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One Day in The Life of an Age Group
Swim Parent
Guy Edson
(From a 2003 Newsletter)
My wife was off
to a continuing ed class. My 12 year old daughter was at swim
practice. I had the much needed chance to spend a couple
extra hours catching up with some work at the office. That
is, until my cell phone buzzed at 5:30. “Dad, can you
come pick me up?” “What’s wrong?” I
asked. “I got kicked out of swim practice,” she
said. I was stunned! My daughter is a fairly standard
12 year old, as fully capable of getting into trouble as any other
12 year old – except at swim practice where she is unusually
compliant and very coachable. I decided we would talk about
it later and said, “Well, just come home with Coach Rob like
you always do and we will talk about it when you get
home.” “Rob said you have to come pick me up
now,” she said.
The pool is 18
miles from my office by way of the most congested interstate in the
whole metropolitan area. The last thing I wanted to do is
drive 45 minutes out there and another 45 minutes back. My
building anger focused on Coach Rob. I thought to myself,
“OK, my daughter screwed up but just let her swim.
It’s no big deal. Besides, why do I have to pay the
price? If it really is that bad he should just make her sit
out and then bring her home like usual. After all, that is
what I would do.”
Important
note: I am also a swimming coach and have been for nearly 30
years. Nevertheless, the parent side of me had taken over my
thought process and I wanted to blame the coach for the
inconvenience I was facing. “…the inconvenience
I was facing.”
Looking for a way
out I asked, “What did you do?” She told me she
was three minutes late to practice and he wouldn’t let her in
the water. “Three minutes? THREE minutes?”
I asked. In my mind I was cursing at the coach.
“How could you be three minutes late to practice? You
get there 45 minutes before practice time!” I said. She
told me was doing homework in the locker room and lost track of the
time. “And he kicked Jackie out too,” she
said. I asked, “Jackie was doing homework
also?” “No, she was changing her swim suit and we
came out together.”
At that point
distant
memories started coming back and with them rational thinking
crept back into my brain. In my 30 years of coaching, how
many times did multiples of 11-12 year old girls emerge from the
locker rooms 3 minutes late and how many ridiculous excuses had I
heard? Plenty. And how many times was it the same group
of kids? All the time.
“If I were
to ask Coach Rob if this was the first time you were late, what
would he say?” I asked. I heard a faint
“what?” I repeated, “If I were to ask Coach
Rob if this was the first time you were late, what would he
say? Have you been late before?”
“Sometimes.”
And what did I do
years ago with those who became chronically late by 3
minutes? I sent them back to the locker room, and told them
to call their parents. This scene is all too familiar to me.
“OK,”
I said, “I’ll be there in 40 to 45 minutes.
I’ll be thinking of the consequences along the
way.” As a last ditch effort for clemency and a play on
my fatherly love, I heard my daughter faintly say, “I’m
sorry.”
When I picked her up I was all smiles. And she
lighted up right away. She might have been thinking I was
going to be cool about this. I asked her what homework she
was working on in the locker room and she told me it was
math. “You’re pretty good at math, aren’t
you?” I asked. “Get out a piece of paper and
pencil and solve this problem: a man drives a car that gets
15 miles to the gallon. He has to drive his car 36
miles. If gas costs $1.79 a gallon, how much did the trip
cost him?” She loves these kinds of problems and
started dividing then multiplying and proudly came up with,
“Four dollars and twenty nine cents!” “That
sounds correct,” I said. That’s what it cost me
to come pick you up and it’s coming out of your next
allowance.” The rest of the trip home was on the quiet
side.
The next day, Coach Rob reported to me that she
was on the deck 15 minutes early and ready to go.
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