Initiation

Adjusting to collegiate swimming wasn’t as difficult as I thought it would be. Prior to the first practice I had a slew of horrible nightmares about getting my ass handed to me in practice and not being able to complete the first set of the first practice. Well, it turns out I wasn’t the only one hurting on the first day. The coaches know this too so they aren’t going to give us something we can’t handle. Things went fine. I didn’t enjoy the initiation all that much, but it really did bond the freshman group. We remained close through the rest of the college years. And some of us still remain close. The initiation made us closer at a quicker rate than if we had not gone through with it. The hazing included wearing the same shirt for the whole week that any upperclassmen could write on. Each of us had to drink a gallon of whole milk in an hour. I knew it was impossible so I faked puking when I was done with a half gallon. Once you puked you were in the clear. Freshman also had to partner up with another guy and walk through a grocery store holding hands. We had to buy two things: a cucumber and KY Jelly. I took a stroll through the Wal-Mart Supercenter. My partner and I ended up buying a European cucumber. They are longer and skinnier than the traditional cucumber. The bottle of KY liquid we bought ran the upperclassmen over ten dollars.

My swimming times that year didn’t see any improvement until the MWC championships at the end of the season. This meet was, and still is, held at the pool of the Oklahoma City Community College. I liked the competition pool, but that is about it. Oklahoma City is an awfully ugly place with not one notable fold in the earth.

Christmas training was a difficult adjustment. Swimming 10,000 to 13,000 yards a day is no walk in the park, and I was in the sprinting group. We did fewer yards than middle distance and distance. My first training trip was to Irvine. We had practice the night everyone got to Irvine. I had driven out there ahead of time with Dad for some extra days with him. He was there to see Jon, Jane, and friends. The meets over training were always the worst. We were expected to swim fast even after an exhausting week of training. Frankly, it was bullshit, and seeing coach’s face turn red before talking to us was just the precursor of even more bullshit.