Personal Narrative: The Elsik Varsity Swim Team

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.

My name is Alauna Torres and I am a student in the eleventh grade at Inderkum. I work hard to maintain grades in the IB Diploma program and struggle, just as any other student does. Last year, I joined Inderkum’s first swim team in six years. After practicing everyday for two hours, I made a bond with many people on my team. As a team, we couldn 't wait to get out of school, huddle together in the atrium, share food, stories, jokes, and insecurities. We tried to get everyone involved, hoping they wouldn’t feel alone or unimportant. As peers around, our job can’t always be fulfilled if our teachers, staff, and coaches don’t do the same to their students.

Throughout my five years continuing on my sixth; I had never became so close to any sport/club offered at my school. Our team is considered a “family.” We stand by eachother through times of doubt and reminisce on our good memories. We enjoy the company of one another. Every Friday night before our Saturday morning races, the team would all sit down together and have a nice meal together. The team is a close knit group even with students joining and graduating from the

Joining a team with kids ranging from five to eighteen, it can be hard. It seemed as if everyone already knew each other. At first, I felt like an outcast, but not for long, once I proved I could swim fast. It took time learning names and getting used to the practices, but in the end my entrance into this group was easy compared to the practices I had to go through. My exit from DCPR was much harder, the coach’s said a few things about us at the award ceremony and then the team gave us a card and best wish in college and off we go. The coaches, swimmers, and the swimmers’ parents had become my second family. We all believed in hard work, having fun, and racing when the time came. Our norms were putting in the effort when swimming and if you did, it would pay off in the meets. Slacking off was never rewarded and always sanctioned. Either the coach or your parent, or both, would yell at you. At 12 I was given the infamous nickname, Snax. It was not necessarily a bad nickname; it came about because I had a habit of always having snacks. We all got nicknames, they were our folkways. It was just part of the culture of being on the team. Our more was practice; it started at 6 every day and had a set

Joining a team with kids ranging from five to eighteen, it can be hard. It seemed as if everyone already knew each other. At first, I felt like an outcast, but not for long, once I proved I could swim fast. It took time learning names and getting used to the practices, but in the end my entrance into this group was easy compared to the practices I had to go through. The coaches, swimmers, the swimmers’ parents became my second family. We all believed in hard work, having fun, and racing when the time came. Our norms were putting in the effort when swimming and if you did, it would pay off in the meets. Slacking off was never rewarded and always sanctioned. Either the coach or your parent, or both, would yell at you, which distracted others, which could ultimately cause you to be kicked out of practice for that day. Although I never got kicked out of practice, I was given the infamous nickname, Snax. It was not necessarily a bad nickname, it came about because I had a habit of always having snacks. We all got nick names from something we had done or just because. My best friend was Yugi, because his younger brother had called him that, my other friend we called squid; it was just part of the culture of being on the

The Geelong College boys swimming season began in Term 4 2016, and it was evident within the first handful of Saturday competitions that it was going to be a good year with many successes. The season was filled with commitment and enthusiasm, with majority of our team attending many hard and physically demanding training sessions being set day and night, Monday to Friday. With the help and dedication of our coaches Dean Alchin and Mitch Norton the college swim team was ready to take on the GISSA swim competition where we competed against various schools from both Geelong and the Bellarine. The boys swam to the best of their abilities and gave it their all taking away second place overall. Numerous personal bests were swum and it was shown that the boys were ready and pumped to take their swimming to the next level and show what a strong team the college had produced this season at the APS swim finals set at MSAC.

Even with all these insecurities in volleyball I decided to try out for my high school team. I wanted to play as many sports as possible in high school and figured what better way to start off my career than with a sport I became slightly familiar with in middle school. Volleyball camps and tryouts began a couple of weeks before the beginning of my freshman year. I started with the camps thinking it would help me gain skills that would help me in tryouts. The camp definitely helped but I shortly began to realize that this was way more serious than any volleyball I had participated in before. I realized I was going to have to put in a ton of hard work if I was going to succeed in making the team because I was not only going up against other

I was never the person who would stay for anything for long let alone participate, i especially wasn’t athletic whatsoever, until the middle of my 9th grade year when my best friend moved to San Francisco, this was a turning point in my life. I became depressed and so i joined my school’s Track and Field team. I never enjoyed running nor did it to lose weight but that all didn’t matter when i had to run 6 miles as a warm-up. I have never been trained to do a non-stop mile let alone 6 miles. As the team started the warm up, I was very nervous since i was the slowest in the entire team, as i got closer to a stop light that head to my house i remember thinking “ if this light turns red I’ll go straight home and never go back, but if it stays

The team was divided into two small groups. It all started when two girls were on rival teams. They would try to spread rumors, leave people out of the conversation, and pretend the person wasn’t even there, sorta like they were invisible. Some people would have sleepovers with only three people and some would invite everyone except for three people on the team. It was all because of two girls who were causing drama and gossiping. They were the reason we were losing all the time. It was not because we were bad it was because we were not an actual team. Everyone would be mad at each other and not pass the ball to anyone or just not even try to make someone mad. One day the coach emailed my mom and asked if we would be willing to leave the team and switch to a new team called Arizona Power. My mom had gave me some subtle but noticeable hints by asking “Would you switch teams?”, “Do you want to try out for this team?” or “Would it be okay if you switched to a different

The skies were clear and the waters were calm when we dove into the warm waters of the Gulf. We should’ve stopped at the surf shop; it would’ve avoided this whole mess. The strong currents are tossing my body around like a rag doll. I’m trying to keep my eyes on Taylor’s bright red hair, because at this point, losing Taylor means I have zero chances of survival, and no friend to work with. The waves finally seem to have calmed down enough for me to swim to the surface to get some much-needed air. I’m looking for a certain redhead, but I can’t find her. I’m starting to panic.

It was the day I had been waiting for all season; the ultimate test of my swimming career thus far. Sections day one had finally rolled around. I had just finished my brief warm up, and I got ready to rest before my crucial race. I threw on my blue, nylon warm up and wrapped my bulky parka around my body. I nestled on the bench next to my friend Liberty, and we began playing music to pump us up before the race ahead. I sat lingering patiently in the yellowy-lit University of Minnesota-Morris pool area as the musty smell of chlorine filled the air. I leaned back and shut my eyes to visualize my upcoming race and let the music pacify me. I was frigid as I sat anticipating the race.

“Are they in yet?” my mother questioned nervously. I had been waiting anxiously on my phone waiting for the results to come in. I kept refreshing the page eager to find the new 2016- 2017 Prosper High School Varsity team. “No, not yet” I replied with cheerlessness. It had already been 30 minutes past the time the results were to be posted. Those 30 minutes were the longest 30 minutes I had ever experienced. Before I was about to give up and force myself to sleep, I tried to refresh the page one more time. Repeatedly my finger hit the refresh button, and soon a list of numbers filled the screen of the girls who made the team. My eyes search immediately to number 22. Luckily, the anxiety was gone soon after I realized all the hard work I put in paid off.

My swim coach is a passionate, tough man, so the day I needed to inform him I would miss swim finals for my Standard Aptitude Test, I braced myself for his response.

Joining a summer swim team ensures a summer filled with fun, and involvement with a community of supportive and upbeat people every day. Firstly, everyone on a swim team is supportive and kind to each other at meets, practices, and even just around the pool. One of the reasons why countless friendships are made is because of all the memories you share with the team. Some practices are so funny that you’re practically choking on water from constantly giggling, and some meets are so