I’ve been pleasantly surprised in the Olympics threads by the number of former swimmers we have knocking around here. And since search didn’t turn up any similar recent threads, I thought I’d start one where we can all hang out and brag of past glory or bask in the Olympic swimming afterglow.
So, Doper swimmers: What did you swim? High school, college, masters’, other? Still keeping up with it?
Me: former breaststroker and freestyler, competitive through high school*. Made it to Regionals and JOs a few times, but stupidly did not continue on into college. Started working out again to get in shape; wish I had enough time for triathalons or masters’.
in the 80s! I’m as ancient as Dara Torres! :eek: the horror!
I swam for my prep school team in suburban Pittsburgh in the mid-'80s, mostly in relay races. Bored me out of my mind, swimming back and forth and back and forth, especially in practice, but I later managed the team, lettered and am glad to have had the experience. My family and I swim all the time nowadays, but just splashing around and having fun.
I never swam competitively as a kid, but I switched my focus from running to triathlons about two years ago. (I was a lifeguard as a teenager, so I could always swim.) My Master’s team coach has tried to get me to do a few meets, but I always have a conflict. Besides, I don’t like to suck.
All 5 of my kids are club swimmers, with the two oldest (twins) headed off to college this year. One will definitely swim, the other is thinking of switching to diving. Although they haven’t all admitted it to themselves, breaststroke seems to run in the family.
I swam competitively from the age of 6 to 14. I then got out of the pool and never bothered to get back in. Turns out I didn’t like it so much…
I swam breaststroke and free, and sometimes backstroke when no one else could. I was in both medley and free relays. I got mostly second and third places, an occasional first (usually the relay)–I was in the running. I found I hated HS athletics–especially when I was on JV swimming and the coach not only had no swimming experience, she didn’t know the rudiments of the sport (like 2 handed touch, flip turns, no one else can be in the pool except those swimming–I wish I were kidding.)
Looking back, I did enjoy as a kid. Like so many other things, HS took most of the fun out of it.
High school. 1970’s. I was a tugboat. 50 Free and I tried to finish before the next race started. Water polo and swimming until an auto accident trashed my back junior year. Had my Life Guard certification for a few years, but let it lapse long ago. Now, the largest thing I swim across is a margarita.
I only swam competitively at summer camp, but I’ve been swimming in general since before I could walk. I wish I could have joined a high school team, but my tiny prep school didn’t have one, so I had to do other sports instead.
I got my lifeguard cert at age 15 and did that part time for not a lot of money for a couple years. I recently joined a new gym which has a pretty fabulous indoor pool, and have started doing laps again to improve my cardio. My flipturn has become atrocious.
A friend of mine is a volunteer swim coach for a kids’ after-school swim team in Queens. The club is mostly for poor kids who couldn’t otherwise afford an indoor pool membership.
One day I went up there to meet him for dinner, and I got to observe his team practicing. He proudly pointed out how, to improve team morale, he had spent his own money buying custom swim caps for the kids, each one emblazoned with the particular kid’s official team nickname. There was a “Maverick,” “Shark,” “Stingray,” “Icebreaker,” and so on. And then I saw this one really short, built kid, apparently the team’s best butterflyer, named “Brick.”
I said, “Hey, why is your name ‘Brick?’”
He looked up at me and stated, in a voice far too deep and gruff for his size, “floatin’ don’t come natural to me!”
When he was swimming butterfly, he was the fastest thing in the pool. When not…he was a brick.
Former and current swimmer here. Played water polo (high school and club team) for years but never swam competitively. Now I do triathlons so I still swim 2 or 3 times per week for training.
mum had me swimming at a baby and mother thing at 6 months. i swam a few races at the ywca but i’m not that competitive, and as mentioned in the story by friedo, floating doesn’t come naturally to me (i sink like the titanic, but without the break in the middle), butterfly was the most natural to me with breast stroke second.
freestyle and backstroke were somewhat comical. expecially comical was the year my mum decided to sign me up for synchonized swimming. oy! that was not the place for the non-floating type. for any preformances i would be found way in the back carrying some sort of banner thing.
mum of course could float like a champ.
my best and most favourite job was my 2 years as a lifeguard at an apartment pool.
I swim pretty frequently at the gym but never competitively. My form sucks, my goggles leak, I can’t dolphin-kick, and I can’t time my flip-turn well enough to consistently get a good push off the wall. My best 400m is ~8:35. I have fun, though, and it doesn’t hurt my knees like running (but it’s slightly more boring since the scenery doesn’t change and no music.)
Hee. Well… looks like our medley will be having someone swimming backstroke because no one else can. But maybe we’ll have enough left over for a free relay, too.
Glad to see the all swimmer - lifeguards, too. It’s kind of weird (to me) at the Y where I work out, that none of the lifeguards were on swim or water polo teams. The only swim instructor who swam competitively, is in his 60s. That’s just wrong! The whole reason I didn’t have much relevant experience on graduating college is because lifeguarding and teaching swim lessons was so fun. And it was always worthy of comment when I got a student in a lifesaving class who wasn’t a competitive swimmer.
I got my Life Guard Cert. for two reasons: a) because the instructor was the guy that taught me to swim in the first place, and he demanded that I “finish the job” and b) it enabled me to coach Summer Rec water polo for a couple of summers during college. That was fun.
I taught swimming, rowing and canoeing at a Boy Scout camp for five summers in the early '80s. One of my best jobs ever! Loved it. I’m still in regular touch with my two cabinmates.
Ah, sorry, but though I can lumber my way through backstroke enough for an IM, last time I actually competed in a back event I tore off a toenail on a bad flip.
… I don’t have to point out, do I, what the lack of backstrokers on the Dope implies about how smart it is to swim a stroke that barrels you toward a wall you can’t see?
I swam competitively until middle school: Excelled at breast stroke, was pretty good at free and backstroke; sucked at fly.
We then moved to a new city with a high school that didn’t have a swim team, and I fell out it.
I’ve been thinking about doing a triathlon for some time, but what finally got me in the pool was all the hype about the US Olympic swim team. So the last week I’ve been up at 5:30 in the morning for masters swimming putting in my 1650 yd “mile”.
One thing I’ve learned is that it’s not like riding a bike. Every time I think I’ve got my breaststroke timing back, I string a few perfect strokes together and am reminded that nope, it’s not quite back. And my free is beyond pathetic. You guys are going to have to count me out for the next few weeks
I was on my high school swim team my senior year. I was just so-so, but there was one team that was so bad, I was faster than every single one of their swimmers.
I just did the IM today in my mother’s pool for my son, who wanted to see how all the strokes were done. God but I am slow anymore. I can still do everything, but I’m not in the shape I was in back in the day (to say the least).
I never did competitive swimming, but I did have my lifeguard cert and I taught people how to swim for a few years at the local pool.
