I love watching, cheering, and pushing my boys to compete. In sports, they learn about sacrifice, hard work (especially when they don’t feel like it), and committing to teammates. This most recent season was full of some amazing highs after responding to some personal lows. I am so thankful for their growth and experiences this season.
2023 SC season with the Greenfield Central Aquatic Team (GCAT) is the first time that all 3 of my boys would be competing. Chase, 6yrs old and on the Cougar Cubs squad, is still working on his beginning strokes. His freestyle and backstroke are getting good enough that he chose to do his first races this season. Gabriel, 7yrs old, started this season in the Wildcats where his stroke technique and endurance has really started to accelerate. Dominic, 10yrs old, moved up to the Jaguars squad with Coach Mark this year having made his first long course state cuts in the breaststroke events the previous season.
As with every season, the boys and I sit down and sketch out some rough goals for them to shoot at. For the most part they come up with their own. While I could really care less (though I fully admit that it is really fun to watch when they are gifted) how good they are, I value the life lessons that sports provide even more.
Dom’s goals were the easiest to set because they involved progression. Coach Ben planted a seed for Dom to become a more well rounded swimmer since Dom had failed to qualify, neither divisional nor state, in any other stroke outside of breaststroke. His goals for the season were: 1. Qualify in at least one event for the other three strokes 2. Qualify for state cuts in both breaststroke events again 3. Regain the 100yd breaststroke club record from his buddy Jack 4. Improve his 50yd breaststroke record to beat the girl’s equivalent record (41.88) since every girl’s 10U club record was faster than the boy’s records.
Gabe’s goals were a little tougher to set since this would be his first full season of racing after racing a handful of times the prior year. Those that know Gabe knows that the sky is the limit for him and he’s not afraid to throw down some crazy “pie in the sky” type goals. He settled on: 1. Have a legal butterfly 2. Swim in 100yd events 3. Qualify for divisional as a 7 year old 4. Become a great backstoker.
Chase’s goals were pretty simple: 1. Do a race 2. Successfully complete 25yd freestyle and backstrokes 3. Try the 25yd breaststroke 4. Not to quit during any of his races and not to stop and hang on the lane line.
To be honest, I felt like Dom’s and Gabe’s goals were pretty lofty, but it isn’t my place to put restrictions on them. My wife and I were just happy that Chase would be out of the stands and now on the pool deck (SORRY COACHES 🙂 Swimming has never been our primary sport but the boys were growing more interested in it, except for the fact that the pools were always too cold!
The first few meets went pretty well. Gabe successfully completed more events, more strokes, and longer distances without a DQ (disqualification). Dom had a few big time drops in his secondary events like butterfly and backstroke. And Chase worked a lot in practice to get ready for his first meet.
Then something magical happened. On December 9-11th, we had signed up for the Jingle Jamboree at the IU Natatorium. Dom had to miss a basketball game (side note- normally Dom would have picked basketball over swim but swim was able to get their meet schedule out months in advance and basketball struggles by only giving a week’s heads up for games so I told Dom that if he committed to a swim meet then he wouldn’t be able to miss it for other things) which is a switch from last year. He also took on the challenge of swimming in his first Friday night endurance event, the 500 yd freestyle. It was also the first time that he and Gabe would be swimming a full schedule all weekend instead of just one day. I’ve always loved that natatorium (it is my alma mater and I would sneak in there as phys. ed student to study and nap ) and felt it was magical, but I wasn’t ready for what unfolded next for the boys.
Dom CRUSHED the 500yd free, coming in 2nd and setting a club record with 8:20.67 (he really wanted to come back and set a higher standard but unfortunately this event wasn’t offered at any other meets this season). It also set a fire in him that anything was possible. He would go on to drop massive amounts of time in most of his other events all weekend including 5 brand new divisional time cuts! He struggled in his best stroke, but his commitment to being more well rounded paid off HUGE!!
Gabe piggybacked on this momentum and dropped about an average of 5 seconds on each of his events even though he was now swimming a full event schedule (4 individual events per day is often the max). His goal of making divisional cuts went from crazy person to unlikely. I still had my doubts and he still had lots of time to drop, but he was starting to hang with some 8 year olds.
This momentum carried forward through the next several meets! The next meet was Donner in Columbus (a venue that I had swam as kid). Dom dominated the Donner meet with several 1st place finishes, qualified in every divisional cut except for butterfly, and made his breaststroke state cuts. Gabe continued to drop around 3 seconds on his 50yd events, drop 5 seconds on this 100yd events, and dropped over 20 seconds on his 200yd freestyle. No divisional cuts yet but they had shifted from unlikely to possible and that’s all that kid needs to hear! Chase made his swim team debut by completing his first 25yd freestyle. He didn’t stop during the race and wasn’t DQ’d! Dom & Gabe both walked away with High Point Winner trophies 🙂
The next several weeks were a blur. The boys were racing more events than they had in the past and weren’t afraid to try to new/harder events. Each meet was more time drops and more made time cuts. Chase tried his first backstroke event, his first 50yd (freestyle) event, and his first breaststroke event (though he was DQ’d like his brothers before him on their first attempt at breaststroke). Gabe made his first divisional cuts, 200yd freestyle/100yd free/100yd backstroke/100yd breaststroke/50yd back, and was within 1-2 seconds on several other events. Dom had also focused his goals on the club record board where he surprised himself by capturing several event best times (and thanked Coach Ben for making him a more well rounded swimmer).
This lead us to our last meet before divisional, a stressful time trial event. For those of you that haven’t experienced a time trial, they are very different than regular meets. First, there is a lot of stress because the swimmers are there solely to drop time and make a time cut. Second, most of the team isn’t there since it isn’t a regular meet so the athletes have to compete in a pressure cooker without most of their support system. Lastly, the events aren’t very deep so there isn’t a big pool of swimmers to race you to the finish line. This would also be the first time this season that we abandoned the “House Money” mantra we had used over the past few months.
Earlier in the season, I introduced the phrase “House Money” to the boys. It was a great way for Dom to deal with his performance anxiety and for Gabe to keep his age in perspective (he is 7 years old competing for 10 & under divisional times). Dom had made his divisional cuts so he was trying to make state cuts with house money. Gabe was only 7yrs old so he was trying to make divisional cuts on house money.
The Chasestrong Time Trial meet was the first time I had to replace the “House Money” mantra with a more serious “Put Up or Shut Up” mantra. As much as I want to shelter my boys from stress and disappointment, real life dictates that they get exposed to the lessons from them. Instead of shying away from its harshness, we leaned into it as a way to prep for the Divisional meet a week later. Gabe was pushing to make a few final cuts: 200 IM (individual medley) and 50yd butterfly. He missed the fly by .5seconds but had another PR. He CRUSHED the 200 IM! Not only had he survived his biggest challenge, he had hung in with 12 yr olds.
The time trial was one last chance for Dom to make state cuts in the 100yd free, 100yd back, and 50yd back. It was also an opportunity for him to improve his 50yd breaststroke cut in an effort to make the top 8 seeds in the state finals. While he did improve in both backstroke events, he was still shy of the state cut. He also failed to improve his breaststroke time and went into the state meet ranked #9 (and 1 slot away from being in the final heat). The rough day also finished with the news that Gabriel was DQ’d in his amazing 200 IM for being in motion at the starting block.
And while these setbacks are usually a sign of tough times ahead for my boys, especially Dom, everything seemed well the next week in practices as they prepared for Divisional races. Dom and Gabe had maxed out their divisional cut qualifications. Gabe had made the 6 individual max limit. Dom had cleared the list by making all 10 individual event time cuts.
The regular season was over and it was time to focus on the post season.
Next up: SE DIVISIONAL MEET
