This was the most important meet of our season. We were swimming our rivals, and we needed to win this meet in order to win league. Normally this would be just another meet with a little extra pressure. However, this year, this meet came the day after a school wide tragedy. There was a lot of stress, and it was hard to focus.
When we got to the pool, there was an overall lackluster feeling. No one was ready, and I knew that wasn’t okay. A few of us tried to pump everyone up, and it started working a little. As we warmed up, we started realizing that this was a very important meet, and then we felt the intensity.
The meet started and we were doing pretty well. Our coach was pleased, but he was also getting nervous. He placed us in events strategically based on our own statistics versus the other teams. Although we were winning at the half, we weren’t up as much as he wanted. The next event, we got a disqualification, and we were down.
I was in the next event, and it was up to us. We were the 200 freestyle relay and we needed to win to get the points back. Relays are worth double points than individual races, and we knew we needed to produce results. We went into our huddle and our coach came over. He said a speech I will always remember. At the end, he only had one question: “are you gonna sink, or swim?”
When he said this, it made me think so much in such a short amount of time. I thought about all of my stress and my problems and looked at it as extra weight. All that extra weight was going to sink. By my coach saying that, he helped me to realize that I need to leave my excess baggage at the door and focus on the task ahead. He started to walk away and no one said anything, so I said quickly, “Hey Scott, we’re gonna swim.”
We all put our heads together and said, “Let’s swim.” We got in order, and there was a still silence in the pool area. The silence spoke to us and brought the intensity level up. When the buzzer went off, everyone went wild. As Maddie did her flip turn, I stepped on the block. This race was for my school. This race was for my coach. This race was for my team. This race was for anyone who cared.
In the end, we came in first in the race and ended up winning the meet. Our fans, our team, and our coaches welcomed us with opened arms and a lot of cheering. The feeling we had walking over to them was exhilarating. It felt amazing to make such a contribution and help out my team mates. This reflects to my life because it makes me think that when the pressure is on and I’m at the bottom, all I need to do is swim to the top!
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