Bobby

Welcome back, lovies!

At my high school, the seniors are required to complete 40 hours of community service prior to graduation. For this, I could’ve easily volunteered at my church or at my summer job but, I decided that it wouldn’t truly be community service because I do work at the church and at C.L.A.S.S. Therefore, I had to find an alternative. At my senior water polo banquet, I mentioned that I wanted to work with people with disabilities. My swim coach got knowledge of this and offered me a position as assistant coach of the Henry County Special Olympics Swim Team. Of course I took the position! During high school, I developed an interest for coaching swimming and water polo because I wanted to help develop players, game plan and coach games. On top of that, with this position, I would be able to work with people with disabilities.

The Special Olympics’ season was during the high school swim season. So, after my varsity practice, I would go to the locker room and do homework or goof around in the locker room while the junior varsity practiced. After the JV practice was Special Olympics’ practice. I would be tired by then because usually I would’ve been at the school since 6:30 a.m. for morning practice but, I didn’t mind staying late to coach. The first day was basically an introduction/transition day. On that day, the previous assistant coach, Maddy, had helped coach since her senior year (like 3 or 4 years before mine) and she was ready to move on. That day, I met the team. There were a wide variety of ages and race, both males and females, just like every Special Olympic team here. They all had a different range of skill sets and abilities. The more experienced swimmers swam in the lanes closer to the deep end in lanes 4, 5, 6. The less stronger and new swimmers swam in lanes 1, 2, and 3. This threw me for a loop because on the high school team, the better swimmers swam in lane 1, 2, 3, while the rest swam in 4, 5, and 6. Anyways, it made more sense the Special Olympics way because you wouldn’t want the newer swimmers to drown.

 Anyways, on the first day, I mainly learned how Coach Brown coached the team because it was different than how she coached varsity. Coaching with Coach Brown was sort of strange to me because she wasn’t yelling at me or the swimmers. She was nicer and more encouraging. Also, the swimmers kept calling her by her first name, “Denise.”  Was I allowed to call her “Denise?” Coach Brown had the swimmers swim laps according to their skill set. The better swimmers swam about 8 laps and the other swimmers swam about 4 laps. One thing that I noticed was how the swimmers swam. Many didn’t wear goggles at all and I realized why. Many of the swimmers didn’t put their heads in the water to swim. They just didn’t like the feeling of having their heads in water. Then, Coach Brown would have them do swim drills and a cool down swim and that was it. It was a very simple practice overall.

The next practice, I was introduced to a young boy, let’s name him, Bobby. Bobby was about 8 and didn’t know how to swim. He also had some sort of muscle weakness in his right arm. He didn’t seem too interested in learning so, Coach Brown assigned me to teach him how to swim. This meant that I had to do one-on-one training with him in the pool. . .meaning I had to get in and swim. Bobby’s grandmother would bring him to every practice and stay to watch him learn. Bobby was reluctant to learn. I would get in the pool and show him some kicking drills or stroke drills and he would “half-ass” them. His grandmother didn’t like seeing this and have a talk with him before and after practices. After that, Bobby started to participate more.

 As the season moved along, Bobby was ready for actual swimming. For this, I would hold Bobby’s stomach to keep him afloat while he did the kicking and stroke work. Bobby was nervous and didn’t want to do it. He always complained that he couldn’t do it because of his arm. I wouldn’t take that as an excuse because he could overcome it and swim like everyone else. I told him that I had muscle weakness in my leg and become a varsity swimmer and he could do the same. During this time, the team was doing well and we had received new additions to the team.

They were two young girls who were about 5 or 6 and were sisters. The sisters could swim a bit but, still needed to develop. The sisters could never stay in place. They would twist and turn and do rolley pollies at the ends of the pool and were quite entertaining. They were talented too. The girls weren’t the strongest at freestyle but, one of them had a decent backstroke and the other had a frog like swim that we helped develop into a breaststroke. The girls were enjoyable to have and shared lane one with Bobby and I.

 Bobby and I continued to work together and soon, he was about to swim by himself, at least to the flags. I was proud of him and encouraged him to keep going but, he was afraid to go on. Therefore, I had to keep working with him to overcome his fear. What I eventually did was allow him to swim as far as he could and use the lane line for extra help. This helped because he began to go further. He made it to halfway, to ¾ of the way, to the whole length of the lane but, with the lane line. Now, I had to get him to go it without it. We were nearing the end of the season and Bobby would swim halfway to the pool by himself and used the lane line the rest of the way. I had to break him from this so, every time Bobby would grab the lane line, I would take his hands off the lane line and have him swim with my arms under him for he would feel comforted that he wouldn’t drown. This helped a lot, even though he complained the whole time and didn’t make it down the full lane. We were so close and only had a week left a practice.

 We had practices of Tuesdays and Thursdays so, on the last Tuesday, everyone was excited and ready to see Bobby swim a full lap by himself. His grandmother even had her camera out, ready to film this moment. When it was time, everyone got out of the pool to watch Bobby swim his first full lap. I was nervous and needed him to complete this lap because if he didn’t, I would’ve failed in my assignment and failed as a coach. When everyone cleared the pool, Bobby and I stood at the shallow end of the pool and I gave him a little pep talk. After that, it was show time. Bobby took a couple of steps and started to swim in a morph between doggie paddle and the correct swimming form. Bobby paddled and paddled as his team cheered him on, and I was by his side the whole time. As Bobby made it close to the other end, he began to slow down a lot because he was tired. I understood but, I was not going to let him quit on me and more importantly, himself. We had a goal to achieve and we were going to achieve it. He pushed on and made it to the other end! I held him in my arms because the water was too deep for him to stand. Everyone was happy and proud of him. We felt accomplished at that moment. After months of training, he could swim on his own now and I taught him how to swim. It was a great feat for me because now I can say that I can teach people how to swim and had a prime example of it. Plus, I did it with a child with disabilities, which made it all much sweeter to me.

This was all for community service originally. I didn’t want to have a basic community service act like visiting a nursing home or volunteering at a church, and I definitely accomplished that.

DRG