OP-ED: Now that it’s all over…
By Owen Yancher,
BlueDevilHUB.com Staff–
“It was an experience, and now it’s over.”
That’s what my teammate Chenoa Devine’s father, Duff, said to me after the conclusion of the Sac-Joaquin section swimming championships in Lodi Saturday, May 14. The meet marked the final “hurrah” of our high school athletic careers.
I’m still not sure if Duff’s words have resonated with me yet.
Driving home later, after the meet in our team van, my coach John Varley asked me: “So what’d you think?”
I gave him a confused look back.
“Of your high school swimming career,” he added.
I was honest. I told him I felt burnt out–ready for it all to be over. He said he felt the same way when he was my age (only five years ago).
We sat in silence for a mile or so, then he murmured: “But God, do I miss it now.”
Varley and I went on to chat less about swimming, and more about the relationships we’d formed with our teammates, our second families, and the everlasting bonds we’d all formed with each other. He gave me the typical “these are the memories you’re going to remember forever” and “stories you’ll tell your children” spiel. I nodded then, but didn’t really take it to heart.
The next day at lap swim, where I lifeguard, one of the Davis Aquatic Masters swimmers asked me how the meet went. So I gave him the lowdown. He congratulated me, then went on talking about his own high school swimming career.
He spoke about it in such vivid detail that it sounded almost like he’d been swimming the day before rather than 50-or-so years ago in Minnesota.
That’s when Varley’s words really hit me.
Someday it’ll be me telling a kid about the time I got tossed like a rag doll during a high school football game after getting hit trying to pick up a botched snap (and how that long snapper still owes me dinner). Or the time my freshman year when my swim teammates and I filched four swim caps from different teams at our league meet and wore them all in the final varsity relay. We called it a “color relay.”
Our coach Tracy Stapleton didn’t think it was that funny.
But hey, we won.
So what now?
Last November after high school football season ended, I was in the pool less than 24 hours later preparing for swim season in the spring. But now there’s no more Blue Devil football for me to look forward to next fall.
I’m done. And it feels weird.
Driving through town with a friend the other day, I brought up how strange it is that both our Blue Devil sports careers are finished. She was quick to remind me that I still have a Powderpuff football game to coach this upcoming Friday night, May 20 (7 p.m., Ron and Mary Brown Stadium).
That made me smile.
So have Duff’s words resonated? I’m still not sure. High school athletics have certainly been one hell of an experience. But despite the times I’ve wanted to pull my hair out, I’ve made so many amazing memories, a countless amount of friends and had an unimaginable amount of fun.
And now that it’s all over, I just wish I could do it all again.
