One Team

It comes around once a year. It's not Christmas, New Years, Easter, St. Patrick's Day, birthdays, Valentine's Day, or any other holiday that we like to use as an excuse to get together with family (or dread because you have to). To me this time of year is much more than that. It's the Western Athletic Conference Swimming and Diving Championships. The third week of February each year we lay it all on the line. All the work we put in since the first day we step onto the University of Idaho Swim Center deck, all the miles we put in following a black line, all the tears we shed over devastating loses and outstanding triumphs. All the Friday nights we as collegiate athletes give up so as to rise much too early on a Saturday morning and throw ourselves into the always ice cold water. All the hours of sleep we lose trying to balance swimming and school. All of our excuses have lost all meaning because when we get off that plane in San Antonio, Texas it all comes down to one thing: who can get their hand on the wall first.
This year was no different than any other year. We trained for twenty-six weeks starting back in August, knowing that this is what it would come down to. The meet goes from Wednesday night to Saturday night. For me this was an interesting year. I managed to place ninth in all my individual preliminary swims, which in swimming is the worst place you can be. From prelims to finals one cannot move above or below the bracket of eight that they placed in the morning swim. Ninth place means you can place no higher than ninth no matter how fast you swim, and you can drop as low as sixteenth. I personally have had the ninth to sixteenth thing happen before, thankfully not this year though.
Each day we compete in one relay, and to me the most memorable of this year was the 4x50 yard freestyle relay. Idaho is loaded with sprinters which puts this relay as our highest placing one. I am one of the ones lucky enough to earn a spot on it, which makes me overcome with pride and nerves. Each stroke on this relay matters, each breath, each turn, each start, each finish. There are no mistakes in this relay.
We start in the back room, lined up with five other teams, my iPod headphones are shoved deep into my ears so as to block out every other thing going on around me. I'm focused, excited, nervous, slightly nauseous, really needing to pee (which somehow is the case before every figgin race!). I'm cold, I'm shaking, I'm blocking out the world. Tick-Tok (which was my pump-up song of choice for the duration of the meet) blasts through my headphones into my brain taking over everything that I know. I'm have conscious when they signal for us that it's time to walk out onto deck and do exactly what we're here to do. My head down, my eyes trying to block out all the screaming teammates, (ours and others), I walk numbly through the crowd to behind the blocks. Each team is given a brief introduction and I'm dully aware of us being announced. I focus on nothing but myself now, our first swimmer steps up on the starting blocks, I still feel like I'm going to throw up, the buzzer goes off and the race begins. Six girls sprinting their hearts out. Twenty three seconds later our second girl is flying through the air the crowd is screaming and I'm in my own little world. I've removed myself from where I am and I'm in my "zone". In no time our third swimmer steps up behind the block and gets ready to go. I force myself back to earth, back to this pool deck and the task at hand. I take my headphones off doing my best to continue to keep everything else out. I step up on the blocks. Everything comes down to this, all the hours we've spent doing everything, all the relay exchanges we've practice for this moment. I'm ready, toes curled over the edge of the blocks ready to spring through the air. I'm ready, my arms swing in perfect timing for when I dive in. I begin my wind up, I'm leaning, she's touching the wall...she's not touching the wall. I'm in mid air and I can think only one word, "shit". My world comes crashing down on me with the realization that I may have just disqualified this relay, this one relay that is so important to this whole weekend. My body goes on autopilot as my mind reels. "I know I did it, I know I did it, I know I did it" is all I can think as I pound through the water, breathing exactly where I need to, feeling the burn of every single muscle in my body. This is what I've done not only for the past 144 days, but the past ten years. It has all lead me to this, I push past my fear and through the water. I slam my hand into the wall.
Cheering. Tears.
I look over to my team, who with a third place finish should have been ecstatic. They saw it too.
Silence.
I numbly crawl from the water and can't stop the tears that begin streaming down my face. I nearly collapse into a worthless heap on the side of the pool but my teammates come over and pull me towards my coach.
No disqualification.
The officials didn't see it. Maybe it just seemed that way to me. Maybe we just got lucky.
I process this, trying to turn my terror into joy.
One race, one breath, one stroke, one start, one turn, one finish, one relay. But most importantly, together through the tears, the triumphs, the successes, the failures we will always be one team.


GO VANDALS! :)