Rec League Swim Meets

Ann and John were both in the Gwinnett County Swim League through high school. This was a summer recreational swim league operated at neighborhood swimming pools. There were 46 teams and roughly 6,000 swimmers. The teams were broken up into divisions according to size to compete against each other during the season. Each team had three swim meets at home, and three swim meets away.

Putting on a swim meet at the neighborhood pool was a major undertaking. The list of details was astounding and required the involvement of every parent in at least one capacity. The list of things to be done for each swim meet included lighting, sound system, timers, stroke and turn officials, starters, bullpen, event board, results, ribbons, concessions, starting blocks and parking. Every detail had to be thought of, and handled, in advance. Each successive swim meet was slightly less chaotic that the meet before. By the time you knew what you were doing, it was time to put everything away for the year.

Rec swim league meets were chaotic even with the greatest planning and preparation. Our team had 150 kids aged 4-18, with an equal number of parents, and the other team had the same numbers. Cramming that many people around a neighborhood pool on a hot Georgia summer night is the definition of chaos. It really didn’t make much difference what kinds of preparations you made; that is a lot of people!

Being the lazy no-good bum that I am, I initially tried to get by with minimal involvement. This was not possible. During my time of incarceration in the swim league I did time in the bullpen, timing, event board, stroke-and-turn official, and starter/announcer. I helped set up lights, starting blocks, parking arrangements, sound system, bullpen chairs and anything else that needed doing. I also helped take everything down and put it away at the end of the meet. (May God bless those who did not help.)

Jean did pretty much all of the same and much, much more. Jean spent several years as team vice-president, and several more as team president. Being president of a team of roughly 150 swimmers, and about as many parents, took the diplomatic skills of the ambassador to North Korea; really. Budget, coaches’ salaries, swim and racquet club council meetings, swim league council meetings, and arranging all of the infrastructure items I mentioned earlier were all Jean’s business. If you’ve never done it, (“it” being the loss of sleep and sanity) you cannot fully appreciate the time and effort; all done as a volunteer. No greater love hath a woman for her children.

Swim meets started at 6pm, which meant that we had to start setting up the pool at 3pm, so the home team could warm-up at 5pm, and the visiting team could warm-up at 5:30 pm. Swim meets typically lasted until 10:30 pm or later, clean-up till after 11pm, and then home to bed and get up for work at 6am. Jean and the swim team would often go out for pizza after the meet. I went home and died.

Jean would make incredible dinners of chicken salad or ham and macaroni salad and pack them in an ice chest for each swim meet. We each had our own labeled container inside. A second ice chest was necessary to carry sodas, chips, grapes, celery, carrots and Jean’s soon to be famous chocolate chip bars. The kids would swim an event and wander by our chairs (the chairs we rarely got a chance to sit in) and grab some chow between events.

When the kids were little Jean and I would take turns working at the swim meets. Jean would work the first half of the meet while I watched kids, and then Jean would watch the kids while I worked the second half. As the kids grew older they became swim meet orphans as both Jean and I worked the entire swim meet. They knew the routine by that time and only needed us to make dinner. (That means they needed Jean, not me.)

Jean and I spent 16 years going to (working) rec swim league meets, and 8 of those years were spent doing double duty at USA Swimming meets. When you add another 4 years of attending University of Virginia swim meets, it adds up to 20 years of swimming for Jean and me.

It was all such hard work that we had no idea how much fun we were having at the time.