I’ve had several swim coaches in my career. But there is only one who has shown me how to swim--and not just in the water. Something needs to be said about coaches who teach you life lessons. Something needs to be said about coaches who devotes their time to their athletes.  Something needs to be said for someone who is compassionate and dedicated. And, most importantly, something needs to be said about my swim coach Tom Coons.

I tend to say that swimming found me because quite honestly, I didn’t choose to jump into freezing cold water at 5:00 am and practice six days a week for three hours just for fun. I had tried other sports like every child: t-ball, dance, soccer. But the sport that I felt most comfortable was swim. I even had a moment where I questioned being on land (swimming made me feel like I belonged in the water).

Like in any sport, there has to be motivation to continue practicing, improving, and competing.  I feel as though no one will ever quite understand the word dedication until you have been on a swim team. We have a total of four weeks off in the whole year. To say the least, we are with each other a lot, so getting along and building close relationships is key to survival. So the fact that I had did not have a swim coach that I had connected with yet worried me. By age ten or eleven most swimmers had felt comfortable with a swim coach. I was still still swimming by myself.

It wasn’t until my fifth year into my swimming career when Tom became my swim coach. I’m not going to lie: on my first day at practice, I was petrified. Whispers and gossip filled my ears as I heard about how hard of a coach he was. He’s a 5 foot 8 man with a goatee. He has a jolly personality, but he also has a yell that is not made for this world (it’s a yell that rooted from his soul and released as if it was becoming free). His swim record was stellar: he swam with multiple olympians and swam in at the University of Louisville. Two of his biggest pet peeves is arriving to practice late and swimming aimlessly. When the team arouses one of his pet peeves, his yell would escape from his mouth.

Tom is a compassionate coach and father figure. He cares about his swimmers (and not just when they are in the pool, but more importantly, he cares about who his swimmers become as people in the real world). He teaches his swimmers life lessons that can be easily translated from the pool deck to a classroom. One swim practice in particular we were in the weight room. We were doing deadlifts and a fellow teammate wasn’t paying attention. My teammate, Abby,  had dropped a weight on her foot because she wasn’t paying attention and talking to another teammate. From then on out we were always reminded of two things: one, always go into something with focus and two be aware how your actions affect others.

He taught me how to be dedicated to goals things in and out of the pool. “It’s not an excuse.” Is one of many of his famous lines. There was no reason to not get something done no matter how tired we were. Whether it was the last day of the swim meet at finals or being up till two am doing homework after a hard workout, things had to get done.  Tom is dedicated to his work. He loves what he does and there isn’t anything that he loves more than being at the pool. He lives and breaths chlorine and to him it’s life.

Tom Coons is the best educator. He manages to teach life lessons that is easily translated into the real world. He is compassionate and dedicated and he is someone I look up to. I am lucky if I become half of a person he is.