More Than a Coach

I feel like I’m writing a breakup letter. It’s like I’ve ended it with my first long-term boyfriend after being with him for so long that I barely know who I am without the relationship — except this proverbial ex is a balding 50 something year-old and my (former) swim coach, Rob Cole.

Rob was the first person who told me I could be good at something — not something I was already good at — something that I was completely, terribly average at.  I’m still not sure what he saw in my lanky, awkward 11-year-old self, but to this day, I am thankful for his words. They shaped my high school athletic career for the better.

Back in those days, getting down the pool and back felt like a marathon for my scrawny limbs, so I stayed hidden in the back of lane three, hoping Rob would never learn my name. Much to my embarrassment, he did, and he used it. Frequently. For nearly my entire middle school career, all that came out of his mouth were cries of “stop breathing off the wall, Miranda!” or “you cannot stop at the wall, Miranda!”

I entered my first year of high school swim with my stomach churning at the sight of Rob’s black Jeep pulling into the junior lot. Practice left me bone-achingly tired and hungry enough to eat a meal meant for four. My entire body was sore every day for three months.  But somehow, Rob made those practices worth it. After years of cowering in the back of a lane, three hours of daily practice brought us closer together: I began to look forward to practice, to hearing him laugh too hard at his own stupid inside jokes.

And sophomore year? I spent more time with Rob on a day-to-day basis than I did with my own father. He watched me cry, saw me throw up, pushed me until I nearly passed out. He was the one cheering when I finished my first 500-meter race, the one screaming when I got my state cut in the same event. When I added five seconds to my time at state, he was the one there, telling me “it’s okay,” and “there’s always next year.”

Not anymore, there isn’t.

Our team — once the center of his attention — has been resigned to the sidelines of his love and affection. After 18 years here at East, he’s leaving. He’ll be coaching for Blue Valley North while wearing a shirt sporting the state titles he won with us. Singing Katy Perry and making pancakes for them on Saturday morning practices. Writing them a hype poem before the Sunflower League meet.

Not us. Not me.

Rob taught me technique, yes, and the value of hard work, too. He fixed my lopsided flutter kick and my atrocious breathing patterns, and hours of his underwater sets gave me a lung capacity that once felt nearly unattainable. But mostly, Rob taught me passion— to love the sport no matter how much pain it put me through. To not just swim another lap when my legs begin to cramp, but to smile while doing so.

Maybe it’s my own lack of experience that makes me feel this way. I’ve had a grand total of two head coaches in my competitive swimming career – one of them barely knew my name and the other was Rob.

And maybe it’s selfish, but I don’t know if I can be the athlete that I was without the coach who got me there. I just don’t know who I am as a swimmer without him.

That’s what they always tell you when you’ve been in a relationship for too long, right? That you need to ‘find yourself?’ Well, I find myself panicking when I picture a Saturday morning practice without hearing Rob bellow “Randy, pick it up!” from across the pool. He is the one person I trust to motivate me, whether it’s through fear or love or an inexplicable combination of both. I never knew how much the coach that I was once terrified of could mean to me.

So:

Dear Rob,

If I see you with another girl(s swim team), I’ll try not to get too jealous. But I ask in return that, just for me, please don’t sing “Dancing Queen” with them. Or write them a poem. That’s ours, and it’s sacred.

Give them close to what you gave us.

Just not enough to win state.

Love,

Miranda