Portrait of a Young Athlete

I recently renewed contact with a childhood pal, then Bobby, now Bob.  We swam together on a city team, the Hollywood Swim Association.  Being a competitive swimmer required a great commitment of time and energy both for the kids and their families.  We swam five days a week, throughout the year, thirty or more age-groupers packed into a 25 yard high school pool, five or so to a lane, doing endless laps, under the watchful eyes of our team coach. 

Meets were held across south Florida on weekends, with preliminary rounds during the day, and final held run under bright lights in the evening.  During these years, my mother's social life was centered largely around the old wooden bleachers outside the pool deck visiting with other swimmers' mums during the ninety minutes while the kids churned up and down the pool, hardly a spectator sport.

I suspect that the lives of many of those age-group swimmers were deeply affected by those hundreds of hours spent in and around pools.   We swam, whether we felt like it or not, pressed to make efforts regardless of our moods, pushed by the coach, an authority figure, who we admired, respected, and occasionally resented.  

The role of the athletic coach is an important one:  an adult who expects us to go beyond ourselves, to make efforts which we would not otherwise make, to push ourselves despite our laziness and self-indulgence, particularly important during the tween and teen years.  Coaches can do what parents cannot:  get kids up off their butts, refocused, and back into the action. Whining is not an option. 

I was reminded of the years I spent swimming, and the importance of athletics and coaching, while watching the ISD middle school soccer team play in a round robin tournament on Saturday.  

Enter Filipa,  a student in my sixth grade class.  Filipa's from Portugal.  She's sweet, assertive, a good student, insistent about her learning English.  But don't cross her on the soccer field.  She's tough, she'll knock you down, but then extend a hand to help you up.  Filipa's focused, and passionate, a few would say too much so.  Her coach shared that she was nominated captain by her teammates.  

For Filipa and her middle school classmates, character is shaped by sport, through good coaching.  What takes place on the field or in the pool -- making efforts, working on behalf of the group rather than oneself, developing skills through consistent practice, pushing through inertia -- becomes a toolkit for ones life.

I recall whining as an eight-year-old about not wanting to return to swim practice, probably a reflection of laziness, and the fear that I'd look stupid, unskilled, inadequate.  My parents' response was clear:  you're going to go anyway;  since when do you think this is a democracy?

Were you involved in sport as a child?  How has it influenced your adulthood?