Lessons of a first-time head coach

We swam against Pacific on Friday in Stockton before heading to Fresno where we competed against Fresno State and Fresno Pacific on Saturday.  We came up 12 points short on Friday but gathered our strength (and added divers!) to take two victories on Saturday.  The trip was fun, motivating, and enlightening.  Here’s what I learned in my first travel meet as a head coach:

1.      Traveling with a women’s only team (with the exception of my husband Steve) is practically odor-free!  Our bus was clean and shockingly devoid of various body odors that permeate buses carrying co-ed or (God forbid) men’s only teams. 

Saturday morning's wake-up stretch.

      2.  Winston Churchill had it right:  “Never, never, never, never give up!”  Even though we were down by 31 points after the first five events Saturday, the swimmers and divers stuck together, kept their heads up, and fought with tenacity AND precision to win in the end. 

      3.      Chinese throat lozenges come not from another continent but from another planet.  After I’d lost my voice from screaming “GO!” for three hours, Meng-Jiao (“JoJo”) appeared bright-eyed beside me:  “I have Chinese medicine for little coach throat.  Oh, poor coach yell so loud.  Take this Chinese medicine.”  The Chinese medicine was in a small, grass green box with a picture of a turquoise water fall and Asian man in a coat and tie.  Wrapped in golden, pseudo-aluminum foil, the lozenges were square and amber.  The instant I dropped one on my tongue a tingly flood of mint-cinnamon-lemon mist flooded my nose.  Seriously, it was like Draino for the esophagus.  It opened all the blood vessels in my brain and sort of tickled my toenail cuticles.  My voice returned to normal immediately.  Long live JoJo-- Mountain West Conference Swimmer of the Week!

      4.      It’s fun to coach a group of girls so willing to tackle any challenge to win.  Ashley Kunz didn’t bat an eye when we added her to the 200 Breast; Erika Twenge, in her first meet as a freshman, showed remarkable poise when she was bumped to the A Relay; Alysse Ploussard executed practically flawless strategy in the 200 Free, an event with which she has a love-hate relationship; Gabby Guieb and Leslie Foley both stepped up to swim fly in relays, Luiza hammered out a fantastic 100 free to lead-off our victorious 400 Free Relay; and the list goes on and on…

The team at Fresno State.

      5.      The length of the list (see #4 above) epitomizes one of the most important lessons:  No single person can win a meet.  But all of us working, thinking, pushing, cheering, laughing together can win a meet.  And more important than winning a meet, we can walk away proudly knowing that WE did everything possible to maximize our individual abilities in the pursuit of TEAM greatness.