VMST Part 5: One Member's Story
In recent newsletters, Betsy has been exploring how Virginia Masters got started as a team and as individuals. This is the story of one man's descent into the wet world of chlorine addiction.
Living in Mississippi in the late 60's and early 70's, my children swam on the city's AAU team. I could swim but only an ungainly "Tarzan freestyle." I watched their lessons and tried to teach myself the strokes. Swimmers World magazine mentioned masters swimmers but there were none in Mississippi. Then the magazine said that the 1972 Masters' LC Championships were going to be held in Bloomington Indiana.
We were going to Indiana that summer anyway, so I decided to enter. I registered with the AAU representative in Louisiana so the other team parents wouldn't know that I was going to make a fool of myself. I entered the 50 and 100 freestyle. The meet was held in IU's outdoor pool and the legendary Doc Counsilman, who had been Mark Spitz 's coach and was still IU's head coach was both Meet Director and a participant. I had recently bought a copy of Counsilman's book The Science of Swimming. I felt like a guppy among sharks.
For Nationals, it was a very small meet (though it still ran three days). In the Men's 35-39 (my age group), there were only 14 swimmers in the 50 free and only 10 in the 100 free. In age groups 50 and older, several events had only one or two competitors. During the first day's warm ups, I spoke to one of the "star" swimmers in the next lane. She didn't speak but gave me a cold look that seemed to say "how dare you speak to me, you nobody!" My confidence level was already below zero and I really felt like getting out of the pool and going home. That could have ended my swimming career then and there. The next day at warm ups, Doc Counsilman came and sat on the block at the end of my lane. He asked me how long I had been swimming. When I said "about 3 months", he smiled and talked with me for about 15 minutes. I felt good again about being there!
At the meet I met the late Buster Crabbe, former movie star and a gold medal Olympic swimmer in 1932, two years before I born. He was a wonderfully warm and friendly person. There were a number of other pioneers from the early masters' days there, like Ransom Arthur, Burwell Jones and June Krauser . They were all extremely nice friendly people.
I came in dead last in my events but that was okay, it was expected. What wasn't expected was a terrible heart racing stage fright whenever I had to get on the blocks.
I went back to Mississippi and didn't tell anyone of my deep dark secret. Over the next two years, I went to two meets at Oak Ridge, Tennessee. I met many more masters there and developed lasting friendships. I thought the nervousness would get better but it didn't. It got worse. My knees got so weak on the blocks that I was afraid I would fall off sideways. I gave up going to meets.
I moved to Virginia in 1976 and attended the UVA swim camps that began in 1977. My strokes improved and I made more friends, but I refused to compete. In 1981 Mike Stott showed up with applications for the 2 mile Chris Greene Lake Swim. Here was an event where you started in the water with a group. You didn't need to get up on the blocks! To prepare for it, I went to a 1500 meter meet in Rockville and registered as unattached. I started in the water and it was a good race except we swam two to a lane. Halfway through, my lane partner forgot and began circle swimming with the inevitable collision result. The Chris Greene Lake swim two weeks later was fun! Carl Russ , who was to remain a close competitor and great friend beat me out for second place by 16 seconds. A couple of weeks later there was a LC meet at the Starlit pool in Fairfax. This was my home pool so I entered several events. Judy Decker , Betsy Durrant and Carl Russ were there with other Virginia Masters.
I was not coming in last anymore but I still had starting block panic attacks. Then I realized how to avoid them. The coaches always said to visualize your race, think about the starts and turns and so on but when I did that, my heart raced and I was a nervous wreck. I decided that I already knew how to do all those things. There was no reason to think about it. The starter tells you which stroke and how far. From then on, I wrote my heat and lane numbers on my hand and socialized with my friends (and sometimes missed my heat!). I tried not to think about the race at all. When they called my heat, I got on the block and waited for instructions.
I had registered with Potomac Valley which covered the DC area and Fairfax County but not the rest of Virginia. All of the Northern Virginia swimmers were DC Masters. But I didn't want to be a DC Master. I wanted to be a Virginia Master. They were the laid back fun group. There was some technical problem with this at first but they did let me become a Virginia Master. For several years, I think I was the only Virginia Master north of Richmond. That was 1981. Nineteen years later, I'm still competing (still not particularly fast) but I'm having fun and Masters swimmers (especially Virginia Masters) are still the nicest people I know.
