Swim Team: Celebrating Teammates
August 29, 2013 | By
With many swimmers wrapping up summer training and heading back to school, it’s a great time to remember one of our favorite aspects of our swim team: teammates! Best buddies. Family. Our weirdest friends. Whatever you call them, they are the people we see day in and out, sometimes for hours at a time.
To on-lookers, it may appear that swimming is an individual sport with one person racing in their own lane, swimming for their personal best time. Behind the scenes, it's so much more than meets the eye.
Teammates are with us doing our best sets, or when we false start at a meet. It's one of the aspects that make this sport so amazing. From playing cards between sessions to celebrating best times after a meet, teammates are there to make those little victories sweeter and pick us up on our toughest days.
When we were young, relays were always the best part of meets because we got to swim with our best friends. Now, you got to share the victory not only with yourself, but with your teammates who all contributed equally to that win as well.
Swimming has its brutal moments, too. From early morning practices to adding time at an important meet, we lean on our teammates for inspiration and words of wisdom to shake off the negative vibes or put the last race behind us. This encouragement lifts our spirits from warm up to warm down. If we’re having fun at a meet, chances are we are going to swim faster or drop time. The locker room shenanigans and uncontrollable laughs are indelible memories of most people’s swimming experience.
For swimmers who spend so much of their time in the water, these teammates become your best friends, sometimes for life after your retire from the sport. Bonding between heats and finals or challenging each other in the lane over during the last set of practice creates friendships that stay deep within us.
Most swimmers stay in touch with their club or college teammates. After your time spent in the pool, you become an alumnus, which means alumni meets and dinners become all about fun. No matter how many years pass, you will always be a part of your team. Some might argue swimmers are a little different from the athletes that compete on land. Maybe it’s linked to all the extra chlorine we swallow, but it's an instant bond when we find others that are just as "unique" as we are.
Leave a comment below with your favorite thing about your swim team teammates by September 6 and you'll be entered in a random drawing for a SwimOutlet.com gift pack: goggles, cap & swim towel.
