Obstacles are those frightening things that become visible when we take our eyes off our goals. – Henry FordSo much of the program’s success is predicated on the conference championship. As is the case for about 90% of NCAA institutions that have a swimming program, the season’s culmination arrives when all teams in the league gather to decide the winner. You want to be your best, saving nothing to chance or fate, as schools duke it out for the crown.
The journey leading to the Davidson CCSA Championship, as we mentioned, begins before the first day of classes. The new crop of freshmen would arrive with a new hunger for success. The returning team could have forged stronger bonds through their training and friendship or severed their ties with spite, jealousy or even malice. Either way, the road is long.
If you polled the team and asked each of them, in one word, to describe the first four months of the season, no one would utter “smooth” or “easy” or “uneventful.” There were days that felt 48 hours long and others that flew by. The boatload of work that accompanies the students at Davidson seems excessive, but the rewards of nailing a mid-term or paper resonated with the staff and those Cats willing to feel good about their teammate’s achievement. And it’s not like Davidson is VMI. The kids aren’t immune to the luxuries that come with being in college. You may have the occasional homesickness bug, flu bug, bed bug or crazy hall mates bugging you about keeping the noise down or the lights on.
And through all of this, your swimming telescope is aimed at both personal and team accomplishment at the conference championship. You may get distracted with the college lifestyle and the burdens that come with being 18-22 years old, but you’ll refocus and keep your eyes on the prize. With all of this action crammed into the first semester, it’s pretty clear to me the turning points of the season for the Cats came in those ten eventful days in Deerfield Beach, Florida. No school work, no parents, no parties. Just your teammates, the coaches, cooperative weather and challenge of putting up with each other and grinding through fatigue, early mornings and hunger Survivor-style.
And it was pretty clear who survived and who fell by the waste side, both as a competitor and a teammate.
For me, while swimming at William and Mary, Florida was both torturous and exhilarating. For one, I knew some of my teammates cringed at the fact they had to work harder during this trip than any other of the season. The Wildcats were quite similar. You could look at this as a chance to improve yourself or pamper yourself. I was never one to travel so I was pretty pumped at the prospect of getting out of Virginia or Pennsylvania for longer than 24 hours.
Now you should note that I was not the friendliest person in the pool or in training. I really didn’t have time for slackers, even as a freshman. I viewed myself as one of the least talented swimmers on the team, if not at the very bottom, and if I was executing more efficiently in practice than you, you were going to hear about it. I distinctly remember a couple of occasions during my senior season chewing out some of the prima donna freshmen for the lackluster, arrogant approach to practice (this happened about 20+ times over the course of the season, but I digress.) I really appreciated my teammates that put in a maximum effort, understanding that was the point of the trip and not to ice their shoulders, sit out practice and work on their tan.
Your tolerance for others had to be at its peak, too. Florida training, like it or not, pits the same people around you for 10 days, sharing the same space, food, television, etc. It’s all sunshine and ice cream sundaes when you’re getting along. It’s terrifying when you’re not. Again, survivor-style.
I can’t speak for every member of the team about the fun he/she may have had or just how much it stung the muscles and joints to put oneself through a great deal of physical labor. Yet, the exact moment when the season turned came as a conglomeration of the above three factors, coming together in one small meeting at the end of one of our morning sessions.
Early that day, an upperclassman was dismissed from the trip for an egregious team violation. The coaches, set to address the incident with the squad at the end of morning training, gathered the team to address the situation. It was brief and, in my opinion, did not seem to rattle the team too much.
Once our head coach had made his point, another upperclassman decided to take it upon himself to speak on behalf of the dismissed crony. His tone was not convincing and his announcement to side with his friend, again, did not shock anyone. But this particular Wildcat, maybe without knowing it, had drawn a line in the sand. With all of the commotion and distraction the team had gone through from the commencement of the season leading up to that very meeting, here’s a guy that had the audacity to basically proclaim, “I’m out – who’s coming with me.” He may not have said it in so many words, but he had no qualms about his actions.
And right there, the team got stronger.
It no longer became about Florida or winning a conference championship. It became about having a bad situation self-exalted and deciding, as a stronger unit, to be better than that. Personally, even as a freshman in high school, I was entrenched in seniors (and even juniors) feeling entitlement, demonstrating poor leadership or pettily demanding something from their teammates or both. I was convinced that I would never act that way if I were fortunate enough to get in that leadership role. The Wildcats had some of these very upperclassmen and the group, after that announcement, rallied behind that very premise: “WE will not act this way. Thank you for making it very clear.”
Florida came and went and the weeks that followed seemed just a little different than the ones in 2008. The team understood who had kept their eyes on the goals. Yes, there continued to be distractions, but it most of it was in vain of the guilty parties. And once attention was not found by the culprits, there no longer seemed to be a need to continue. I commend those Cats that did not waver from team objectives.
It was crystallized who was on board. And this foundation laid groundwork for a terrific conclusion to the season.
Next Entry – Championship Mettle
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