The Swim Team

Even though I wasn't a very good swimmer, I decided to join the Timpview High School swim team my freshman year because my mom was on her high school swim team and said it was really fun. I also liked the idea of leaving the school an hour early and taking a bus down to the pool at Provo High School. Any reason to avoid sitting in a classroom seemed pretty good to me :) Fortunately tryouts weren't required -- they simply took anyone who signed up. Otherwise I wouldn't have made it. My friend Seth joined the swim team with me, and right away we had a group to belong to, which was helpful because high school can be a pretty lonely place without that. One morning I woke up to banging on my bedroom door, and a bunch of guys from the swim team poured into my room and kidnapped me for a "come as you are" breakfast. I was just in my bathrobe, and they were kind enough to let me put on some pants before shuffling me into the van and driving me to the coach's house (collecting several other kids on the way). Strangely, it was a pretty enjoyable way to start the day.

I spent the first few months of my freshman year learning how to swim correctly. I was really struggling, but I had a patient coach. My first real breakthrough came when she videotaped me swimming the freestyle stroke and I saw exactly what I was doing wrong. I decided on a whim to learn to swim the butterfly stroke, largely because no one else seemed interested (probably because it was so hard). My first few races were pretty rough. I still remember the first time I got for the 100 yard butterfly (4 laps in a standard pool) -- it took me 1 minute and 21 seconds to finish. I always started out pretty strong, but by the end of the race my oxygen and energy were depleted and I looked like a drowning baboon and felt like a drowning swimmer for the last 15 yards or so. I remember going to Cedar City in October for a swim meet and eating dinner at Shoney's restaurant. At the end of that first year I received an award for being the "most improved" swimmer, which was virtually guaranteed since I was such a poor swimmer when I first started. A guy named Matt who was an assistant coach gave me the nickname "Flex."

My sophomore year was the peak of my swimming success. I remember swimming freestyle one day at practice and realizing that I was hardly using my legs at all -- I was just pulling myself along with my arms. So I started kicking after that and significantly increased my speed -- so much so that I was part of the freestyle relay team at the state meet in February. I had a girlfriend that would come watch me swim sometimes, and the guys on the team nicknamed her "GW" (short for "Gerry's Woman"). I used to watch the balcony constantly during practice, waiting for the moment when she would walk in.

One time at a swim meet I was lying on a bench resting between races and something from the ceiling fell into my eye. I think it was fiberglass or something. It hurt a LOT, and it took me 15 or 20 minutes in the locker room shower to finally wash it out.

I used to alternate between listening to peaceful new age piano music (usually David Lanz) and rock music (usually Foreigner's "Tooth and Nail") to get psyched up for a race. But I still hit "the wall" every time I swam butterfly. My times were now around 1:15, which still wasn't great. So I joined a swimming club that had just been formed call PAC (Provo Aquatics Club) and swam twice as much. The workouts were intense, and I was exhausted at the end of each day. But the training worked, and I was able to get down to 1:05 and was given the "over the wall" award at the end of the year, as well as the "Men's High Point Sophomore" award.

I decided to graduate high school a year early because my girlfriend was a year older than me and I didn't want to be left behind when she graduated, so I packed a lot of classes into my junior/senior year and didn't have time to practice with the team. We also got a new coach that year, and she gave me regular workouts that I was supposed to do on my own. I think I did them maybe twice, but she still let me swim with the team and I was on the state relay team that year.

Joining the swim team was one of the best decision's I've ever made. I actually did better in school during the swim season, because even though I had less time I was more focused and had more purpose. When I look back at the happiest times in my life they are almost always correlated with intense physical exercise.