How to Deal with Slacking Off Teammates
How to Deal with Slacking Off Teammates
It’s the most painful practice of your life. We’re talking a 10,000-yard shoulder killer. We’re talking a four-hour holiday marathon that makes you want to become a curler, a volleyball player, or a ballerina, or something — anything — but a swimmer. And, to make things worse, there they are. Your slacking off teammates. Laughing. Snorting. Making water balloons out of their swim caps and throwing them at each other. You’re about to pass out from working as hard as you possibly can, and there are your teammates, who have barely achieved a heart rate above 60.
Ohhhhh, how it bothers you. How it bugs you. One of them “had to use the bathroom” in the middle of the 200-yard butterfly repeat set and OH SO CONVENIENTLY missed the entire set. And your coach didn’t even see! And that teammate smiles, winks at you and dives in for the final 25 yards, like he’s just the smartest person in the world! Ohhhhh how it bothers you like an abrasive irritant.
This is when it really gets bad: You begin to plot. I’ll get them back, you think. You’ll run them over. You’ll run them over on this upcoming set and show them what slacking-off in the middle of practice results in. It results in pain, you think. Then you’ll tell your coach. Maybe you’ll go home tonight and write an anonymous note to Slacking Off Teammate’s parents, with photographic evidence, maybe with a ransom note. You’ll get them back, oh yes, you most certainly will…
Sound familiar?
