Before that could happen the girls had to start in our swim school under the guidance of coaches Joe Adams andHeather Tomasek who took them under their wing and guided them into who they are today. Upon wall;king onto the deck here is this 70 year old retired postman standing at there side of the pool and in his hand was this 10 foot bamboo stick and fasten to the end was your normal 🎾. Yes people thats how we rolled back in the day. Joe produced some of the most talented young swimmers in the Falls Church and Arlington communities. First day they saw Coach Joe and his bamboo stick and ball and they immediately came over where I was coaching and asked "Is he going to hit me?" If you do the things correctly, you won't get hit. Well on the way home it was pointed out that I had not been totally honest, because they said they got hit on the head when they did it right. Apparently girls their was something not quite right with your stroke and he wanted to stop you and point it out.
Now after a few months of practice it was now time to enter a mini meet so the girls would join my group as we headed to Fort Belvoir for the meet. Their first event the 25 back pretty much went off with out too much fanfare, but it was the 25 free that would cause a problem. Yes that is them standing on the blocks next to each
other the only problem is that all the swimmers on the other blocks all left and are now at the other end of the pool. Of course Bob York started to rag on me and asked, are they going but I had nothing except let's see if they go with the next heat. Nope not a chance so I went over and moved them to different blocks wrongly assuming that they did not want to be next to each other. So now 3 heats have gone and they are still standing there so I had to ask, what's the problem? Come to find out that they did not want to race each because that would mean one wins and one loses. Girls thats how this works. So we separated them and they finally swam. Longest event of my life.
Before long January came around and it was time to head back to the Caribbean for their first of many "International Swim Meet" with the different islands, really it was just a name but these kids ate it up. In those days I was only coaching and developing our 10 and under's and on this particular trip we had 3 swimmers from that group yes the twins and their friend Kim from the group but a 6 year old.
Now to set up the scene the girls and I did not have mom with us on this trip so we were on our own. While growing up the girls had these animals that they went everywhere with Courtney with a pink bear (stinky) and Lauren with a stuff white cow (puffy). One night after putting them down to bed (I told them), the coaches dragged me down to the casino and not 10 minutes passed that we heard an announcement paging me to the door.
Now mind you are room was a few doors down from the casino. Upon arriving at the doors here are the girls nightgowns and all sucking on there animals looking for me. Though it was apparent that they were going to be very independent they let me know at the time they were not happy. I really think they slept with one eye open.
As for their first meet in a long course pool the only issue was when they asked, What if I can’t make it the whole way? Greg York being the wise guy informed them that they had to because he can’t swim and doesn’t get into a pool. I took more of a calm approach explaining that it’s just like Lee Graham but only 2 of them so it’s good. But you probably should swim until you reach the other end because it’s all 12 feet or deeper. For this meet they would be swimming the 100 free and the 100 backstroke.
As you can see it did not take long for them to get over our issue from that first mini meet about not wanting to beat each other. In fact now the opposite was true so as they progressed one would gravitate towards free, breast and IM while the other went the route of back, fly and IM.
Before long January came around and it was time to head back to the Caribbean for their first of many "International Swim Meet" with the different islands, really it was just a name but these kids ate it up. In those days I was only coaching and developing our 10 and under's and on this particular trip we had 3 swimmers from that group yes the twins and their friend Kim from the group but a 6 year old.
Now to set up the scene the girls and I did not have mom with us on this trip so we were on our own. While growing up the girls had these animals that they went everywhere with Courtney with a pink bear (stinky) and Lauren with a stuff white cow (puffy). One night after putting them down to bed (I told them), the coaches dragged me down to the casino and not 10 minutes passed that we heard an announcement paging me to the door.
Now mind you are room was a few doors down from the casino. Upon arriving at the doors here are the girls nightgowns and all sucking on there animals looking for me. Though it was apparent that they were going to be very independent they let me know at the time they were not happy. I really think they slept with one eye open.
As for their first meet in a long course pool the only issue was when they asked, What if I can’t make it the whole way? Greg York being the wise guy informed them that they had to because he can’t swim and doesn’t get into a pool. I took more of a calm approach explaining that it’s just like Lee Graham but only 2 of them so it’s good. But you probably should swim until you reach the other end because it’s all 12 feet or deeper. For this meet they would be swimming the 100 free and the 100 backstroke.
As you can see it did not take long for them to get over our issue from that first mini meet about not wanting to beat each other. In fact now the opposite was true so as they progressed one would gravitate towards free, breast and IM while the other went the route of back, fly and IM.
For this meet all the 5 and under swimmers received 1st place awards in both events which caused an issue in its own. I don’t remember which of the twins had actually won but she was not happy that everyone got first, so they did learn about racing very early.
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| ALL’s GOOD |
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