Spectating in the Time of Coronavirus

We eyed the ladder set up outside the chain-link fence, wondering whose it was and if it would hold our combined weight. The announcer's voice called the event before William's and we stood on tiptoe, holding the fence just below its menacing barbed wire, scanning the area for our son. Other parents stood at safe distances along the fence, perched on chairs in the back of their trucks or climbing trees, like Daniel, to get a glimpse of their son or daughter preparing to dive into the pool.

While my heart hummed with gratitude just to hear the sounds of a meet - the starter's beep, the cheers of the swimmers, the splash of water at the start - it was difficult to be so close and yet so far. The shallow old 50-meter pool is located on the grounds of a repurposed military base surrounded by dry scrub and dust. At 6:30 pm it was 98 degrees in the shade. Sweat dripped down my legs as I contemplated vaulting over the barbed wire.

But I digress - the point of mentioning the flat, scrubby surrounds was that the pool builders had to construct a four-foot high concrete wall around the pool to keep out trash, leaves, animals, and various other invaders. So we were distanced from the racing by the concrete wall, a wide grassy open space where the swimmers sat in their own deck chairs, and our fence nemesis. In my thirty-six years of swimming I have never seen anything like parents climbing a ladder and holding on between the spikes in barbed wire to watch their kid swim a 50 free. (We never climbed the fence as its popularity shut us out of timely use).

Despite the incongruous location and the heat, the young people swam amazing times. They seized the rare opportunity to compete with other high-caliber swimmers, put on their speed suits and kicked it into gear. We saw two swimmers make Olympic Trials qualifying times, a rare and exciting feat. (When I say "we saw" I mean that we heard it happen in real time). William swam six best times over the course of two days and enjoyed hanging out with his team and with guys from other teams that he only sees at competitions. We recorded the sounds of his walking out to the music as the top heat  in the 100 fly, and watched the ten seconds of swimming that we could see from our vantage point.

Swim coaches and staff were amazingly organized and they followed every social distancing rule and requirement - health and temperature checks in the morning, different times for teams to enter and warm up, separate places for swimmers to sit socially distanced on the grass, and masks on deck for all coaches and officials. I'm so proud of our sport, our athletes, coaches and parents. There hasn't been a single instance of a swimmer testing positive for COVID through swimming in our state. My fingers are crossed that the kids can keep practicing even as the weather turns colder and outdoor pools are taken off the table. We parents will watch through windows, fences and live stream if our kids just get a chance to train and compete.