matter the skill level, is all focusing on the same goal: dropping time. It really didn’t matter how fast or slow I was, I knew my goal times, and I just raced myself every meet, hoping to go a little faster than I did last time. Non-swimmers don’t know the true feeling of looking up at the scoreboard and seeing a time you have been dying to achieve all season; it’s shocking, exciting and rewarding all at the same time. There is a particular photo of me that comes to mind from my junior year that shows me with my mouth agape staring at the time I just swam on the board. It is one of my favorite swim photos of myself, as it captures the pure joy I felt realizing my hard work was paying off.
Had I not stepped out of my comfort zone and joined something completely unfamiliar to me, I never would have met my closest friends, accomplished things I didn’t even know I was capable of or be anywhere close to the person I am today. Diving into the pool that day in 8th grade is one of the best decisions I have ever made.
Roll tide!
