The start of a new swim year. No countdowns, no corks flying at midnight. Just another day in the life of a swimmer. After a couple of weeks off where family and friends wonder why you didn’t go near the hotel pool you finally get to come back to the people that understand you. Many will come back wondering what new ideas their coach had time to learn about at Trials, Nationals, or Sectionals. Or, what did they possibly think up during their vacation?! Most coaches know the swimming part well enough that there won’t be a lot of new methods of training. The good coaches look deeper, they look for who is ready on the team to take on leadership and assist from the pool. It feels like we are reverting back to a period in time where people don’t want to lead, they want to be led. Some to greatness, some toward new experiences, and some just away from where they are presently.
Among the greatest leaders I have ever been lucky enough to work with was Gordon Collet. I say “with” because
Gordon was (he passed away a few years ago) someone in life that could be counted on more than anyone outside of my family that I had ever met. He will be at the pool. He will be there before you get there and he will be there after you leave. He will say very little to you, but you damn well better listen. this man has seen it all and only shares with you what you need to know at the time. He taught me how to sail, or maybe he tried to dump me out beyond the Golden Gate and just couldn’t do it. Either way, those Saturday excursions out on the old Cal 20(sailboat) were absolutely priceless. A Cal 20 is a sailboat that is so heavy it actually shouldn’t float, but it does. The mast is not high enough to catch wind, but it does. It beats the odds. It was the perfect boat for Gordon. I got the pleasure of sailing on its last trip with Gordon as its owner and was even given the helm at one point. It was a day that was very typical in the San Francisco Bay. It was hot, cold, windy, calm, wet, and dry throughout the three plus hours we were out. We went outside the gate(under the Golden Gate Bridge), and proceeded directly through the center of the potato patch.
The potato patch is a shoal just outside the gate where there is about a 5-10 foot drop-off, then rapids, then a 5-10 foot climb back to the surface. There is not a rollercoaster in the world that can prepare you for your first ride through the potato patch in a Cal 20. So as we approach the potato patch Gordon says “you’re ready, take the helm”. AWESOME!! He did not tell me it was coming or that it even existed. I should have know as I have seen that clenched teeth grin before. I’m pretty sure he enjoyed the look of terror on my face as we suddenly pointed straight down into the rapids. That ten seconds seemed like a lifetime. I was scared to death but at the same time, I was with Gordon Collet, so I was safe. A feeling that his platoon in Vietnam probably felt on a regular basis. A feeling his athletes go through every day as he reveals the main training set. “This could kill me, but I’m with Gordon. so I’m safe”.
After we tied up in his slip over in the Berkeley Marina at the end of the day, we went to the Marina deli and grabbed a quick sandwich. As we sat there on the picnic table, he had a very odd, satisfied, contemplating look on his face. He looked at me and said; “well, the boat is for sale, there will not be a better day than today, so I’m not going to try to chase one. It’s time to move on”. He retired that old Cal 20 after that perfect day on the bay. There was a hell of a lesson in that day and I didn’t understand it until I began to send swimmers off to college programs. We made our success, we had our time, I needed to let them go. We can try to match those feelings of success when they come home in the Summer, but their career is in the hands of a new skipper and we need to embrace that. On a much more personal scale, It is how I walked away from coaching full time after producing an American Olympian of my own. There was plenty of room for everyone else to produce one, two, three of their own. My time came and went. It was a blast while it happened, but recreating it would have too high a cost for those around me and ultimately too high a cost to myself. As they say, “the view at the top of the mountain is for you to see from, not for you to be seen from”. Too many in this age of social media need this lesson.
The key to it all; let them go when the time is right. Let them take your lessons and apply them to their new environment. Take the rapids on head first and let’s see where it takes us. I miss Gordon Collet a little more every time I think of him. But I know he’s looking down on all of us with that toothy gritty grin as we now have the helm. Miss you buddy.
Every Four Years™ 