It was a grand event! Upon arrival we got Ethan checked in for his swim meet and then headed to the opening ceremonies. They were so fun. The athletes got to march into the stadium just like real Olympians. There was a torch lighting, fireworks, and a great band. What a way to start off the events!
Everything seemed to be so well organized and the facilities were great.
Todd and I had a wonderful time being with Ethan. We left the other kids at home with grandma and grandpa so it was just the three of us.
The meet was an eye opener for us and for Ethan. We had no idea what the competition would be like and it was tough! We mostly swim against the same three teams up here in Cache Valley. It seems no one but me wants to travel anywhere and swim against anyone else! It's been frustrating for me. So we weren't really sure what the state of the other teams in Utah were. We quickly found out that swimming in the rest of the state is much different and a lot tougher.
Some of the teams were just amazing to watch. The Olympus Aquatics team had some amazing swimmers on it and the coaches were fun to watch. Those kids hit the pool and it was all business.
Our coach on the other had was late to the first day of the meet, sat his butt in the corner and never did anything. He didn't even show up to the second day of the meet. I WAS FURIOUS!! I couldn't believe a coach would take the team all the way down there and then do NOTHING! I was ready to leave the team after that meet but I guess that's another blog post.
There was lots of sitting around and waiting time. The second day of the meet we waited 4 hours before Ethan's first event! That's right, 4 hours! The kids have to be there to check in for warm-ups and you don't know when their events are scheduled until the meet begins so there was no getting around it. Well, while we were waiting on the first day we started talking with this lady next to us. As we talked with her we found out she was the coach of the Cedar City Stingrays. Her name was Cathy Wallace. She was so nice to us and asked about Ethan and some of his times. We mentioned that our coach was missing and how disappointed we were in our team and she totally took Ethan under her wing. Even though she had tons of her own kids to coach she took in Ethan too. She watched his strokes during warm-ups and gave him some pointers and things to work on. She also watched his starts and after each race she would come over to us and ask what his time was and how he did. I couldn't believe how wonderful she was. Here I was so discouraged about our coach and she just stepped right in to help.
As we got to know Cathy over the 2 days of meets we found out her daughter had been a State ranked swimmer and her son, currently in high school, was also a State Champion swimmer. Apparently it runs in the family. The best news we found out was that her daughter, Alissa, attends Utah State University in Logan, Ut. That's right!! She lives right in our hometown while she goes to school. Not only was Alissa a State swimmer, she also helped her mom coach the Stingrays. Well we jumped all over that. We met Alissa at the meet and arranged for her to be Ethan's private swim coach!
How lucky was that meeting?! If we hadn't started chatting with Cathy and if she hadn't been so nice to us and Ethan we would have never found such a great coach for him!!
So we left the Summer Games discouraged and encouraged. Discouraged because we recognized that with Ethan's current team and coach we just couldn't even compete with the other swimmers in Utah but encouraged because maybe this would be a new beginning for us with a new coach.
All in all the Utah Summer Games were an eye opener, a dose of reality, but really fun!
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| On the road to Cedar City, Ut! |
Keep swimming Ethan! You're going to make it!
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