dear swim team parents

Dear Swim Team Parents:

I am pleased and excited to coach your child this year. I know that we will have tons of fun, as long as you understand the following:

This gig doesn't put food on my table. In fact, I didn't want to do it in the first place; the school's Athletic Director all but begged me to do it, so I obliged. I could think of a million other placed I would rather be than with your child at a swimming pool 4 hours a night, 4 days a week, plus meets.

My first job is being a teacher. This means that I am NOT available during the hours of 7:30 to 2:40 to have you barge into my classroom to talk about bake sale shenanigans. This also means that I won't get to the items that you deem "important" like making sure your kid gets his or her swimming photos in a timely manor, or that the swim team has turkey sandwiches for the bus ride home from meets.

The goal of the swim TEAM is to provide an equal opportunity for all swimmers to improve. That means that your swimming prodigy deserves just as much time as the kid who has never swum before. And about your swimming prodigy: please tell him to mind his manors. Certainly you would not allow him to yell the f-word at you on a regular basis, and I don't appreciate it either.

Please pick your child up from the bus in a timely fashion. When your kids calls or texts you and tells you we are leaving the pool, it will always take 20 minutes to get home -- never do we travel through a space-time continuum, and never will you need to arrive later than that time. And if we do, you could probably wait 5 minutes for us to arrive. That time between when you receive the call and when the bus arrives is a less-than-opportune time to "run into Walmart" to pick up something for your family. Because even though you think your kid can "wait 10 minutes" at the school to be picked up, I have to wait too.

During the swim season (roughly November to March) I will be lucky if I grocery shop three times. I subsist on a diet of fastfood, M&Ms, anything I can get out of the vending machine at school, and whatever leftovers I can try to steal from my dad's stash out of the refrigerator. On average, I will spend 1.5 hours, awake, at my home each day. One hour of that time is spent in the morning getting ready for work (not swimming work, my real work), the other thirty minutes is spent at the end of the day getting ready for bed. The only time I see the sunlight is through the windows at work; otherwise, it's completely dark out when I come to and from work. My Thanksgiving break, Winter Break, Martin Luther King Jr. day, and Presidents Day are all ruined because of our practice schedule.

If you haven't picked up on the theme, I turn into the Worlds-Worst-Everything during this time. You try being pulled in a thousand directions. I come to school each day with a prayer in my heart that lesson plans fall into my hands, because I don't have time to come up with any. Papers don't get graded, so students get grouchy when they don't know their grades. My family thinks I moved to a different country; my nephew doesn't recognize me. And my friends. The few that I have give up on me completely, because I turn into a flake who can't remember and/or do anything. Forget having any sort of romantic relationship because frankly, Swimming is my mistress.

Parents, you seem to think that swimming is a club and that your child and come-and-go as they please. Rest assured, it is not. It is an accredited sport sanctioned by the Ohio High School Athletic Association in which your child can earn a varsity letter. This does not mean that your child can miss practice because of ortho appointments, doctors appointments, or general family outings. The amount of work your child puts into practice will reflect their performance in races. Please do not schedule ski trips for your family during the season. Your child will inevitably break his or her leg. The least of my concerns is the end-of-the-year banquet, so please stop hounding me about balloons, table cloths and center pieces. This is not a wedding reception.

As long as we are in a clear understanding of the above items, I know we will have a fun and exciting swim season. Good luck, and Go Pioneers!

Sincerely,

Underpaid Swim Coach