The failures and victories we remember

It’s amazing how, many years later in adulthood, we remember some of those slings of defeat that, in the larger scheme of things are relatively minor, but which at the time were so crushing to an adolescent ego. Conversely, it is also remarkable how some minor little victory can linger over a lifetime, thought about from time to time as if it had some relevance to our fate and very being that we couldn’t even conceive of at the time. Again, such a little triumph as to seem insignificant, but which resonates down through the decades.

Perhaps I seem to invest too much in these things, but let me explain. The incident of defeat had to to with athletics, something I was never good at in any organized sense. While I enjoyed playing basketball at the neighbors’s hoop in back of our house, or a friendly game of touch football in one of two vacant lots when I was a kid, the idea of taking any of this too seriously, as in Little League or competitive play with the sole object to win, struck me, even as a boy, as cruel and stupid.

When I was placed, against my will, of course, in situations where I had to try to compete for a slot on a baseball or basketball team, I did miserably. I hated it with a passion that burned in my stomach with the grievous injustice of childhood dread. Each time, I’d swing wildly and strike out, or be relegated to right field. I’d miss catching zinging balls that never even thought for a minute about landing in my glove.

As far as basketball, when you’re over 6 feet tall in 8th grade, it’s assumed that all the gods have smiled favorably on you and your prowess on the court is a birthright so inalterable as to broach no turning back from this avenue of fate.

As I was cut from one team or another, or relegated to the proverbial bench to sit out the steaming competitions on court or ballfield, I hunkered down deep within myself and licked my wounds, embarrassed and wondering why I was such a failure at sports. I was a good student, after all. Wasn’t that enough?

But it wasn’t until I was 14 and in my third and last year on the swim team at our suburban New Orleans country club that the final, and perhaps most crushing, blow came. This was not something I wanted to do, either, but it was thought, I guess in a well-meaning way by my parents, that getting up at 6:30 every morning during summer vacation and riding a bike to the country club pool to swim 50 or 100 laps in stinging, chlorinated water would build character, or offer some lessons for life. No pain, no gain, right? Well, I did this when I was 12, and when I was 13 and again the summer before 9th grade. And, although I had been taught swimmming when I was 7 and 8 by a former Olympic qualifier, and did indeed have a perfectly respectable freestyle stroke, I had no speed whatsoever. I’m sure my form was nice to look at, but since there was no way that awkward, gangly body was going to knife through the water like a torpedo and win events, I became one of those people that had to be next-to-last, or last, simply because someone has to lose.

Well, I will tell you it was doubly hard on me losing the 50-meter freestyle and backstroke competitions, meet after swim meet, with rival country club teams, but what was even harder was pulling myself up out of the water and knowing I’d have to be back at practice first thing Monday morning.

It all kind of came to a head, at least in my mind these many years later, when I suffered the final indignity I was going to endure. I was not too fast in freestyle, backstroke or breaststroke, but I could put up a fair fight while losing and not come in too far behind the leaders. But as for butterfly, the hardest, but in some ways most beautiful of the swimming strokes, I was exhausted easily and ran out of steam hardly before I had begun. I was so bad in that stroke that I was almost never called upon to race in that category. Until one night. It was near the end of another meet, I was glad it was almost over, and had already duly lost the one event I was scheduled for, I can’t remember what it was. But the guy who was supposed to swim the 50-meter butterfly didn’t show up, or left, or something equally unfortunate for me because the coach put me in his place. Dread of all dread! Swim the butterfly? I couldn’t believe it. But I had to do it.

There were six of us in the lineup for that age 14-and-under event. At the crack of the gun, we were off. I think I had this lump in my throat from the minute I hit the water, knowing I was going to have to furiously try to salvage an impending disaster. It was just a matter of how big a defeat it would be. I lost my initial anguish in the effort to hurl my arms ahead of me and thrust forward with my two legs together. I was moving along, maybe even getting up a little speed, I thought, as I made the turn, oblivious to the fact that everyone else was way ahead and nearing the finish. I struggled along, hurting, breathing deeply, taking in gulps of water, lashing at the storm-tossed surface of that lit-up pool at night. Finally, both hands touched the smooth concrete ledge at the end of the race, and I looked up and saw that I was the last one in the water. People were dispersing. I think someone may have said, “Nice try.”

Well, to my knowledge there were no more meets after that. At least, that’s what I want to believe now when I look back and try to examine what lessons I was supposed to be learning those summers of my early youth.

And I remember Steve M___, one competitive age level up from me — as slim and sleek and fast a swimmer as I’ve ever seen, winning race after race, seemingly effortlessly, as did my younger brother who was also on that team. He had a collection of ribbons. I had a collection of defeats. You remember those things when you’re at that vulnerable age.

(Continued)