Personal Narrative: My Swim Coach

It all started when i was in fourth grade. It all changed what inspired me came by whole big dream that i wanted to be successful at. I was at school just a normal day, and it was times to go to PE, and my coach got out a circular ball that i had never seen in my life. It was kinda colorful, it had some weird word written on it, but i couldn't see from where i was standing. My coach handed us each one of these balls, and coach called them volleyballs. My coach told us what to do and what not to do, so i was at this net, and just gave the ball a high five because that's what he said to do. Coach came over to me, and kinda directed me through and told me it was called a serve. That day i went home thinking about it, and i decided i want to do

I hope you have enjoyed your visit in Fort Lauderdale with the Ursinus swim team tremendously. Continuing on the topic of swimming, this past weekend I participated in the Last Chance meet, hosted at the Upper Merion High School. Since I am a swim instructor on Saturdays, I had to work for three hours before the meet. At the meet, I swam a total of four events, including both the 100-yard and 50-yard Freestyle, the 100-yard Backstroke, and the 200-yard Individual Medley. Additionally, I was able to socialize and bond more with my coaches. Overall, my weekend was full of pleasurable experiences that occurred over the span of only seven hours.

My parents tell me that I took to swimming like... a fish takes to water. It is a safe place where I can float free of worries. Driven by passion and dedication, I decided to begin swimming competitively. Competitive swimming requires an intense level of determination and discipline. Forcing myself to get out of my warm bed at 5:30 in the morning to put on a still-slightly-damp swimsuit and stand in 40-degree weather waiting for practice to start. Putting up with limited lane space and irritating swimmers who think they are faster. Making a conscious effort to work on my stroke form, turns, touches, and techniques. The water becomes a whirlpool of injuries, losses, wins, friendships, enemies, and sickness. The water becomes home.

I texted my baseball coach asking if I could meet with him sometime to talk. When we met I could see in his eyes that he knew what was coming his way. I told him that my heart had shifted from baseball to golf and I would have to forgo my senior season in order to get offered to play golf in college. He began to try to make a deal, giving me options to be on the team part time and I had to tell him no because I didn’t believe it would be fair to my teammates that would have to be there working everyday for me to only show up half the

I had four different swim coaches growing up and two of them were significantly influential in demonstrating how I wanted to be as a person and leader. From the age of five and until sixth grade, I did not have much of a connection or relationship with my coaches. It was more of a swim program that was held after school with some year round competitions. Once I entered Junior High School, swimming became more serious. I ended up trying out and making the year round national competition team. I swam for Mission San Jose Aquatics until the end of summer in 2006. My coach’s name was Debbie Potts. Debbie Potts was someone that everyone respected. She earned her respect by how she treated others with respect and with being a very supportive person. My relationship with her was good and I spent a lot of time with her since I was one of her top swimmers. During the summers I would work for her, helping her managed aspects of the team’s paper work, in addition to helping her with her business in vending swimming apparel and gear. Not only did I get

The person that had the biggest impact on turning me into who i am today was my middle school coach.

What if things were flipped and you were the athlete and the athlete was the coach and didn’t give you any playing time, you would get mad too. Let’s really take an honest and closer look at your situation, maybe you’re way off base, don’t have a clear perspective of the situation here and you’re seriously overrating your skills. In either case however, what matters is how you choose to handle things.

It became obvious that he didn’t care about me as a student. He only cared about me as an athlete whose skills could help his team.

I was the best triple jumper in that year of track, but yet he still rejected the idea of coaching me. I never was disrespectful to my coaches, and was eager to learn new techniques. I made the decision to not change his mind because it’s his own decision. I also know that once a coach places a athlete in an event there’s no way to scratch them out, and put in someone else. I could have done something to make him change his mind and coach me better, but later something better came up. Another trainer that was actually watching me at the track meets wanted to train me over the break, and improve my abilities. I was overly thrilled that all my negative emotions about track just faded

I began swimming when I was eight years old. My mother wanted to make sure my siblings and I knew how to swim so she signed us up for lessons at the YMCA. After a few lessons, my instructor informed us that he was the head coach at a swim club and would love for us to join. My sister and I joined the club and swam there for a year or two. It became evident that both of us had a natural talent for swimming and my parents looked into a more competitive team. We joined the Southern Michigan Aquatics Club (SMAC) shortly after.

Winning our first softball tournament was one of my favorite memories. My coach was a huge factor in our success, and I loved all of my teammates. One of my good friends smashed her first home run that weekend, which made it even more exciting. It was our last tournament of the season, and I am delighted that it ended in our first win.

When I look at large groups, the first thing that I have experienced is my swim team when I was in high school. There were many things within our swim team that made it into a large group, a group characterized by the presence of a formal structure that mediates interaction and, consequently, status differentiation, such as the coach was the head of the group, followed with captains, then seniors, juniors, sophomores, and freshman (Conley 162). The formal structure that we followed was that the coach told everyone what to do and then from that, the captains helped refine the technique within the rest of the subdivisions. Similarly, when looking at the social dynamics, it was very evident who was the coach compared to the swimmers and who were

“Run, run, run!” I yelled to my teammate as we ran on our tippy toes to get to the tents. It was freezing outside, so we bundled up in jackets and blankets as soon as we sat down. I;ve been swimming most of my life, but this was one of my first year round swim meets. I had just swam a 50 free (freestyle) and only had one event lift…..the 500 meter freestyle. I was nervous and I couldn’t eat, so I went to swim on an empty stomach.

The summer of 2016 was going to be a great summer- so I thought. I used to be a part of the Rams Swim Club for 9 years before I decided that I needed to find a new swim team. Not because the practices were too hard, but because my coach was unsupportive. My coach, who will remain unnamed for her sake, was never willing to be a coach that was supportive of her swimmers. She would sit on her phone our entire practice, and she never once paid attention to us. I had to be a leader through this time in my life. I had to respond to her actions and words in a compassionate way. I had to always keep a positive attitude during the time that she was coaching me. There were many instances where I disagreed with what she said, but I did not want to be

By this time I had started to go through puberty and became taller which enabled me to swim faster. The morning group was full of dedicated swimmers who were crazy enough to get up every morning to go jump into a pool and practice. Of course I was no different, but during April of that season I had started to lose my motivation. I began to skip practices and gave my parents excuses, which then they told me to take it easy. After two months of periodic practices, I realized that swimming was an activity that I wanted to do and that I loved, and I decided that I would not allow myself to quit, no matter how hard it became. When the new season started, I started to push myself, trying to keep up to the faster swimmers. I became close with my team mates as people who go through pain together get closer. We started to have more fun together from going out, to having funny conversations in the locker rooms. I also began to do travel meets where we would spend a few days together, eating, sleeping, and swimming. I spent more time out of the pool with my friends and even became romantically involved with one. Now, swimming has become one of the most important things to me, it has been the activity that has the most influence on my life. From my work ethic, sleeping habits, to my choice of friends, all of them are tied to