Special Thanks to the Sport of Swimming

Column by John Lohn

WEST PALM BEACH, Florida. January 4. EVERY now and then, it's nice to take a moment of reflection, to appreciate something in our lives we feel fortunate about. As we embark on the New Year and a fresh decade, it struck me while flying that my next column would be a good place to show my appreciation for this sport.

There's a reason I hit this moment of self-assessment. After 15 years, I'm only days removed from my retirement from the newspaper business, a career I've known since first becoming a correspondent for the Delaware County Daily Times as an 18-year-old college freshman. It's come time to explore a different career path and to spend greater time with my wife, the reason I walked away from my newspaper, which covers the four Philadelphia professional sports teams, a dozen colleges and more than 30 high schools.

The Daily Times, though, will forever be the reason I've developed a passion for swimming, a sport I admittedly knew little about when I first started covering it. It was 1998 and I was assigned the high school swimming beat, which didn't seem too glamorous. But hey, I wanted into the biz and was willing to do whatever it took. Then I walked into the pool at Upper Darby High School and was hooked.

It was a January day and Haverford High was racing Upper Darby. As the boys' 100-yard breaststroke came to a close, I knew. The time, 57-point, didn't mean a thing to me, but I wasn't so clueless to ignore the fact that Brendan Hansen had just beaten his competitors by nearly an entire length of the pool. Sometimes, you just have a feeling that you're watching a special athlete, and this was one of those times.

From that moment, I threw myself into the sport with zeal, trying to learn everything I could. It helped that our coverage area also featured Eugene Botes, a future Olympian for South Africa, and Mike Grube, one of the top sprint freestylers on the high school scene. Long story short (too late!), since that time I've grown to know a thing or two about the sport. But more important, and what I want the crux of this column to be, is that I've developed an immense respect for the hard work and dedication swimmers put forth.

All sports require a certain level of dedication, but I'm not sure that those outside of swimming can fathom the amount of devotion these athletes put forth. At first, I know I didn't. Now, it's a different story. The six-day-a-week schedules that are followed demonstrate discipline. There is something special to be said about those who rise before the sun, plug through thousands of yards of sets and then begin their day. There's more to be said when some days require a second in-water session, or a dryland workout.

While teammates are always helpful to have around, swimming can be a solitary sport. It takes an incredible mental toughness to follow a black line at the bottom of the pool for lap after lap, as the muscles burn. There's an incredible mental toughness to deal with a sport that doesn't allow for best times on many occasions, sometimes just a couple of times per year. Yet, these athletes grind it out, hoping to slice a hundredth of a second off the clock, their reward for the countless hours of body-beating they've endured.

Thanks to this magazine and web site, which gave me my first opportunity to contribute back in 2000, my passion for the sport has continually grown and will continue to do so. That said, I just wanted to throw out a thank you to all the international and national swimmers I've covered. To all the college and high school competitors. To all the Masters and age-group athletes. Not that you need it in any way whatsoever, but you have my unending respect. All the best in 2010.

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