The meet was at our high school in Evanston.  His home pool.  

I suddenly saw him as a little boy eight years ago standing on those same blocks getting a medal when our Y had hosted the district meet at the high school.  

My heart swelled with pride for him, my only child.

All those early days in the pool. I’d hear the door slam at 5:30 a.m. as Wes headed out the door on those wintery mornings, knowing that a cold rush of air was hitting him and glad that I was still in my warm bed. 

Where he got the discipline to do this, I don’t know.  Lap after lap, two times a day, for two hours at a time.  Staring at the bottom of the pool. 

“Are you going to swim in high school?” I asked him when he was 10. 

“Yes,” he answered.  “I’m going to swim in college, too.  And in the Olympics.”

The goals he set for himself are what drove Wes to stick with the tough regimen of swimming.  As a senior in high school, his goal was to make it to the top 12 in state in at least one event and break the school record for the breaststroke.  He did both.  

“Are you sure you want to swim in college?” I asked when Wes and I were on a college visit the fall of his junior year, knowing that it would be a challenge to compete at the Division 1 level and be a university  student.

“Yes,” he said.

“Why?”

“Because I know I can get faster,” he responded.

It’s Fun to Swim at the YMCA

We had enrolled Wes in lessons at our local YMCA when he was six years old because we thought it would be good for him to learn to swim.  Neither his father nor I knew anything about the world of competitive swimming.

“He’s a natural,” his teacher Joe told us after a few lessons. “He should join the swim team. It’s would be a fun thing for him to do.”

So we did.  

And soon found ourselves going to indoor meets in YMCAs and other venues in the Chicago area and Wisconsin from October through March.  

They were unbelievably noisy.  

Coaches, moms, dads, and family members yelling, screaming, whistling, and pounding their hands together as soon as the beep sounded and the kids dove off the blocks into the pool.  

“Do you ever hear us cheering?” I asked Wes one time after a particularly loud meet where some mom behind me had screamed and hollered for her son until my head split.  GO RYAN. GO! GO! GO! GO RYAN! SWIM! SWIM FAST! RYAAAN.

“Not really,” he said. “It’s just noise.”

The way I figured it is that we moms and dads were basically cheering to let off our own nervous energy and make ourselves feel good. Our kids couldn’t hear us. They were underwater, for God’s sake.

Besides being noisy, swim meets are also incredibly hot.  And long.  

Almost every indoor Y or high school pool I’ve ever been in has its air temperature pumped up as hot as it can go so the swimmers won’t get cold while they are sitting around in their little Speedos. Even some of the bigger venues, like the natatoriums at the University of Illinois Chicago and Indiana University are also sweltering.  

Parents get to sit in the stands for 4-5 hours roasting in a chlorinated stupor while waiting to see their kids to swim for 30 seconds at time.  

At first I tried to bring things to read as I sat on the hard bleachers and waited.  But with all the noise and heat, I couldn’t concentrate.  

I soon found myself just watching the events, talking to the other moms and dads, and timing races when pressed into duty. Even though you often got stuck doing this until the bitter end, it helped pass the time.  Wesley’s dad became an official so he’d have something to do at Y meets.

“Do you think the meets are long?” I asked Wes.

“No,” he said.  “I’m hanging out with my friends.  We’re having a good time.”

High School 

As Wes got older and became a good swimmer, the meets became more exciting and enjoyable for me.  He began to do well, bringing home ribbons and medals that soon littered his room. 

I tracked his times and the times of his teammates.  Followed kids I didn’t even know because they were good swimmers and I liked watching them compete.

“High school swimming is fun,” my friend Wendy told me before Wesley’s freshman year. “The meets are only a couple of hours and they move along fast.”  She’d had two children swim on the team by the time her youngest boy got there with Wes.

She was right.  

Watching the high school meets was fun. Parents didn’t have to time because the girl swimmers did it. There was the added interest of diving. Traditions like Senior Night and the Team Banquet gave us a chance to celebrate the boys’ accomplishments and bond with other parents.  

And there were all sorts of other quirky things that made it interesting.  Like swimsuits.

Before high school, Wes wouldn’t have been caught dead in a miniscule Speedo that would barely fit a Ken doll. But all the boys wear them in high school — and the smaller and tighter the better.  

At first I was grossed out seeing their butt cracks when they bent over on the blocks, but I got used to it.

At the end of the season, when they swim in conference, sectional, and, if they make it, the state meet, the boys switch to the latest high-tech water-whisking suits made by Speedo or TYR.  Jammers they are called.  Barely bigger than Speedos, they have legs that stop just above the knee and cost $200. 

They also fall apart after about six wearings. Something about the delicacy of the fabric interacting with the chlorine.

When Wes was a freshman, TVR came out with a full body suit called a Blueseventy that cost $500.  Top swimmers all over the world at every level of competition wearing them were posting record times.



Wes didn’t want a Blueseventy.

“Its too flashy,” he told me.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Well if you’re wearing one and you beat the kid in the lane next to you who isn’t wearing one, he’ll say the only reason you beat him is because you had on a Blueseventy,” he replied. “Besides, FINA is going to outlaw them next year anyway.”

A proud mother I was at that moment.

Everybody Swims

At Evanston Township High School and probably at many other high schools in Illinois, swimming and diving are no-cut sports.  

During all four of Wesley’s years, a boy named Judson, who had Down’s Syndrome, was on the swim team.  Judson was not very fast, but had good form and could dive off the blocks and do a flip turn.

Like the other boys who’d spent hours in the pool, Judson had a swimmer’s body, with a little waist and big shoulders.  When he swam, we parents all cheered as he methodically did his laps.  

His teammates cheered for him, too.  Sometimes, Judson was not sure how many laps he was supposed to do and stopped before he was done.

But Judson always finished.  

And when he did, he often pounded his chest and looked up to his mom in the stands, giving a fist pump. I would have given anything if Wes would have looked up to me like that just once.

Who Needs Hair?

High school swimmers and divers spend an incredible amount of time together, so they bond in a unique way.  Two a day practices, plus one or two meets a week puts them at the pool almost every day for three months. 

Their shared pain builds camaraderie and respect for each other and their coaches.  It definitely requires a different level of commitment than some other sports.

“When I played tennis in high school, the total amount of cardio training we did was when our coach told us to run down to the end of the courts and back the first day,” my brother Eric stated.  “The guys on the swim team were swimming laps in the pool for four hours a day.”

I don’t remember even running to the end of the courts and back when I played high school tennis.  Times have changed and there is more of an emphasis on training and fitness for all sports, but I do think that swimming is one of the toughest sports to train for.  

If you’re a boy, you also have to not mind doing strange things to your hair.

Evanston boys shaved their heads before the big end of the season meets.  Other teams dyed their hair yellow for the conference and sectional meets and only shaved for state.  

Wes and his teammates did “funny hair” the day before they shave it all off before the meet.  Wes sported a half and half look his senior year – half of his head and face had no hair; the other half, hair.  Much to my dismay, he actually went to school like that.

High school boys look really awful without their hair — like cancer patients or holocaust survivors.  Wes actually has a nicely shaped head, but some guys are downright scary when they are bald. 

“Swim maggots, swim!” my 9-year old nephew Henry’s voice rang out on the video he’d taped of Wesley’s medley relay at the sectional meet.  

A bunch of bald heads bobbing up and down in the pool must have looked like maggots to him.  

Either that or he’d watched “Escape from Alcatraz” too many times.

Junking

“Can someone give me a little advice as to what to do with all the junk in our yard?” a freshman mom wrote in an email to the rest of the sectional swimmer and diver moms.  “We have two queen mattresses, a large bean bag chair, a dresser with drawers, and a fence. Christian says we’re supposed to save it, but we don’t have any place to put it.”

Ah yes, junking.  

Another strange swim and dive team tradition.  As if toilet papering was not enough, someone had the brilliant idea long ago to comb through the alleys of Evanston and come up with some choice pieces of junk to place in the yards of the swimmers and divers who were going to the sectional and state meets. 

The girls do this to the boys when they are in season and the boys do it to the girls when they are in season.

“If you get the toilet, sailboat, or old starting blocks, don’t throw them out,” Wendy told some of the moms during a meeting where we were trying to write some of this stuff down. “Those are team junk that get passed along from year to year.”

We did get the toilet one year.  And the blocks.  As well as a rather large mauve colored Lazy-Boy chair that our neighbor had put in the alley behind our garage.  

One morning I was looking at that ugly thing in the alley, the next morning I was staring at it in my front yard.

Of course, this always happened near the end of the season in February. And, if it snowed and blowed after you’ve been TP’d, the toilet paper disintegrated into little pieces and became matted to the lawn or strewn all over the neighbors’ lawns, making it nearly impossible to pick up.  

If you don’t have understanding neighbors, this can be a problem.

“You don’t have to keep the junk,” I wrote to the freshman mom.  “Unless it’s a toilet, sailboat, or the old starting block. And you’ll probably have to pay the City of Evanston $20 to haul all that stuff away.”  

Welcome to the team.

A Sweetness Left Behind

I truly enjoyed every minute of Wesley’s high school swim career.  I made new friends, shared volunteer duties with other moms, cheered for all the boys, and watched their failures and successes. 

Year after year, seniors graduated and moved on.  Sometimes they came to the high school meets when they were home from college and occasionally a parent of a former swimmer made an appearance.

And even though I knew he wasn’t done swimming, I was sad when Wesley’s last day as a Wildkit swimmer was over.  It would never be the same – for him or me.

“College swimming is great,” a couple of former Evanston Township High School parents who had girls at Division 1 schools told me, “but it’s not quite like high school.  There’s more closeness and support among the kids and parents at the high school level.”

Certainly we moms and dads had our own shared pain as swimming and diver spectators. 

Maybe that’s what bonded us, too.  

Sitting in those hard bleachers, drinking in the chlorine and heat, putting up with the noise, waiting.

And, we watched our kids grow up as swimmers — from the time when they were doing belly flops off the blocks as six year olds, to when they are standing on the blocks getting medals as young adults.  We followed and rooted for swimmers and divers from other teams that we cane to know after watching them compete against ours.  

There is a sweetness to all of this that was left behind when our kids moved on.

Proud Mom

“In 10th place, from Evanston Township High School, Wesley Marberry,” the announcer said. The 500 people in the stands and on deck clapped and the Evanston fans cheered for their individual medley state finalist. 

Wes walked over to the block and a coach draped a medal around his neck. He stepped up on the block and turned to the photographer who snapped a few shots.  

Then he turned toward me, standing in the nearby balcony, and I took a few pictures. 

He faced the crowd and briefly raised his arms, acknowledging the parents sitting at the other end of the pool and his teammates on deck. 

Then, before he stepped down, he glanced back up at me. Our eyes met and he nodded. The noise stopped again.  

My eyes welled with tears.