Alejandro's Anti-Amazing Athletic Adventures No. 3: The Wally Whale

Though I was not the most athletic of children in the greater New Braunfels, and Comal county area as a lad, I did participate in a series of sport related teams, all of them losers. During what I believe to have been the summer afternoons following fifth or sixth grade, my mother would take me along to the Landa park pool, where I was forcibly entered into the world of underwater gladiator battles. It was either that, or the local swim team.

If it is not currently a publicly known fact; was heavier set as a young adolescent than I am today, despite the fact that I have somehow grown up to be a human-lemur hybrid. My physical stature prevented myself from being terribly strong, adept, agile, or quick, so I would have to use my wits to move ahead in sports. Perhaps I should have been entered into a crochet class instead, as my lack of natural talent might be better applied to making hats and tea cozies.

Anyhow, I was forced onto a local swim “team” which had practice every day in the eastern side of the Landa Park Olympic pool. Why I was entered into this particular athletic activity still remains a bit blurry, like an Avant Guard film’s still life image. But, the reason more than likely was that my mother would have been at the pool anyways, and she didn’t want me sitting at home watching the Pokey-mans during the afternoon after my book learnings. So, there I was placed upon the concrete slab which surrounded a rectangular body of water which may or may not contain a certain yellow liquid within its walls, and I wasn’t about to dive in with my mouth and nostrils agape.

I remember there being three coaches, a man I may falsely remember as being named Doug, a overly tan woman, and an old man who was possibly at one time an Olympic swimmer, but I never saw him get into the water. Come to think of it, I don’t believe that any of the coaches got into the water, not even to show a swimmer how to properly perform a swimming stroke. This lack of interactivity is likely what led me to dislocate my shoulder for the first time, whilst mid-stoke.
I was assigned to do several laps using the butterfly stroke, wherein one propelled themselves forward by turning their arms in a circular fashion with them out in opposite directions. This movements requires a great deal of strength in your shoulder muscles, otherwise you will simply look quite the fool flopping about slowly in the water. About midway though a lap, I attempted to further myself through the water when I felt something happening to my left arm. The sensation isn’t entirely describable, just imagine squeezing a baseball until it pops out of your hand, that’s essentially what happened to my left shoulder. There I was in the water, wounded and unable to continue utilizing the stoke which had initially debilitated me. I believe this was a good sign for me give retirement a try.
Though we were dubbed a “team,” I don’t recall us ever competing against any other group of swimmers. Perhaps they felt I was simply a novelty and would only bring me along to their meets if they knew they were going to come in dead last, and they didn’t want the good swimmers to be embarrassed. As we were a “team,” we were given a mascot, and predictably it was a dolphin (big surprise.) As previously stated, I was far from the thinnest child about, so being hydrodynamic was not in my design. The rest of the male swimmers were of a slim build, and always equipped a pair of Speedos for a reduction of traction in the water, I would not follow in their example. There was a kid who was later to become my semi-friend who always felt the need to point out me being heftier than the rest of the water urchins. He would often remark “We are all the dolphins, but you’re; The Whale.” While cocking his head back to look up to the sky as if to see whether or not the all knowing seagull god was pleased with his insult.