How I Became a Swim Coach ~1982

Once I had been asked to "retire" from the college swim team at KU, I began to swim on my own. At first, I just went to the school's evening lap swim and did occasional serious sets interspersed with serious flirting with the female lap swimmers. I was able to stay in reasonably good shape, and at the same time hone my skills with the ladies.

If you've been paying attention, you'll know that I actually didn't have any social skills to "hone", so maybe I should've used different words. How about "I talked with lady lap swimmers and discovered many of the world's most egregiously ineffective flirting methods." Still, I suppose that learning from a long uninterupted stream of horrid and embarassing social mistakes could be construed as "honing"...perhaps I'll let the statement stand.

One of these ladies was an excellent swimmer named Debbie Thornton. She was cute and friendly, and seemed happy to swim workout sets with me. I flirted as hard as I could, but got no response. In retrospect, I'm pretty sure she had no idea that I was even flirting with her. She was there to swim, and she enjoyed whupping me in those workouts.

But she was an older woman, alas. She graduated, and left me to swim my laps all alone. I quickly discovered that I needed the challenge of having other swimmers doing the sets with me. So, when I left KU, I once again looked for a team to swim with.

After short stints with the girls 12-and-under age group at Wichita Swim Club (it was an issue of workkout times, not ability -- really!), I ended up joining the West Branch YMCA team, where I moved up to swimming with 12-year-old boys. That worked fairly well, but still wasn't providing the cameraderie I preferred from my workout mates.

But I stuck with it until I moved to Denver. And that's when my career as a "Masters" swimmer really took off.

I moved into a small apartment on the Hampden frontage road. About 1/2 mile away, construction was underway on a brand new YMCA facility. I inquired about membership, liked what I saw, and signed up. When the pool opened, I was swimming laps from the very first day.

There were three of us; myself, a spicy redhead named Kerrin Long, and Jeff "the Ref" Dean. We started organizing our own workouts, and then asked the pool manager if they'd ever considered hosting an adult swim team. It turned out that the Aquatics Director had always wanted to be a coach. So she took over and started coaching our fledgling team.

Her name was Dawn, and she shared the coaching duties with her husband Dan. Though I had reason to suspect that Dawn sometimes experienced challenges when it came to telling the truth, she did know enough about swimming to be a pretty good coach. The team grew.

But as often happens in such organizations, the YMCA experienced an abundance of "mobility". Dawn/Dan found other opportunities and moved on. They were replaced by a college student -- a cute young blond named "Julie". Like Dawn, Julie had a pretty good head for swimming, but unlike her predecessor, was susceptible to other temptations. After the first few weeks, she developed a "relationship" with one of the guys on our team. We didn't mind the first subtle flirtations, but when Julie and Bob started engaging in heavy makeout sessions while the rest of us were trying to do a kick set, well, it became a bit distracting. Julie left the "Y" shortly thereafter.

The new coach was Randy, who could barely swim, but was an outstanding marathon runner. I guess they figured that his athletic experience gave him the ability to understand training methodolgies, etc. Heck, a workout is a workout, right?

He actually wasn't that bad. But there were a few frustrations. As we approached the date for the State Championship meet, Randy sat down with each of us to discuss goals. He asked me what times I wanted to hit at the State Meet. I replied that I'd like to break a minute in the 100 butterfly. "NO WAY!" he shouted. "NOBODY can go that fast!" He was aghast; he was convinced that I was insane, overconfident, and probably stupid, too. Nobody can go that fast.

Well, if our dear coach had bothered to look at last year's state results, he'd have seen that breaking a minute would probably place 4th or 5th in my age group. And if he'd have been paying attention to the times I could swim in workout, he'd have seen that my goal was not outlandish at all. But his fundamental lack of swimming knowledge, combined with his runner's arrogance made him blind to these realities. He was still upset with me after the meeting, and we both walked out of there shaking our heads.

He was gone two days later.

Then came Chris. Big guy, charismatic smile, couldn't swim a stroke. He was a hockey player. Again, the "well, he's an athlete, so he must be able to coach" philosophy sprang forth from the YMCA management. He pretty much just stood around on the deck and collected his paycheck while we went back to figuring out our own sets.

So when Chris quit a few weeks later, Jeff the Ref and I ran into the Director's office, fell to our knees and began begging. "Please, please don't hire another non-swimmer to coach our team. Please?"

"Hey," he said, "Softball season just ended, so we can get Frank Johnson to come in and take over your team. His softball squad won nearly half their games last season, so you know he's a good coach. He's even got his own whistle."

Amazingly enough, there was no violence. Jeff and I were firm, though, and continued to insist that the Masters team coach MUST have swimming experience. "OK, so where do swimmers come from?", the Director asked. Jeff and I looked at each other and reached a mutual decision. "We'll just do it ourselves," we said. The Director spent a moment in frantic thought. "Well," he said, "I might be able to swing it if you agreed to do this coaching as a volunteer thing..."

Hmmm. Hours of work for no pay? Extra duties without any compensation whatsoever? Having to actually prepare workouts instead of just showing up to swim?

Well, contrast those penalties with the thought of swimming for another incompetent coach. Compare a little extra work vs. another string of people who don't know what times are possible, and who wonder how you hold a competition with no helmets, sticks, or nets at the end of the pool. Sigh. We agreed to do the job.

And here it is, over twenty years later, and I'm still coaching. I love it. Jeff the Ref has also continued his connection with sports business; he has coached various teams over the years and is now the owner of a successful massage business.

As much as I owe to the great coaches I've had over the years, I guess I owe a bit to the crappy coaches, too. Thanks, folks. I hope you found something that's been as much fun for you as coaching has been for me. I am in your debt.

For info on the Shy Man's Guide to Success with Women, please visit www.shyperson.com. For Terry Heggy's other writing, please see www.terryheggy.com.