The Water's Just Fine

I started coaching in August of 1977 back when Edmond was a smaller town. I graduated from Norman in 1972 and was a swimmer. The 200 IM and 100 backstroke were my events my senior year. I was state runner-up in both. I guess swimming runs in the family. My daughters are around the pool all the time. They swim by osmosis. My mom was a national record holder. My aunt was a national level swimmer. My family on my mom's side were all swimmers. My grandmother started swimming in 1918. Last August we celebrated her 100th birthday. But when she turned 99, she told me that she didn't want to swim anymore because it messed her hair up. You get so used to that chlorine smell that you don't even think about it. It's part of your life. Many years and pounds ago I swam. I haven't done a lot of lap swimming in several years. I'm more into the treadmill and walking. I told my grandmother I was burned out on it, but she didn't have a lot of sympathy for me. Teaching swimming is my calling. I've grown up in swimming. This is what I was called to do - be a teacher and coach. I enjoy working with the kids and going to practice. When my daughters both graduate it might be time to hang it up. That will be 2013. My parents told me that if I wanted to swim in college I would need a scholarship. Swimming was a necessity for me. I could have been a kicker at Norman high. I could punt pretty well. But my mother wouldn't let me play. She was afraid I would get killed and she was probably correct. My dad kind of wanted me to play baseball. He was a semi-pro player. But I wasn't cut out for it. The individualism of swimming is one of its main assets. You have to have strong self-motivation. You have to get in the water and do the training. You have to have good organizational skills. There's morning practice, there's school and then there's after-school practice. You have to find time for everything. If you don't have good organizational skills and you want to just come out and swim a few laps, you're not going to be successful. Man is used to being vertical. To do something different takes more effort. Swimming works all the major muscle groups in the body. It takes longer to do everything. You get sore. It takes a lot of work and a lot of practice. You've got to be able to master technique. You can always get more efficient. Even people like Michael Phelps can get better. You have to know how to communicate to teenagers about what you are expecting and what you want to get done. Communicating with parents is tougher today than it used to be. Michael Phelps did something for swimming this year. The number of kids in Oklahoma and all over the country wanting to swim increased. People come in and have expectations and want to be like him. People think swimming is a short-term project. If they find it's not, they drop out. That's a big thing that a coach has to do. You have to present swimming as a long-term program. It didn't used to be that way. Kids have changed in a lot of ways. They're expectations are more short-term. They are sound-bite driven. For the Edmond high schools, we have three schools and just two pools - Central Oklahoma's and Oklahoma Christian University's. We have to get along in terms of practicing. We make sure that at least two coaches are there for each of the teams. One time per year we have the Edmond city championships where the three swim each other. I let the seniors and captains make up the lineups and I just get to be the announcer. There are a whole lot of people who come to that meet, and I like to educate them about swimming. Samantha Woodward has been the most-dominant swimmer in Oklahoma. She was a person who could be in any situation and respond with a victory and with the effort. To have one that is that dominant is something that may not come along again. But that doesn't mean you don't try and produce another. Swimming is not my life. Being able to see so many kids be success stories is great. It's not necessarily Samantha Woodward. It might be the senior who finally qualifies for state or the one who betters his or her time. It's a worthwhile thing. It still makes me happy to be able to go to work every day.