Reputation at work

As with most people who did sports everyone had a role on their team. Well mine was always to be the fun, goofy kid because I always enjoy jokes. This sounds pretty juvenile but I feel that every group needs different people who has different roles, such as: the super intense kids who are only about performance and “Live, Breath, and Love” the sport, then there are usually the kids in the middle who like to have some fun during practice because it helps to make everything more enjoyable (slightly). I was always a pretty goofy kid, who would try and make others laugh because at least to me being a teammate is someone who tries to make others more comfortable and what better way than some savvy one-liners during that 6-8am practice.

However, as I grew older I realized that I needed to start to relax with the jokes because is sometimes distracted me from the overall goal which was to go as fast as possible and not be able to talk after sets. This change was pretty apparent from 8^th grade to High school because of how much harder the competition became and now we were fighting for spots on the Varsity team and potentially college recruitment. While this change was difficult for me at first, I learned that after practice is a more suitable place for jokes and it helps to unwind after a morning swim practice. In addition, this allowed me to be much more productive in practice and helped me to be one of the top freshmen swimmers on a team that was a many time state champion.

While this change was difficult at first I really felt it was beneficial to my development as a swimmer and as more serious athlete/individual. Overall this change really helped me to see that if one gets their work done then why wouldn’t a person try and have fun with my teammates, and that only makes me enjoy waking up for those dreadful AM practices.