Growing Pains

We have a brand new water polo club at the high school where I coach swimming, and the twenty-six-person team includes three players with experience. The other twenty-three are strong swimmers and solid athletes willing to learn an entirely new game in seven weeks. Watching their leg drills and head-up sprints resurrects memories of my own water polo days—treading water with full gallon jugs overhead, crossing the Blodgett pool dive well corner to corner, chlorine burning my nose as exertion burned my arms and legs.

Yesterday brought the team's first scrimmage against last year's state championship team. Four quarters of play provided eye-opening drives, defensive schemes, shot opportunities, passing sequences—for ninety percent of our athletes, every moment was new territory. On the bench as an assistant coach, I fielded rapid-fire questions: How much contact is legal? What does the ref signal mean when the whistle blows? How do you read the entire pool instead of watching one narrow slice?

Our kids' curiosity thrilled both coaches. They shouted encouragement to teammates in the water, debated offensive tactics they'd use when they got their turn, improved visibly quarter by quarter. The phrase "growth mindset" fits—though it's become a buzzword, it applies perfectly to strong athletes willing to take up a brand new sport and climb from beginner to proficient in seven weeks. We believe they'll make it.

Their willingness to look new, or raw, while learning inspires me—because I'm wrestling with my own new sport, golf, which remains a mystery every time I step onto the course. During practice, I drive and putt with acceptable mediocrity. On the course, my brain short-circuits. The ball lands in trees, creeks, sand traps, or occasionally—miraculously—on the green. My main sports—swimming, hiking, biking, weightlifting—don't require the fine hand-eye coordination that connects a club's small surface with a tiny dimpled ball. Every solid contact instead of whiff or duff feels like victory.

Playing with witnesses destroys what little confidence I have. Last Sunday I connected my 3-wood off the tee (hallelujah!) and nearly reached the green from the men's markers. The rush lasted exactly one hole. On the next tee, that same 3-wood whiffed three times, then dribbled five feet forward into the downslope toward the creek. Storm clouds rolled in and I prayed for the weather to end our round. The humiliation burned hotter than the Colorado sun and isn't so quickly erased.

Yet I keep showing up and swinging at that tiny ball. I keep accepting that some days I'll look ridiculous in front of three strangers. Being a beginner at my age may be harder than it was as a teenager—we live in a culture that celebrates proficiency, not raw newness. I feel the gap between my mind's image and my body's execution. I wince at bad swings. But there's something valuable in that willingness to be incompetent in public, to keep learning alongside much younger athletes who are doing exactly the same thing in water polo. As one of my playing partners said last Sunday: "If you're not growing, you're standing still."

The water polo team plays four games this Saturday. I can't wait to watch them. With each shift in the water, they improve—hesitation replaced by hunger, initial fear giving way to competitive instinct. They're learning what I'm learning on the golf course: that growth requires looking amateurish first. That trying matters more than succeeding. That the willingness to be a beginner, at any age, is its own kind of strength. I have a front-row seat to that courage. That's everything.