I ran-walked into the class quickly, my feet making soft padding noises across the deck as I walked over to the rest of the group. As I got closer to the class, I noticed all of the swimmers had joined into a circle. Forty pairs of eyes watched me as I joined the circle. In the middle of the circle were the coaches. All the coaches I already knew, yet I still listened for any changes. One of those changes was that Coach Savanna, my favorite coach, was gone. She was the driving force of our team and pushed us harder and harder in swimming. Unfortunately, we all had known she was nearing the danger zone of eighteen, where all of our coaches typically leave us for four years or more. Now that she was gone, we could only hope she would …show more content…
Coach Christy embarrassed Connally, her eighteen-year-old son, by hugging him. He pushed her away, blushing furiously, and dove into the pool to conclude the monster medley. Coach Ellie, an eighteen-year-old girl who used to swim for the Wave, laughed and talked with the nervous first-timers, who felt a little more confident after talking with her. She has that sort of effect on people. After the first day, things started to get a little more serious. The second day was really more like the first day; it was the first day we started doing actual swimming. I jumped into the water and got shoved to the back, as always. Coach Landon instructed our lane for today, and, soon enough, I was the first person in my lane. A look of surprise flickered across his face, then he quickly concealed it with a gruff expression, when he saw me in front. That may have been the first time, ever, that someone had noticed in Summer Swim League, that I had practiced hard. The other coaches didn’t notice; they simply shrugged and said, “Oh, Sarah? What about her?” I smiled happily and, at that point, I decided I would push myself to the limit, whether what Coach Landon asked us to do a 25m or a 500m, whether it was easy or