DEERFIELD, IL—Two-a-Day practices and difficult workouts do not make for an easy life. DHS Junior Varsity swimmer Sam Levine just wants to make sure you know that.
“I woke up at 5 o’clock AM this morning,” Levine tells Flipside reporters. “What time did you wake up? That’s right. You don’t get to be tired.”
Swimming for an average of 15 hours a week, DHS swimmers have little time to eat, do homework, or learn how to be social.
“It’s actually more like 16 hours,” Sam added.
Most swimmers describe swim season as working a second job they don’t have time for, except in this job, there is no such thing as quitting. Or pay. Or fun. So what keeps them going?
62% of swimmers said, “I don’t know,” 2% said, “Because I like to swim,” and 36% we’re unable to answer in their semi-comatose state. But no matter what their lives outside of school consist of, they still have the same stresses and pressures that any other Deerfield teenager has.
“Oh yea… We’re just like you,” Sam explains. “Except we have four hour practices over winter break while you go to Mexico. Really, there’s not much of a difference.”
“The weather was cold here by the way. Thanks for asking.” .
Sam’s hostility towards normal people is not uncommon amongst DHS swimmers. English teacher Ms. Kelley retells her near tragic incident.
“I was collecting a take home essay when I saw that Chris [Davis, a senior on the varsity team] didn’t have his out. I asked him where it was and he responded by asking me if I had any idea how much homework he had the previous night and if I knew how much sleep he got.”
Ms. Kelley ironically got no sleep that last night because her baby daughter couldn’t fall asleep. Dealing with swimmers is always a slippery slope.
“Big whoop,” Chris says. “It’s not like she had to swim 10,000 yards before she came home to her sick family. She has nothing to complain about.”
Chris was not done yet. “Guess what time I went to bed last night?”
Ms. Kelley didn’t answer. Nobody really cares about swimmers anyway. Those goggled-eyed kids just go back and forth and back and forth. Just thinking about their water redundancy gets me angry. And don’t get me started about water polo, those angry swimmer hybrids!
