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It was an overcast Saturday at six thirty in the morning. My sisters were scurrying to pack their gear. My parents were loading the car with food. I was safely wedged under the bed, hoping to avoid public humiliation. Minutes later, with tears streaming down my face, I was on my way to a swim meet.
The meet went as predicted. I placed a special kind of last in all four events. Everyone was out of the pool, drying off and congratulating one another by the time I touched the wall. The swimmers of the next heat stared as I struggled to heave my 235-pound body out the pool. I was the poor soul at every competition who received a “good job” out of polite pity. It was a form of torture reserved for me four times a year from middle school through my freshman year.
Enough was enough. I was sick of this self-inflicted degradation. I wanted to quit immediately. My dad agreed with me, on the condition that I would still do sports. I aimed for the obscure and discovered that a water polo class was offered during the summer. I loved it. My peers were as new to the game as I was. “It’s like volleyball in the water, right?” I remember asking. My instructor’s eyes twinkled as he chuckled. “Yea… It’s exactly like volleyball”.
I joined the high school water polo team that sophomore fall. Midway through the season, the coach stated that only players who swam in the spring would be eligible to play the next season. It was his way of recruiting swimmers. I panicked. I could barely handle a swim meet once every three months. High school swim meets occurred twice a week. Twice a week? It was unthinkable. I would be swimming headfirst into shame. All my teammates would be silent witnesses to my failure. There was no way that I would join the swim team, and yet there was no way that I could quit water polo.
Water polo was my sport, and I would keep on playing. I swallowed my fear. Instead of hiding under the bed, I would face the challenge this time. I trained intensively for a simple goal; get faster so I would not embarrass myself. I began strength-training to supplement the swim workouts. I spent many mornings falling off my bed because I was too sore to stand. When spring season came, I was ready.
I remember the first “gut test” the day before the meet. It was a 500-yard freestyle, a twenty lap endurance event. I was in the bathroom, trying to ease my queasiness, when it was my turn. The whistle blew and I ripped through the water. I had a body length lead by the 10th lap, but it vanished around the 18th lap. I scrambled to catch up. When I touched the wall, I looked at the incoming swimmers and smiled. I was not last. It was a sweet victory. It was victory over my own fear.
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