Adults Behaving Badly

By David

High school swimming in the US is bloody incredible. I shouldn’t really say that. I have no idea what high school swimming is like in most of the US. However, one of our team members comes from California and he swears high school swimming there is full of fruit-loops. In Florida, there is no doubt about it: high school swimming is a wonder to behold. Normally sane people plot and plan with all the intensity and deception of planning an international invasion. Others, who, I admit, were a bit odd before the high school season began, go way off the normal behavior chart. Just about everybody involved is in need of some expert guidance. For psychologists, here is a new world of opportunity. I can hear it now,

“What field of psychology did you specialize in at University?”

“Florida High School swimming syndrome (FHSSS), it’s a rapidly growing specialty, offering attractive long term prospects of employment.”

You would hardly believe some of the things that happen down here. I know a coach who demanded another team be stripped of their points because a swimmer was incorrectly entered and the entry changed to the correct event after the close off date. Instead of a little sporting good will, the bloodhounds were released to search and kill. That episode amused me as the coach’s email concluded with that well known phrase, “I do not want to hurt the swimmer.” They all claim that just as they give the order to fire. It reminds me of people who hide behind "constructive criticism" when all they want to do is bash somebody. I’m told that it took a series of late night phone calls, meetings with secret handshakes and a retina security scanner to sort that one out.

I was watching a high school meet the other day. They had a single timer per lane. One of the timers got involved in a conversation and clearly missed the swimmer finishing in her lane. She wrote something on her timing pad. I hope it wasn’t the swimmer’s time.

Parents also exhibit FHSSS. I’ve seen some who insist on sitting in the same spot at each year’s championship. Finding someone else in their chosen place is reason enough to send them into rehab. I’ve heard parents demand trespassers move. Nervous? They are scared out of their minds. Before a high school championship, your average parent’s voice is an octave higher and 20 words a minute faster than at any other time. I was taken to dinner by the parents of one high school swimmer and offered a Caribbean cruise if I could get their daughter into the State Finals. I declined the offer but said I’d do my best. Coming to morning practice would have been more help than a Caribbean cruise.

High school championships also witness the acme of championship screamers. No matter how vocal they are, it is still true; a swimmer with their head under the water can’t hear a word. Edit from Jane: breaststrokers and possibly butterfliers can hear noise intermittently. But - ah - I never was quite able to catch what you all were saying, sorry.

One coach I know is in the habit of preparing a schedule of the area’s best high school times. The effort is enormous. The NFL could learn a thing or two about collecting statistics from this guy. The whole thing is meaningless. High school events are swum in pools that have the latest starting blocks, in pools too shallow to have any starting blocks, in meets that have one manual stopwatch per lane and in pools that have touch pads and the latest in electronic monitoring. The variation in conditions makes a mockery of his labor. Another edit from Jane: When my college team went to race a rival team during my senior year, the coach had posted all of our times and their times in a spreadsheet on the notice-board, separated by event. If our times were the fastest, they were highlighted. This struck me as weird. I already knew who was faster than me and who was in my general price range.

More square inches of newspaper copy are published about high school “stars” than Dara Torres and Rhi Jeffrey combined can muster. It’s a drug - an obsession - that I prefer to leave to others. Sanity demands no less.

The strange thing is you don’t find this kind of obsession at US national meets. In Indianapolis, for example, it was all good old fashioned competition. I win, you win, I lose, you lose; now let’s have a beer and enjoy the rest of the night. The difference is chalk and cheese.

Why is that, do you think? Perhaps it’s because the coaches, swimmers, parents and officials who get to the Nationals have experienced wins and losses, victories and defeats many time before. They have maturity on their side. They realize the futility of high school counter espionage. High school insanity isn’t needed because it doesn’t work. Whatever it is, I can’t wait for the US Short Course Nationals to roll around. It will be December by then and Florida’s bloody high school swimming will be done with for another year. Thank God for that.