Awards Ceremony

Our recreation swim league team had a potluck supper at the end of each season. Trophies and other awards were passed out at a simple ceremony after the supper. The coaches, who were typically early college or late high school kids, determined the awards and presided over the ceremony. It took some creativity on the coaches’ part, but all of the little kids got at least one trophy for something or other. For the older age groups, trophies and plaques were less important and therefore increasingly scarce.

I will never forget this one funny moment at the 1993 end of year awards ceremony. At the end of the ceremony the coaches awarded a single award, the ultimate of all awards for the night. It was called the Swimmer of the Year.

Jean and I were sitting in our lawn chairs as one of the coaches went on and on about the accomplishments of this one young swimmer. We whispered to each other guessing who it might be. The coach told about his improved swim times. We immediately knew the gender and started looking around to see if people were looking at any particular swimmer. The coach said this kid had won all of his dual meet races that year. Now we were really intrigued. Our heads were on swivels looking around trying to figure out who this kid could be. How could we not notice a kid who’d won all of his races and not say a kind word to his parents? After a pregnant pause, the coach announced our son John as Swimmer of the Year.

Honestly, we had no idea that John had won all of his races. Other parents claimed to know from the very beginning that it was John, but we did not know. We knew he’d won some races, and we knew his times had improved, but just assumed he’d lost a few races somewhere along the way. We were always asking him “did you have fun”, or “how was your stroke”, or “how was your turn”, but never noticed or cared that he had won; winning just wasn’t important.