Special Olympics. I Am A Coach, Not A Competitor.
Well, as some of you may know, I am a coach/assistant for a Special Olympics swim team this year. I catch some flak from friends when I say, "Hey guys, I have to go to Special Olympics practice now." I can deal with that, but Special Olympics hasn't turned out to be what I expected at all.
When I first heard about it I thought it would be good for my senior project so I signed up. I really didn't think it would be much fun. I just thought I would stand on the pool deck and tell some special education students what to do, to keep going and whatnot. I was wrong, really wrong. I found out the first day of practice that I wouldn't be just standing on the deck telling them what to do, I was going to swim every last yard they did with them. I haven't swam competitavely in a few years so I am admitantly out of shape. I also thought that I would just be in there with high school special students. Again I was wrong. The ages ranged from about 15 years old all the way up to 32. Well, as luck would have it, the best swimmer on the team, James, chose me to be his coach and to swim every yard he did. James is also the oldest person on the team, at 32.
Well, on a normal swim team, the athletes try to get out of as much work as possible. When I swam, we went as far as getting out of the water, walking over to the workout board and physically changing the amount of laps we had to swim. Either that, or we would just lie to the coach and tell her that we had already finished that step of the workout. This appearantly was not so with my tard. I use the word "tard" lightly because James uses the term to describe himself along with the rest of his teamates. He knows that he's mentally retarded, and almost takes a sense of pride in it. Anyway, James likes... no.. LOVES to challenge himself. One day, we had a pretty easy workout of about 1200 yards and we finished it in under 45 minutes. He decided that we simply hadn't swam for nearly long enough, so he asked the head coach, Mary, if we could do more. Mary happily obliged and told us to simply start over. I tried to get out of it, by telling him that he could go on without me... but no... James won't fall for something so simple. I ended up starting over with him and we did an extra 600 yards. That makes it just over the one mile mark.
Over the last couple weeks, James and I have become pretty good friends, not to the point that we're hanging out after practice or anything, but our conversations in the pool are pretty relaxed and we can talk about life in general now. I think that James believes that we are closer than we reall are. As of late, he's tried to pull me under water quite a few times which are always unsuccessful. I'm really not one to like boasting, but I'm a really, really strong swimmer. I've swam up rivers that have tipped every last one of my friends that were tubing.
Last thursday he tried really hard to get me under. Over and over, every time we passed one another, he would try to grab a leg or arm and pull my down. I'm a lifeguard, I've been trained on how to get out of people's grasps when under water. If I have to rescue someone and they panic, that person will grab onto the nearest floating thing they see... most likely my head. There are a few different ways to get out of a death hold like that. 1: Just dive under, if a person is holding onto something and it goes under, they don't want to go under with it. 2: Pressure point, there is a pressure point just inside a persons elbows that if pressed on, will force them to open their arms. 3: Twist out, simply twist around to loosen their grip and swim away. Since he was trying to pull me under, diving down would just help his cause. It is the special olympics, so I can't really use pressure points and harm him in anyway even though he is 32 and twice my size. I had to twist out of his grip. I'm not sure how many of you know this, but tards are exceptionally strong. A good friend of mine had an autistic brother and I watched that 12 year old punch 3 holes in his bedroom wall. James had a pretty good grip but I somehow managed to get away without going under water. He did this so many times that I just started to swim underneath the lane lines to go around him. No way in hell could he catch up to me in the water. Very few people that I know can, special or not. I can swim 25 yards in 11 seconds. I would either swim around him by a few lanes or, if we were in the deap end, I would swim to the bottom and just go under him. It was annoying but actually made the practice somewhat interesting.
This Saturday is the Regional swim meet. I will be competing on a partner relay. 2 special athletes and 2 coaches swim together. It should prove to be interesting in the least.
When I first heard about it I thought it would be good for my senior project so I signed up. I really didn't think it would be much fun. I just thought I would stand on the pool deck and tell some special education students what to do, to keep going and whatnot. I was wrong, really wrong. I found out the first day of practice that I wouldn't be just standing on the deck telling them what to do, I was going to swim every last yard they did with them. I haven't swam competitavely in a few years so I am admitantly out of shape. I also thought that I would just be in there with high school special students. Again I was wrong. The ages ranged from about 15 years old all the way up to 32. Well, as luck would have it, the best swimmer on the team, James, chose me to be his coach and to swim every yard he did. James is also the oldest person on the team, at 32.
Well, on a normal swim team, the athletes try to get out of as much work as possible. When I swam, we went as far as getting out of the water, walking over to the workout board and physically changing the amount of laps we had to swim. Either that, or we would just lie to the coach and tell her that we had already finished that step of the workout. This appearantly was not so with my tard. I use the word "tard" lightly because James uses the term to describe himself along with the rest of his teamates. He knows that he's mentally retarded, and almost takes a sense of pride in it. Anyway, James likes... no.. LOVES to challenge himself. One day, we had a pretty easy workout of about 1200 yards and we finished it in under 45 minutes. He decided that we simply hadn't swam for nearly long enough, so he asked the head coach, Mary, if we could do more. Mary happily obliged and told us to simply start over. I tried to get out of it, by telling him that he could go on without me... but no... James won't fall for something so simple. I ended up starting over with him and we did an extra 600 yards. That makes it just over the one mile mark.
Over the last couple weeks, James and I have become pretty good friends, not to the point that we're hanging out after practice or anything, but our conversations in the pool are pretty relaxed and we can talk about life in general now. I think that James believes that we are closer than we reall are. As of late, he's tried to pull me under water quite a few times which are always unsuccessful. I'm really not one to like boasting, but I'm a really, really strong swimmer. I've swam up rivers that have tipped every last one of my friends that were tubing.
Last thursday he tried really hard to get me under. Over and over, every time we passed one another, he would try to grab a leg or arm and pull my down. I'm a lifeguard, I've been trained on how to get out of people's grasps when under water. If I have to rescue someone and they panic, that person will grab onto the nearest floating thing they see... most likely my head. There are a few different ways to get out of a death hold like that. 1: Just dive under, if a person is holding onto something and it goes under, they don't want to go under with it. 2: Pressure point, there is a pressure point just inside a persons elbows that if pressed on, will force them to open their arms. 3: Twist out, simply twist around to loosen their grip and swim away. Since he was trying to pull me under, diving down would just help his cause. It is the special olympics, so I can't really use pressure points and harm him in anyway even though he is 32 and twice my size. I had to twist out of his grip. I'm not sure how many of you know this, but tards are exceptionally strong. A good friend of mine had an autistic brother and I watched that 12 year old punch 3 holes in his bedroom wall. James had a pretty good grip but I somehow managed to get away without going under water. He did this so many times that I just started to swim underneath the lane lines to go around him. No way in hell could he catch up to me in the water. Very few people that I know can, special or not. I can swim 25 yards in 11 seconds. I would either swim around him by a few lanes or, if we were in the deap end, I would swim to the bottom and just go under him. It was annoying but actually made the practice somewhat interesting.
This Saturday is the Regional swim meet. I will be competing on a partner relay. 2 special athletes and 2 coaches swim together. It should prove to be interesting in the least.
posted by About______ at 4/25/2006 11:58:00 AM
1 Comments:
Were you the guy in water world? He was a good swimmer too...
Good on ya for helping the tards. :)
Post a Comment
<< Home