About 9 years ago, my wife decided that it would be a good idea to get my son in the pool; I didn’t argue. At the very least, getting my son familiar with the water at an early age, teaching him to swim, would be a huge safety relief for us. God forbid he fell into the water, he would be able to survive. Well, that decision has turned into a lot more than just that. My son is a fricking awesome swimmer.
Yeah, as he got older, we kept him in it. From group lessons to individual lessons, from the park district to the YMCA, my son has pretty much been in the pool ever since he was 18 months old. It’s kind of funny, because when he was about 7 or so, I think he got burned out from swimming. When the YMCA told him he was good enough to be on the swim team, he declined; we were disappointed, but didn’t push it. I knew that if was something that was going to be part of his future, it would come. The following year, when the same was proposed, this time, he accepted. He’s been on the swim team for about 3 years now I believe. It’s going pretty well.
You see, the way his birthday falls is actually perfect for the swimming season. While he will always be one of the youngest players in his baseball league because of his birthday, he will be one of the oldest kids in his group in swimming because of the April birthday. After last year, when the coach told us of this, in the next breath, he said he will have a very good chance to make the state tournament this year. Because he was already in range at the age of 9, this year, as a 10 year old, he’ll have a real shot.
We got the news about a month or so ago that he WOULD be participating in the state tournament, as part of the relay team, participating in two separate events. Now the only question was would he qualify for any individual event; we would get our next answer shortly after. He broke his 50M butterfly record at a recent meet, which was good enough to qualify him for state in that event; now we’re up to 3 events at the state tournament come the end of March. That brings us to this Sunday’s meet.
The next possible event for him was the 50M freestyle; this is the hardest event to qualify for, since everybody swims freestyle. He had a pretty good start, but as he made his turn, the other kid was right next to him. I saw my son glance at him, and the rest was history. He turned on the jets to win his heat, which was great, but when I saw his time… it was really great. He qualified for the state in 50M freestyle!!! I got about as emotional as I’ve ever gotten at one of his swimming meets. When he came over and confirmed this with us, we were thrilled. 4 events now! We were so proud of him. Crazy thing is he almost qualified with the 50M breast stroke and 100M IM, only finishing a second off the time.
It was quite the day. It’ll be a first for all of us, come end of March. Just as I told my wife all of the kids that were involved in the meet on Sunday should be proud of themselves, getting in the pool, competing… I will say the same for everybody that makes the state tournament, including yeah, my son. It’s nuts really; I can’t wait to see how he does. Win or lose though, not sure I could be more prouder. Congrats my boy.
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