Thoughts From My First Rodeo

Saturday and Sunday I woke up at 5:30 and 6:30 AM respectively to drive to Huntersville, just outside of Charlotte, to coach a swim meet for the first time. Countless times as a swimmer made the transition to the coaching side of it significantly easier. I knew where to set up my folding chair, to bring a folding chair in the first place, which warmup lanes gave my swimmers the best chance of not being overrun by a huge group of swimmers from some larger Charlotte-area team, and, most importantly, where the hospitality room was, stocked with coffee and snacks previously forbidden to lowly swimmer me. I set up shop next to several coaches I knew from my days of swimming against their teams just a few years ago. Over the course of the meet, I made a few observations and enjoyed a few comical moments. A smattering of them follows:

• I am a terrible driver in the morning, just awful. I am sleepy and inattentive and a bit swervy. As a result, I have vowed never to drive before 6:00 AM again.
• All children below the age of eight are impossible to coach. If they know how to do the strokes they are swimming, which they probably should before competing in a meet, then all you can really do is make sure they get where they're supposed to be, remember which event they are swimming, and have a blast doing it.
• From the heat sheet flick, the arms folded stopwatch beneath the elbow while intently watching the pool pose, the heat sheet in the back pocket, the squatting by the edge of the pool while yelling encouragement past a once-folded heat sheet that is somehow supposed to amplify my voice and make it reach lane five, the high-fiving of swimmers after every race, resting the heat sheet against my thigh to write down splits, asking my kids "how did that feel?"or "what did you think about that race?" and my disdain for coaches overdressed for a prelim session of the first meet of the season, I am my father as a coach. Not a bad thing at all. I did not jump with raised arms and clenched fists, but let's wait till state champs before we make that call definitively.
• Eleven-year-olds don't have swimming terminology completely down yet. Example from a conversation after one kid's last race: Me: "How'd you feel coming home?" Her response: "Good I guess. I'll probably sleep the whole drive."
• Some parents get worked up at swim meets. I do not. This can produce tension or it can produce a comment like the one I received on Saturday: "You're so calm. I'd be freaking out trying to watch a dozen kids on opposite ends of the pool." I shrugged because it never occurred to me that maybe I should be more keyed up. I then tried to look busy and gravely concerned in front of the team parents for a few minutes, lest they think me lazy and disinterested.
• The sunrise on the way to the meet Sunday was just breathtaking. One of those sunrises that's so bright you can't really look at it and can only admire its brilliance on the periphery. Probably some kind of metaphor there, but moving on....
• I took advantage of a break in the action and read through my mom's notebook from her coaching days, looking around at the other coaches as if I had the Holy Grail or the last existing copy of the Bible, which they would certainly try to steal if they knew what kind of magic rested on my lap.
• Discipline in practice facilitates success in meets. Good habits distill competitive swimming down  to execution of racing strategy and mental toughness, affording the luxury of making basic technique an afterthought.
• A kid running up to you after a great swim, hugging you and saying "you're the best coach ever!" is one of the best feelings there is.
• Hearing that same kid say "I hate you" when you make her get back in the frigid pool to warm down after the meet is something you just have to shrug off.