This is Swim.

 I just got home from a swim meet. Our sports repertoire in this family has consisted of volleyball (2 kids, 2 levels, 5 years), cross country (5 kids, 3 levels, 8 years and counting), track (4 kids, 2 levels, 3 years), tennis (2 kids, 1 level, 3 years and counting), and swim (2 kids, 2 levels, 6 years and counting). If I ranked the sports based on my viewing pleasure, cross country would be first, followed by tennis and swim, then volleyball, then track. If I ranked them based on team culture, cross country and swim and tennis all tie, followed by volleyball and track. If I ranked them on positive experiences, middle school volleyball ranks right up there with cross country and tennis and swim. If I ranked them based on team spirit and encouragement, cross country and swim knock all of the others out of the competition.

Above is just a sampling of the moments from tonight. At swim meets, everywhere you look are kids encouraging each other. The high schoolers calm the nerves of the middle schoolers. The kids clang on the blocks to push their teammates to a strong finish. The swimmers stand at the end of the lane and cheer their teammates on during the events. Kids walk the length of the pool encouraging each other. Opposing team members reach across the lanes to give each other high fives in the water at the end of an event. The middle schoolers screech and shout for the high schoolers. They all watch each others’ times, they know the goal times of their teammates. They critique each others’ performances and ask each other what their dive, their stroke, their turn, their count looked like. 

The strange thing about swim (and cross country) is that they are individual and team sports at the same time. You’re competing with yourself and your teammates, but you also need your teammates to do well. And if you work with a teammate on a stroke or turn or dive to help them improve, you’re helping the team but you’re also potentially helping that teammate get faster than you. It’s an unselfish man’s sport, for sure.

When I watch these kids at meets, I always think about it as a metaphor for life and a chance to self-reflect. How often am I at the end of the lane, cheering for my coworkers? How many times do I reach across the lane and high five the person whose life is “beating” mine right now? Am I willing to put in time and effort to help the people around me, knowing it puts them in a better position than I might be? Do I enter more rooms with an attitude of “how can I help?” or one of “I’m going to do whatever it takes to one-up you right now”? Am I the person reaching out to the more inexperienced people or am I just scrambling to keep myself in a good position?

I wish I could say that I always find myself being a great teammate, an awesome mom, a fabulous wife, an incredible friend, a valuable coworker, a perfect teacher, an admirable Christian, an encouragement to this world. The truth is, I don’t always find myself to be those things. I fight a very real spirit of the elder brother and I am sometimes a naturally jealous person. Sometimes I have to battle my flesh to be happy for the people who are beating me. 

But if there’s one thing that being a sports mom, a swim mom in particular, has taught me, it’s the value of setting aside self for the good of the team. And every time I struggle to do so, I recall the images above and I look deep inside to try and find the ability to be these people.