The Hoodie

By Alan Tapley

Editor’s note:  Alan Tapley is the parent of two female swimmers, ages twelve and fourteen.  Over the past eight years he has been with them at hundreds of meets and practices.  He has had countless conversations with swimmers about what they would like the public to know about their pursuit of this grueling sport.

The first year my children made the Summer Swim Championships was awfully exciting.  The venue was an old, indoor pool, and the teams would put up tents outside the facility for their swimmers and family to rest and hide from the heat of the sun.  We watched our kids swim, volunteered to time or work concessions, and of course, bought a clothing item of some sort to remember the event.  A pair of shorts, maybe a tank top, possibly a hooded sweatshirt.

A few years later, my then ten year old made her very first club State Championships.  One event, the 50 fly, a timed final, swimming unattached, and seeded 28^th out of 32 swimmers.  We cheered from way up high at the Colorado Air Force Academy pool as my daughter dropped a little time, finished 23^rd, we bought a shirt or sweater, and headed back home.

Over the next few years, the events started to add up, as did the cost.  Three meets in California, one in Arizona, one in Seattle, one in Hawaii, and two State Championships, every year, locally.  Each meet would mean airfare, hotel, rental cars, and entry fees.  Each meet would mean hundreds spent on restaurants, technical suits, and bottled water.  And each meet would be accompanied by the purchase of a hoodie with a logo to wear proudly soon after to remember the occasion.  We purchased a hoodie when my daughter made her first Sectional meet in Oregon.  She bought a bright orange University of Texas hoodie after her first big meet in Austin.  She purchased a very nice Arizona State hoodie after attending a swim camp one summer, despite the hundred degree plus temperatures. 

Last weekend we had just returned from Texas A&M for my daughter’s first Junior Nationals.  Five days in a hotel, two plane tickets, one rental car, and of course, a hoodie.

As a swim parent I believe that a swimmer should no longer have to actually attend the meet they qualify for in order to receive a t-shirt or hoodie from the meet in question.  Furthermore, I am petitioning that the swimmer also receive a bag tag to proudly display off their swim bag.  Think about it.  You make the Far Western Championships in Northern California?  Instead of five days of travel, missing work, missing school, air fare, hotel, and all of the rest, you pay $39.95 for a hoodie (with logo) and a bag tag.  Your kid wears it school, after all, they did qualify for the event, and you save thousands.  Make a sectional cut?  Order the t-shirt or hoodie and stay home.  And if other swim families complain that your swimmer received the hoodie to the State Championships they never attended, I guess we could add a small stitching, somewhere oblivious to most, that simply reads, qualifier.