By David
Our swim team has just been to its first swim meet of the 2009 summer season. The parking lot contained the usual display of car decorations; Swimming Dad, Swim Taxi and Honor Student featured prominently. In a previous article I discussed the nature and diversity of these stickers. Just as fascinating is the effort to come up with something vaguely original on a t-shirt.
I would never underestimate the difficulty of this task. God knows, for years I’ve tried find an interesting logo – and failed. When Gary Hurring worked for me we put his picture on the back of a team t-shirt and on the front wrote, “Is your coach always on your back?” I can hear you all groan from here. In case you haven’t heard his name, Gary was one of New Zealand’s best swimmers. He completed four years at the University of Hawaii, won the Commonwealth Games and was fourth in the Berlin World Championships and the Los Angeles Olympic Games.
“Walk on the wild side” with cat paw prints up the front of the shirt, “Made in Palm Beach USA” and “May the force be with you” have been other personal failures. Probably my best effort was a t-shirt Jane and I had made after Basil Dynan, President of the Hawkes Bay/Poverty Bay Swimming Centre, called the police and tried to convince them our old car had been abandoned in the pool parking lot of the Onekawa Aquatic Centre and should be towed away. The t-shirt had a photograph of the car with the word “abandoned” underneath in wild-west-style “WANTED” font. The team wore it to their next meet. Dynan’s face was a picture; looked like he’d just drunk a cup of cold sick.
The t-shirts I find most difficult are those that attempt to make all those who pass by better people. “Honor before glory”, “I swim therefore I am”, “Pain is weakness leaving the body”, “Swim hard or go home” and “Pain = success” all fit into that category.
They inspire in me the terrible urge to print a shirt that declares “I hate swimming. Do something else”. It is not that the values the messages promote are wrong or bad. On the contrary, “give me liberty or give me death” messages are perhaps a little foolish but admirable nevertheless. It’s just that I’ve always thought the best form of religion doesn’t require the believer to have their faith printed across their chest.
The funny t-shirts are seldom funny. To be belly-laugh funny usually means saying something so outrageous that your average swim team committee would never allow their charges to have it printed on a t-shirt. Consequently you end up with “aquaticus kick-assicus”, “instant swimmer, just add water”, “yippie…another weekend, another swim meet” and “I may be a hot dog, but I can really move my buns!” Are you laughing? [Editor’s note: No, I just threw up.] Then you understand the point. Masters swimmers have shirts that get closest to forcing a smile. Bob Johnston is a US Masters National Breaststroke champion and swims on our team in Florida during the winter. He has a shirt I like – “masters swimming, the last one alive wins”.
The most difficult t-shirts are those whose messages don’t make any sense. At the swim meet today, a young girl was wandering around with a shirt that proclaimed “the game never ends”. What does that mean? Of course the bloody game ends. The message is certainly too deep for me. Then there is “swimming – it’s our second favorite sport”. My guess is that’s a sexual message. How awfully inappropriate. I’m told the 1976 Harvard Women’s Team had a t-shirt that said, “It’s not the meat, it’s the motion.” That too seems pretty sexual, but then perhaps it’s just my suspicious mind. I saw another mystery t-shirt this morning. It said “attitude is everything – just fast”. I’m not sure whether that’s a reference to speed or not eating. Either way a slogan is not much use if the reader needs an explanation.
And finally there are all those terrible Nike, or is it Adidas, slogans; “make them eat wake”, “nothing behind you matters”, “second is just the fastest loser” “just do it” and a million others. They always seem so bloody arrogant to me; a sort of, “I’m bloody brilliant and you’re just rubbish” message. If you are really that good there’s probably no need to tell the world about it on the front of your t-shirt.
And so our team needs to have a new t-shirt for this year’s trip to the Mare Nostrum series. We’ve decided on a plain black polo shirt with “Aqua Swim Team, Florida, USA” in small white print on the left hand chest and a large white Florida palm leaf on the back. It should work just fine.
[More editorial notes from Jane.] Internet conferences, which are to me now what swim meets once were, always have t-shirt giveaways. This is the best geek conference shirt ever:
The company who made the t-shrits, Acquiso.com, specialise in PPC management software. The shirt refers to the fact that everyone hates doing that shit manually. It also gets you plenty of strange looks. I think it might work well for people who are forced to swim the 400 IM.
