Tell us about your coaches...

Okay, here's the skinny. Pull up a chair:

I didn't know how to swim (for real) until I was 33. I grew up around the water, but never learned anything more than stay afloat and dog paddle.

At 33, I sucked it up, sucked it in, and showed up at the local YMCA pool. I asked about swim lessons for grown-ups who weren't up to studying with the 4 year olds, and a great teacher named Julius Lee came into my life.

Julius found the YMCA at 11 after his father died. It became a home away from home, and gave him the family and discipline he needed to stay out of trouble on the streets of Detroit. He gave back by spending 25 years working and volunteering for it throughout a life in politics and the ministry. in 1999, he moved to Atlanta to be with his kids and their families, and ran the Centennial Park Y. Once he 'retired', he began teaching swimming at the East Lake location where his son is the aquatics director. When I met him a few years ago, he was in his early sixties, but looked about 40. Swimming like he did will do that to you, as will being a good person.

We started with floating on my belly - Superman style, then on my back, then in a pike, etc. I think it was two or three lessons before my first stroke. He was a former state swimmer, a sub 3 marathoner, and yet he never once made me feel like I wasn't a star athlete. My first 25 yards across the pool was a celebration. When I got the hang of kicking in the breaststroke, he said I was a 'gold star' student. He also knew to push me. As I got better, I would tell him "I've had enough", and he would smile and say something like "You're only soft on the outside, show me that solid core." We talked about the ironman, and he said something like "I could do it, but it would take me a while". I laughed, he did it. In the gym. In his 60s. With zero additional training. 25 yard pool, Lifecycle for 112 miles, and then a marathon on a 1/17th mile indoor track. He's that kind of tough. Afterwards he said that it hurt, but he saw why people did it. You gotta love a guy who does an indoor IM out of curiosity about himself and the event.

Like many of us here on BT, I've never been a jock. I never, ever had a coach before, except for the little league coaches (put him in the outfield) and soccer coaches (put him in the goal). It was an amazing experience, and I'm thankful for it. I still hear him yelling at me to 'chicken wing' the crawl whenever I get lazy about cocking my arm. I really worked for his approval, and I trusted him with my health, with my progress, and with my problems as we talked in the locker room.

So then he sits me down early this spring, and he says that he's got a 'little of that' prostate. I'm not outing him here, he's made the info public. He's going to take time off to get the necessary opinions, and time to recuperate after the surgery is done in May. I email him nearly constantly, and contribute to the bag (literally) of cards that goes to him every week.

The operation is a success, and he's cancer free, but now he's retiring. I just, well, it just hurts. You should see this guy with scared kids, or scared seniors (he teaches a 72+ beginner class!). His heart is so huge that these people just trust him like I did, stick their head in the water, and discover swimming. He fills the room, and I hate to see that room empty from now on.

For those who care about such things, he charged $9 for a 45 minute lesson. Why? Because he wanted to make sure we took it seriously. I'd say he remembered to charge me about every other month.

I know it's not my place to egg him back, although I'm tempted to find some 'gunfighter comes out of retirement for one more score' movies. I just want to take a moment and remember what a coach can do for us, in this community where we all coach for each other.

So who else has had a coach, or a coaching moment that reminded them of the gifts we can give each other in this sport?





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