TOME about a coach (and a swimmer)

 

My coach jacket that still keeps me warm when I shovel snow

Not long after I wrote my last post, where I wrote about my struggles over the years with depression, one of the key people who helped keep me alive when I was in high school rather suddenly died. I have struggled with whether to write about it, and what I should say....and even if my recollections are correct or not. Because my past traumas and even use of anti-depressants has fogged my mind a bit and my memory is full of holes. But my memories are still my memories, and my stories are still worth sharing. And I hope that I can honor my coach with my words. 

My competitive swimming career began just after I turned 7. After a serious bout with pneumonia when I was 5 years old that kept me in the hospital for a week and left me weak and frail, my mother thought maybe a swim team could help me get stronger. 

Me; 5 years old, with my tent in the hospital with pneumonia

I remember going home from school with the Try-Out flyer, and I even remember that very first try-out at the St. Anthony High School pool. Swimming soon became probably the most important thing in my life. 

I was a "good" swimmer, but I was never really "great". I remember that the Minnesota State Championship meet would give out jackets to the winners of the events, but the best I ever got was second place. So I got a bunch of red ribbons and silver medals, but no jacket. I managed top 10 and top 5 in many events, but never quite got first at that meet. 

I remember (perhaps incorrectly, but this is my memory) that the cost of that first season of swimming was $40. That was a lot for my family and caused some conflict, but my mom made it work. Being a swimmer and bringing home ribbons and medals got me attention from my grumpy grandpa, and allowed me to spend time making my mother happy. Although I was painfully shy and scared of most people, it gave me something that I was sorta good at and got me attention in school. Swimming really was the center of my life. 

I still have dreams about the route to swimming practice at St. Anthony. I was a city kid, but St. Anthony was a little suburb just a 3 mile trip up the road. When the weather was warm I would ride my bike to practice; mostly up hill on the way there, but more enjoyably downhill most of the way home. When the weather was colder I would get a ride, and I still have the image of waiting inside the door and watching for my mom's car going over the speed bump on the way into the parking lot. I can still remember the condensation on the glass doors, and my wet hair freezing after practice in the cold Minnesota winters. 

The summer swim season was Long Course, and the Long Course pool in our area was at my neighborhood "A-Field" (athletic field). I was able to ride my bike there as well, and later when I was older became a lifeguard and swim instructor, and even an assistant pool manager there.  

It was at the A-Field pool that I first met Neil. While I was still swimming for St. Anthony, I discovered that there was a little city team made up of Minneapolis High School students. I don't think they swam year round, but only during the summer season. I was still swimming year round and didn't want to cut back, but eventually the rising cost of the year-round team forced my hand. 

The exact timing on all of this is a bit fuzzy, but I know that in 7th grade (we could participate in high school sports in junior high) I ran cross-country while still swimming for the club team, but then joined the high school swim team after the x-c season and participated in both sports that season. I also cross-country skied and ran track, while still swimming year round. But sometime in there I started swimming for Danny's Dolphins. 

Me; my freshman year of high school swimming

Danny's Dolphins was the little city team and it was coached by Neil, who was one of the coaches at South High School, and Steve (I think) who was the guy's coach at Edison High School, which was my neighborhood high school. There was a joke that the team really should have been named "Fran's Fish", but I'm not sure if that is because Steve's wife was named Fran, or I'm just making that up. Minneapolis Public Schools only had a few swimming pools between all the schools and they shared practice space. South High School and Edison High School shared practice space at Northeast Junior High School. In junior high and 9th grade, I swam for Edison High School, and then after my first trimester of 9th grade I transferred to South. 

My transferring to South was a little bit controversial at the time, and there were people who thought I transferred just so I could swim at South. But Minneapolis was in the midst of a bunch of magnet programs and there were many reasons why I transferred to South; academics and music being two of the bigger reasons. A chance to not be known as the little sister of all my older siblings being another. But yes, swimming was also one of the reasons I transferred to South. And that was because Neil was one of the coaches.  

The summer between my freshman and sophomore years of high school, I wanted to be a better swimmer and somehow my mom scraped up enough money for me to join an even bigger team that summer. I was still able to ride my bike to practice, but this time I would ride 9 miles each way in the morning for a 3 hour swim practice, and then 6 miles each way in the evening to get to a 2.5 hour practice. Some days I would run in the middle of the day on top of that. It was that summer that I did my first triathlons and was definitely in the best shape of my life. I felt guilty for not swimming with Neil and Danny's Dolphins that summer, and even though he understood it still seemed like I hurt Neil's feelings a little bit. But it did help for me to train with more, faster kids. In 10th grade I had my best swim season, and just came up short of qualifying for the State high school meet by coming in 2nd at our Sectional meet. Again, I was just a runner up. But I truly thought that the next year would be better. 

Me; high school yearbook

Unfortunately I went on a fateful trip to Italy at the beginning of that next summer and had a traumatic experience that I really never fully processed for over a decade. My parents also got divorced, my mom was incredibly depressed, my dad re-married, and my family was truly a hot mess. I don't remember much abut my junior year of high school, but I do know that my swim coaches are part of the reason I am still alive today. 

The Anderson "brothers" were not brothers by blood, but they did serve as uncles to a lot of us swimmers. They both helped me in numerous ways, and helped keep me alive my last two years of high school. Mike was the more cerebral, quiet, steady one. He is responsible for my need to eat peanut M&Ms on long car drives; because of the time we all drove to Chicago for a swim clinic and he shared the perfection of sugar and protein that is the peanut M&M.  He also is responsible for helping me understand that there really are only 24 hours in a day and not only do we need to respect the time that everything takes, but we also need to sleep. He was my chemistry teacher in high school and I absolutely felt like I failed him my freshman year of college when I nearly failed out, even though that had nothing to do with chemistry and everything to do with unrecognized trauma. 

Coach Mike Anderson

Neil was the more fun "crazy" uncle. He was the one telling all the wild stories of the 'hood, while he drank diet soda and chewed gum. I remember riding in the back of his truck with blood stains from the deer he killed hunting, and getting rides on the back of his motorcycle across the city to school after morning practices when I was one of the only swimmers there. With Danny's Dolphins we'd grab a lane at the University of Minnesota and practice next to the college kids. And everywhere he went, Neil was entertaining people with his stories. 

Coach Neil Anderson

Neil had the ability to make everyone feel special. Because to him, we were. But as I got more depressed, and other swimmers got faster, I thought I had let him down and I retreated. I was lost in my own emotional trauma. Where some athletes are able to channel their emotional pain into performing better at their sport, I instead would tighten up in races and fill my goggles up with tears. Too many practices would have me jumping out of the pool to go cry in the locker room. 

Years later, Neil would sit down with me outside at the A-Field pool and tell me about how helpless he felt, that he couldn't fix things for me. He told me I was like a first-round draft pick who just never lived up to their potential, and that he felt like he had failed me as a coach. But he didn't fail me. I may have been "always a Bridesmaid, never a Bride", but he was still a guardian angel. 

I was voted Captain for both my junior and senior years of high school, and I'm sure I was a terrible captain. I was too caught up in my own personal trauma. I wish that I could go back in time and be there more for the other swimmers. I did, however, become a swim coach myself later and think that I was a much better coach than a swimmer. I like to think that I honored all the different coaches I had over the years. 

I had re-connected with Neil a few years back through Facebook. Since the time I swam with him, he had gotten married and became a father, and was very happy....until he lost his wife to cancer and things went south for him. I regret that I did not keep in touch better. I am, however, thankful to see that so many other people have such fond memories of him. Others who kept in touch better and never felt like they let him down. I hope that he knew how much he helped me over the years. I hope that he knew that he helped save my life. 

And for anyone reading this who knew Neil and some of the stories he would tell; for some reason I still always remember his story of the guys who did the Pac-Man cheer, and how he would say "Pac-Man, ooooh baby, you got munched!" 

R.I.P. ☮❤