Mission Viejo Nadadores go to Monterey

58 Swimmers. 5 Coaches. 2 Parent Chaperones. 1 bus and one twelve seater van and almost 400 miles between destinations.

The Mission Viejo Nadadores youth swim team under the care of Coach Bill, Coach Bryan Dedeaux, Coach Sarah Ball Dawson and Coach Darian Primer went on an adventure to Salinas for the Monterey Invitational Youth Cup Challenge that will not be soon forgotten.
.
For many of these swimmers, these four days were the longest that they had ever been away from their parents. Eleven-year-old Sofia Massa woke up at 2:45am the day that the swimmers were to meet at their designated bus stop for their six-hour bus ride to Monterey. She came to her mother’s room wondering if she was sick with an uneasy feeling in her stomach. Her parents decided that they would go through the motions of going – and decide when they got there if Sofia was indeed not feeling well. From the moment Sofia saw her team mates waiting for her, her troubled tummy became a thing of the past. “You could see all over her face – she was so HAPPY!” shared her mother Monica Alderete, “This trip changed Sofia and it changed me. My normal instinct as a mother was to hold her back, but after Monterey I realized so much about her and what she can do!”

10 year old Alex Schwartz had only been on a two day school camp before and this trip was likewise a big step. “I was nervous, “said his mother Katia Prachenko Schwartz, “I hadn’t heard from him because he was too busy to text me.” Like all other parents, all she could think about her only child while he was gone was the things only a mother would think of. Was he going to be cold? Did he have his antihistamines? Will he be able to sleep? Alex shared a room with two other boys from his age group, and while someone snored and kicked in his sleep, Alex had the time of his life.

Chloe Stinson never had a mobile phone before and so her parents made a special trip to Target just to buy one. The four swimmers from the 10 and under group that shared a room totally bonded in a way that only happens when you are forced to live with one another. Swimming in a lane with another is one thing, but when you are all sleeping together, you all start to take care of each other. Photos were sent back to their parents of the girls slowly bonding and making memories of a lifetime. Chloe came home after the trip just a little more confident after this longest trip ever without her parents.

Sonia Soroosh said that while this wasn’t the best times she has ever had in the pool, being a hotel room alone with three of her friends was unforgettable. Sharing a bathroom, sleeping on the floor after being kicked off the bed (and NO ONE wants to be kicked by a swimmer!), laughing so much that they almost never got to sleep, going to the Monterey aquarium with your best swimmer friends. Sonia said away swim events like this should be held 50 times a year for swimmers!

The hotel manager where the Nadadores were booked for the long weekend told the Nadadores chaperones that she had been working in the hospitality industry since 1969. Never in all her years has she seen a youth sports team more polite, behaved and conscious of their space and those around them.

Make no mistake, there were moments of homesickness. Admittedly there were times when the swimmers thought about their parents. Probably the same time that parents were looking at an empty dinner chair wondering what they were doing or eating. Or when that swimmer mom noticed that her usual humongous pile of wet swim towels was missing from her laundry.

For swim mom Maria Deeths Raine, the hardest part was having no devices with which to communicate with her eldest of four children who was on the trip. Maria was monitoring the swim event from their Las Flores home and had seen that Analise had a no show for one event and as any parent would, Maria was worried sick! It turned out that something happened, as things always do at a swim meet – but it was nothing. Analise came home after the four day event extremely tired, but so very sad that the trip was over. For a few days, Analise repeatedly poured over the photos of the trip that were taken by the Coaches and parents.

Coach Sarah felt that this was one of the hardest meets on swimmers that she had ever seen in over 20 years. “The conditions of the meet were far from what we're used to for a high level prelims/finals meet,” the veteran Nadadore staff member shared, “ As a coach, have never been more proud of kids who wore the Nadadore colors as I was of this group on this trip. Their ability to adapt to the ever changing conditions and their resiliency over the long competition days was something to marvel at. I told my kids who made it to finals and were so tired after being on the deck for 11 hours, ‘Look. All these swimmers have the exact same conditions as you. Tired, been here all day. Raced all day. These finals every night are about Heart. Those that succeed at the end of these days are those athletes that swam with the most heart. Now, go out there, make yourself proud and wear your colors with Pride.’ And they did just that. Amazing swims at night. Maybe not best times, but just amazing racing.”

When Kristin Glueck O'Sullivan was asked if she would be interested in becoming a chaperone for the event, she didn’t think twice about going with her twelve year daughter and team. Kristin had to take an on-line course and become certified with USA Swimming in order to join them and that alone told her that this was going to be a working trip. Nothing would have prepared her though for the multiple trips to Costco and Walmart and the constant shuttling of swimmers that she was going to have to do to make sure that all them had what they needed and were safe. “Safety and supervision was always our priority,” stressed Kristin, “being put in charge of ensuring the safety of 58 swimmers is not something we took lightly. Simple things like making sure they had meals and snacks was a huge undertaking when you have this many with you. Pizza during the course of the swim meet was not a option for these kids. All swim parents know how much a food a swimmer can put away – and we wanted to make sure these kids were eating right. Susie Freitas who chaperoned with me threw on food prep gloves to shred roasted chicken from Costco to make healthy lunches for the kids.

Going to Monterey, the bus had every single seat except for one full. The same thing with the 12-seat passenger van. Kristin had never driven anything that large before but after shutting dozens of kids back and forth to the hotel and the store for three days in a row, she was driving it like it was her Prius. For the coaches and chaperones, the trip was one of the hardest four days that they had ever worked, but not once did they feel like it wasn’t worth the effort.

Without parents to help each individual swimmer at the three day swim meet, the swimmers turned to each other. They went out of their way to make sure they all had sunblock. They took to the lane ends and cheered each other on when another Nadadore was in the pool. They helped monitor time for each other to make sure no one missed a race.

Because the Monterey Invitational Youth Challenge Cup had extra-long preliminaries, the three day swim event ended up having many of the swimmers on the deck literally from sun up to swim down. “Not once did you hear event a single swimmer complain. Not once did someone say, ‘Why is this taking so long?’”, Kristin exclaimed. With the oldest swimmer only 15 years old and the youngest being ten, one might think that they would struggle with this kind of three-day situation. The swimmers were sprawled out with their gear under the few tents that the adults had spread out earlier in the day. There were no chairs, no coolers with home packed treats that their parents might have stashed if this were a local Mission Viejo event. They didn’t have their parent's iPhones to keep them busy. This was not your usual swim event.

But there were no complaints. Not even one. The swimmers bonded. They played games with each other like “Have you ever?” or talked and shared stories while they waited. No tears. No grumbles or teenage hormone driven protests. Instead there were overflowing smiles of gratitude and heartfelt thank you’s when the adults passed out waters, granola bars, sunblock and every other big and little thing they could do to help the young Nadadores.

Not once did any of the swimmers feel like they wanted to go home or give up even when their situations were not ideal. While some of the swimmers rose to the occasion and dove into the water at the event to come out with some of their best times, this was not the case for every swimmer. Long hours on the road, not enough sleep due to excitement, the creature comforts of being with their parents was not the optimum settings for every single swimmer. Just not having Mom and Dad around to cheer or congratulate them after a swim event was out of the norm. But no one complained. Not even once. The Nadadores had once again become family. Instead, each swimmer had 58 Nadadore brothers and sisters to cheer them on and make this a trip they would never forget.

When these swimmers get older, if and when they are able to persevere and make it to the Nadadore National level team, traveling to swim meets like this will become their new norm. And it’s exactly a trip like this that will train these swimmers to learn to take care of themselves.

When asked to recap the meet at our staff meeting the following Tuesday, the coaches talked about these instilled characteristics that each one of the 58 showed. Coach Mark Schubert asked why the coaches thought it was a success, when in all actuality, it maybe shouldn't have been. Coach Bryan said it perfectly, "It’s the culture of our team. It's the makeup of our age group coaches and the importance we put upon the athletes since the very beginning of their journey with us."

We talk about it. We have pride in it. We believe in it and we live it.