Swimming For A Few Dollars More

When I was young, about 10 to 14, my aunt and I had a system of hustling swimmers out of their cash. I had a privileged upbringing. My grandfather would take us over to Europe in the summers. We would stay at these really nice resorts and at every pool at every resort there would be some swimmer putting in laps.

I was a kid and would act like a kid, splashing around in the shallow area. My aunt was my supervisor, assuming the duties of babysitter to her nephew at the pool. She would approach the swimmer and get to talking with them. Usually, or almost always it was a male.

"You are very good at swimming," she would start. "You must be on a team, or something. Do you compete?" Then she would talk some small talk about where we were from and how much we were enjoying the country. Then she would say that she had to watch her nephew and how he was pretty good at swimming and how she thought that he should join a swim team, so that he could swim as well as the swimmer, one day.

At the time I wasn't on a swim team but I could swim pretty fast.

One thing would lead to another and the race was set up. She negotiated the wager. When this was done she would call me over and tell me that I was about to learn how to race from a very experienced swimmer and if I could swim against him that I might learn something.

"Okay," I said with a shrug.

I never lost a race.

My aunt would pay me but without knowing how much the wager was for I never knew if I was getting a fair share. At home I had a large glass fish that I filled with every currency from every country we visited.

For every age group coach out there I recommend trying this: the twenty dollar bribe.

About one week before the next big swim meet announce to your team that you are going to give the swimmer that drops the most time (it can be cumulative if you want them swimming more events) a crisp Andrew Jackson. There is advantage to swimming the longer events too because it's easier to drop a few seconds there.

I think you'll be surprised who the winner turns our to be. It probably won't be the swimmer you expect.

Gary Hall Jr.