Character

To SwimFast Parents,

       A coach asked me today about my 4 PM group. I told them this was the “best group I have ever coached in 46 years of coaching, not about swimming, but about CHARACTER. THEY GET IT.” After I said that, I realized I should share it with all our parents. Great tribute to their parents as well as themselves.

Great swimming performance will follow great character skills as surely as flowers follow rain.

I expect the Senior Team to reach the same level of Character understanding and performance. We’re not there yet.

    Last night a swimmer told me that they couldn’t come to practice the next two days because they had to study for finals. I about had a stroke.

   I then told the Senior Group the following:

  1. Every night I tell each child as they leave “Study hard, get smart, become an intellectual”. Intellectuals talk about and think about IDEAS. Everyone else gossips. Only one is acceptable to me.
  2. The way you SHOULD live your life is exactly that: Leave practice, put food in your face, put your face in a book and STUDY for 2 hours (7-9 PM)
  3. DO NOT play with your phone, your tablet or any other electronic crap. Social media will be the end of society as we know it. It’s bad for children. Period. (and probably for the rest of us.)
  4. For those two hours – FIRST – DO ALL YOUR SCHOOL ASSIGNMENTS, completely, thoroughly and well. NEXT – WORK AHEAD IN EVERY COURSE YOU HAVE. If you only get 15% of it, that’s fifteen percent better than your “peers” who don’t do it.
  5. If you will do 1-3, you will get straight A’s. Our schools are awful. Period. If you simply do the work and make a tiny bit for effort, you will excel. This is NOT new, it’s been true for 50 years.
  6. Waiting to study for 2-3 days in emergency mode DOES NOT WORK, and IS NOT TEACHING YOU about the real world. The real world DEMANDS your best efforts EVERY DAY, consistently and with discipline. Anyone trying to make it “easier” for their child is making them WEAKER. No one will keep a job if they work hard 2-3 days in 4-5 months. (like a school semester.)
  7. There is NEVER a reason to miss practice because of studying. IF you study correctly as above, you will be so far ahead of your class that you’ll get A’s AND you’ll remember the work.
  8. Don’t wait for school to educate you. It may not happen.  Take responsibility for  your own Education.

EVERY DAY: Show up at School, do the job. Show up at Practice, do the job. SHOW UP TO STUDY ON YOUR OWN. Do the job. Discipline, structure, strength.

It’s not exciting. It’s real life. It’s what makes you successful in every aspect of life. The Chinese call it “Chop Wood, Haul Water.” Mundane, critical. Learn to love it.

To Teach this to our children, parents must be on the same page as what I am teaching our athletes. Don’t agree? Tell me and we can discuss it.  

 

All the Best,

JL