Finding Your True Colors

You can see this at any swim meet, crowds of kids clustered at the end of a lane cheering their team’s stars to victory. More often you can see small groups of three or four friends supporting each other in every event. Sadly, you will also see people swimming in absolute solitude. When these swimmers are on the blocks, or in the water, their teammates do not pay the slightest attention. No one is there for them when they bust their butt and make a personal best, or inch a few seconds closer to a distant qualifying time.

It is a big problem in this sport, that a kid on a “team” can feel so totally alone. No hard-working athlete should have to experience that.  Our coaches have tried to address this over the years; they strive to instill camaraderie amongst the entire, very large, team. It is not easy though, especially on a team that draws from swimmers all over the city and practices at several locations. It is especially difficult with teenagers.

One summer the head coach had had enough of the clicks and the bickering and the overall poor sportsmanship of his high school swimmers. During the last practice before senior champs he told them they did not deserve to represent this organization until they learned what it meant to be a team. No one was allowed to wear their team colors at champs; no team suits, no team caps, no clothes with the team mascot on it. If they showed up at the meet with any of that he would send them home!

When my daughter came home from practice with this news she was mad! We had just bought new team apparel and all her sweats and jackets were the team color. She had a cap she had earned for her work in distance practice that she cherished and that was banned too. “Not fair”, I heard. “I don’t want to swim the mile if I can’t wear my Distance cap.”

I wasn’t the happiest either. I try to support the coaches, even when I disagree with them, but I was  taking one of my few vacation days to travel to this meet, and now it was going to be a trip with a kid who was very angry &  stewing over what she saw as a whole group being punished for the actions of a few. I also thought it was a dumb move on the part of the coach, because how many teenagers really cared about team colors? I mean, really! I figured the ones who were hurt by this were probably not the main offenders. I surmised that kids who didn’t support their teammates didn’t care very much about wearing  team gear either. I really doubted the older kids, those returned from college to train with their old club team for the summer, would be fazed by this at all.

I was wrong.

It was a weird weekend. As soon as I took my spot in the bleachers it began to hit me just how much this mandate affected everyone, even the parents. Our team was nearly invisible on deck, they sat together, but with no banner or unified color amongst them they just looked like a random group of strangers.  They looked rag-tag and disgruntled. Coaches were also not wearing any sort of coach shirt, so they were hard to spot too.

During races it was very hard to follow our swimmers in an 8 lane pool without their team caps on. I started to realize what a large impact this “little thing” had on all of us. It was clear that it really did matter to all those kids. They swim for a strong team, we send some kids to sectionals, nationals and sometimes even World meets . Our swimmers have set records, won NCAA titles and even Olympic medals. This is a team kids are very proud to swim for! It hurt to see them unable to wear their pride in it.

Then I noticed something else. During the slowest heats there were some lanes with cheering groups at the blocks, big cheering groups,the kind you normally just see at finals, for swimmers who were doing well if they finished in 37^th place! You don’t see that at every meet. It was our kids, trying to earn back the right to wear their colors. As the meet worn on, that crowd got bigger and louder.

Soon the parent’s discovered that we didn’t need a team cap to see what lanes our swimmers were in. All we had to do was look for the lanes that had the biggest crowd cheering for them.

It was kind of cool to watch my daughter swim, because instead of her 3 or 4 closer friends cheering for her, the entire team was there, even those big mega college stars. I like to think that those older kids got to know their newer teammates better that weekend.  Everyone was paying attention to seed times & recognized when a fellow teammate dropped time or made a cut.

I thought surely our kids would win the right to wear their colors by finals, but no…When one of our relays won an event they were an embarrassing looking mismatched foursome on the top of the podium. They had a loud cheering section though.

 The next day our kids cheered even more boisterously. It made us laugh, and the whole natatorium was noticing the spectacle & trying to figure out what it was all about. Still, at finals our kids were standing on the podium without any team apparel.

On the third day I walked into the natatorium I saw our team banner was up. Then our kids filed in, everyone in team color from head to toe, standing tall & wearing the biggest smiles ever. I don’t know about the rest of the parents, but my eyes were watering. The team cheer never sounded so loud and proud.

The kids learned at lot that summer. I don’t remember much about what races were won, but I will never forget the lesson they learned about what it meant to be a team. I hope the kids never forget it either.

I see your true colors

Shining through

I see your true colors

And that’s why I love you

So don’t be afraid to let them show

Your true colors are beautiful

True Color Lyrics by Cyndi Lauper