A Swim Coach’s Review of “The Thirteenth Year”

By: Tyler Montgomery

Warning: The following article contains spoilers of a 21 year-old made-for-TV Disney movie.

Recently a friend reminded me of a Disney movie from back in 1999 called “The Thirteenth Year”. It’s about a boy who begins transitioning into a mermaid after his 13th birthday and also just happens to be a competitive swimmer. The movie features a star-studded cast of Dave Coulier and that guy that’s in every commercial now, you’ll know who I’m talking about when you see him. I’ve been coaching middle and high school swimming for the past three years and couldn’t wait to re-watch this movie to see Disney’s interpretation of the sport of swimming. There are really only two scenes that involve competitive swimming, but I couldn’t help but critique this movie from the perspective of a swim coach.

First of all, let’s talk about the facilities. The main character, Cody Griffin, attends Mahone Bay Middle School with his friends and teammates. And they have a pool…at their middle school. The county where I coach has four pools that 19 middle and high school teams share. The majority of our high schools do not have a pool on-campus, but these Mahone Bay kids have a pool at their middle school? So we’re five minutes into the movie and all I can think is “there’s no way these kids appreciate having a pool at their school.”

And on the subject of the pool, they have some very unique methods to run a swim meet in Mahone Bay. Both meets in the movie featured a marching band on-site, which I’m not sure has ever actually been tried anywhere outside of Mahone Bay. At the first meet in the movie each event is started with a starter pistol. I realize that maybe not every meet host has a $2,000 starter system complete with a strobe light, but I’ve been to some middle school meets that had 15 heats of the 50 free. If you are going to start every event at an indoor pool with a starter pistol you’re looking at significant hearing loss for swimmers, coaches, and spectators by the time you get to event 2. For the last meet in the movie they switch to an air horn, perhaps because they read the NFHS Rulebook which states in Rule 4, Section 2, Article 2-c: “The sounding device shall not be a pistol or closed barrel starter’s pistol.”

Then there’s the public address/play-by-play announcer that provides commentary throughout each race and seems to know a little too much about some of the swimmers. I’ve seen this done at some pro series events, I’m not sure live play-by-play is necessary for a middle school meet though. And perhaps the most bizarre aspect of swim meets in Mahone Bay is that there is a loud basketball scoreboard buzzer sound that goes off when the first swimmer in an event finishes.

At the first meet, the 100 free is the last event for some reason and the event that “decides which team will move on to the state finals” according to the unnecessary public address announcer. The starter gives the command to take your mark and then Cody runs in fully clothed and tells the starter to wait. The starter happily commands the other swimmers to relax while Cody strips down to his suit and climbs up onto the blocks. According to the NFHS Rulebook Rule 8, Section 1, Article 3-a, a false start occurs when a swimmer “unnecessarily delays reporting for the start or assuming a starting position.” Cody and his teammate/arch rival Sean go on to finish 1st and 2nd, which apparently wins the meet for the Mahone Bay Middle School Marlins. However, had there been a competent official on-site Cody would have been DQ’d, the Marlins would’ve lost, and the movie would have been much less interesting.

Side note: When Cody’s parents arrive late to pick him up after the meet his dad’s face is painted. The parents knew that Cody was going to be late to the meet, if he made it at all, and that they were going to arrive even later than him. So why would Cody’s dad spend any time painting his face before heading to the meet?

Apparently Mahone Bay Middle School is the only school in America where swimmers are the biggest jocks on campus. Every student and faculty member seems to know how well Cody did at the meet, and this is before Meet Mobile! Being on the swim team in high school didn’t hurt my social status, but I wasn’t the most popular kid in school just by virtue of being on the swim team like I would have at Mahone Bay Middle. According to Sean, the swim team is “the guys everyone wants to be”, but they only have six guys on their team so I’m pretty sure Coach could take in a few more if there really is that much interest from the students at Mahone Bay Middle School.

Naturally, I took the most interest in the Marlins’ swim coach, who is only referred to as “Coach”. There are some major red flags with this guy. First of all, he wears a full suit and tie to swim meets. In my three years as a swim coach I’ve never once considered wearing anything more than golf shorts and a polo at a meet and I still sweat the entire time. He also doesn’t seem to have any idea where his swimmers are on meet days. He is way too comfortable with Cody running into the pool area 10 seconds before the start of his event at every meet. At some point you need to have a talk with your swimmers and parents and make sure everyone knows when your warm-up session starts.

And we don’t know anything about any of the other male swimmers on the team, but it would appear that Cody and Sean are the two best swimmers on the Marlins (Sean is the team captain and Cody is literally a sea creature). Coach has his eye on a first-ever state championship appearance and you have to admire the ambition, but is the best strategic move really to have his two best swimmers in the 100 freestyle? The team doesn’t appear to be that deep, I only counted 11 swimmers total, so wouldn’t it be best to spread the talent around a little bit? And why does he have to tell his swimmers “The men’s 100 meter freestyle is up next”? Why don’t you tape a heat sheet to the wall and let your kids be a little more self-sufficient, Coach?

As the movie progresses Cody’s body starts to go through some weird changes and his friend Jess determines he is becoming a mermaid. Cody’s parents decide Cody needs to stay out of the water to avoid anyone finding out his secret, but of course Cody doesn’t want to let his team down at the state meet so he sneaks out of his house and heads to the pool. When Cody arrives at the meet Jess has a message for him that I think we’ve all been able to relate to at one point or another: “It’s just a dumb sport. You swim up and down the lanes as fast as you can and try to touch the wall before the guy beside you. You smell like chlorine all day and you wear swimsuits that are way too small on you. And you don’t even have cheerleaders. At least all of the other dumb sports have cheerleaders.” Jess then delivers a line that I will ask every single one of my swimmers at the beginning of the season from now on: “Are you willing to screw up your whole life for this team?”

Cody goes on to swim in the 100 free after walking in about 10 seconds before the start of the event, as per usual. With the help of his new mermaid abilities Cody goes on to win the event and break the state record. I can’t help but wonder how good Cody would be if he actually warmed-up? As he is celebrating the fins growing out of his arms become visible and Cody runs away hoping no one sees what is happening to him.

Side note: The one part of this movie that actually makes me jealous is the location where the Marlins had their pre-meet speech before the state meet. It was some kind of basement with a window that could see into the pool as if it were an aquarium, pretty dope if you ask me. And during that pre-meet speech the team that was in the pool apparently does exclusively underwaters in warm-ups.

Here are my main swim coach takeaways from “The Thirteenth Year”:

First, if I were the athletic director at Mahone Bay Middle School I would fire my swim coach immediately. Don’t get me wrong, the guy is getting results. He led the Marlins to their first ever state championship and had a swimmer set a (legitimate?) state record, but he’s also allowed the Mahone Bay Middle School swim team to become a toxic environment. His top two swimmers openly root against one another and eventually have a physical confrontation at school. He apparently doesn’t care that Cody misses practices and routinely shows up late for meets. And he did absolutely nothing when a Mahone Bay student fell into the pool after a meet and became an active drowning victim, which should also cost him his lifeguard certification if he has one.

Side note: On the topic of lifeguard certifications, I highly recommend every coaching staff watch the last scene of this movie and take notes on what not to incorporate into your emergency action plan. To be fair it’s not likely anyone in that scene was lifeguard certified, but here’s their emergency action plan after pulling an unconscious child out of the water: 1. No one call 911, 2. Give five very light chest compressions followed by one breath, and 3. Let a 13-year-old take charge when there are three adults present. Also, when Cody is giving Jess swim lessons it’s just the two of them alone at the pool. If I don’t have at least one lifeguard for every 25 swimmers at a practice I’ll be fired, how are these kids able to use the pool completely unsupervised?

And finally, Cody should have be disqualified and stripped of his gold and medal state record. The NFHS Handbook states in Rule 3, Section 3, Article 5: “Competitors shall not wear or use any device or foreign substance, to aid their speed, buoyancy or body compression”. I would argue that the scales and fins growing out of his arms would qualify as a foreign substance. How the officials missed that is beyond me. Sean may be the biggest jerk on the swim team, if not the entire school, but he is 100% correct when he tells Cody “That gold medal should be mine.”

And I’m really not sure what to think about Cody’s performance in the 100 free. He finished with a short course meter time of 49.50, which is unbelievable for a 13-year-old. But considering he did it with scales and fins and the ability to breathe underwater, are we really that impressed with a 49.50? Two other guys in that heat went sub-52 and they’re just regular human beings. Isn’t it more impressive that the other guys were only a few seconds behind a mermaid in a swimming race?

If you are looking for something to fill the time until you’re able to get back in the pool you can check out “The Thirteenth Year”, but only if you’re great at suspending disbelief because a boy turning into a mermaid isn’t the most unrealistic thing you’ll see in this movie.

ABOUT TYLER MONTGOMERY

Tyler Montgomery had a four-year swimming career, all with the Water Warriors of Riverdale High School in Murfreesboro, TN.  He didn’t think about swimming for the next ten years until he was asked to coach the Rockvale Middle School swim team in Rockvale, TN, which he has coached since 2017.  He was also named the first-ever swim coach at Rockvale High School, which opened in the fall of 2019.  Being a middle and high school swim coach is not nearly as lucrative as it sounds, so Tyler also works in the publishing industry and has a degree in Electronic Media Management from Middle Tennessee State University.