The Commencement Speech a Swimmer Never Gets

Thanks to Haley Weaver for contributing this story.

As a college swimmer, I spent a lot of time thinking about the end—the end of the practice, the end of the race, the end of the season—but I rarely thought about what would happen after the end of the sport itself.

But that day came—it was a Sunday in my college natatorium—and when my hand touched the wall at the end of my last race, everything I had worked for suddenly shifted to past tense. I was a swimmer. I swam. Though I never thought I’d get used to the idea of it, today marks 365 days as a “swammer” for me. And with that year under my belt, I look to this year’s graduating swimmers and say this: you did it.

Can we agree that swimming is one of the more ridiculous sports out there? You can’t breathe during most of it, it requires full-body strength, and you have to wear a layer of latex that molds to your scalp in order to keep your hair out of your face. And yet, for some reason, you chose this sport over soccer and basketball and dancing. You spent your afternoons at practice and your weekends at three-day swim meets and you constantly smelled like chlorine. Maybe you swam for your high school, maybe you went on to swim in college. Maybe your swim career ended at the age of ten because you did want to play soccer. Regardless, you swam.

And here you are, a “swammer”. Welcome to the club. We don’t have 5 AM practices, and we definitely don’t wear speedos anymore. Our goggle marks have faded and we can no longer get away with eating two dinners. Saturday mornings are not spent in a crowded meet warm-up, and you’ll never have to anxiously sit behind the blocks before the 500 freestyle again. It’s the end of too-tight suits and chlorine burn, of post-practice naps and knotted hair. It doesn’t sound too bad, right?

Well, I’m going to let you in on a secret. It may not be today, and it may not be a month from now, but you’ll miss it. Okay, maybe you won’t miss the grueling practices and the exhausting drylands, but if you’re anything like me, you’ll miss being on a team.

Swimming is regarded as an individual sport, but I guarantee that your fondest memories as a swimmer will not be from a hard practice, when your eyes are trained on the black line at the bottom of the pool and an overplayed song from the radio is stuck in your head. Instead, you’ll remember huddling with your teammates before shouting a cheer together. Sharing headphones on the activity bus after an away meet. Carrying on stilted conversations between laps. Singing along to Drake’s latest hit while changing out of dripping wet suits in the locker room. You probably didn’t realize it, but those moments with your teammates were like fire, creating warmth in a sport that is cold, calculated.

That warmth is never truly replaced in the real world. Few experiences will live up to that time you swam the anchor leg of the 200 freestyle relay and out-touched the rival team. You’ll never share pain quite like locking goggle-clad eyes with someone during a test set, and not much will compare to having four teammates help you put on your competition suit. When you least expect it, you’ll find yourself yearning for that post-practice endorphin high, those lofty pre-season goals, even the intimidating voice of your coach.

I urge you to act on that feeling—and no, that doesn’t mean I think you should do a 10,000 yard practice at your local lap pool. Instead, text the people with whom you swam in lane five. Listen to your favorite pump up song. Drudge up photos from your college training trip. Call the teammates you lived with during your junior year of college. It’ll all come flooding back in a chlorinated wave, and even though it’s over, even though you hung up your goggles and retired your favorite suit, you’ll suddenly feel like a swimmer again, present-tense.

Haley Weaver graduated from Gettysburg College and swam freestyle and IM for the Bullets during her time on the team. She is currently living in her hometown, Charlotte, NC, where her love for swimming originated at SwimMAC Carolina.