Grand Thoughts: In the swim of things, even from the sidelines

Swimmers are swimming "butterfly" poolside at night. / Getty Images
Swimmers are swimming "butterfly" poolside at night. / Getty Images

Summer is over, and it's back to school for area students, including my grandchildren, Tilleigh, 11, Evie, 8, and William, 5.

I took early retirement as a reporter from this newspaper two years ago so that I could help my daughter by watching her children while she's at work, and that includes their summer vacation from school.

Though I love being with these super-active little people, they can wear me the heck out.

From plays to swim meets to soccer games, as well as a trip to San Diego, the kids' summer activities kept this 65-year-old grandmother, and their 69-year-old, not-yet-retired grandfather, exhausted.

My summer was completely booked.

It was swimming, though, that nearly did me in. The older I get, the less I can take the summer heat.

When I'm at a swim meet, sitting in 198-million-degree humid Southern summer heat next to a swimming pool that I can't even stick my big toe in, I question my sanity. I'm sweating like a pig (do they really sweat?), my clothes stick to my body like a second skin, making me 100 percent miserable.

But as soon as one of my grandchildren's events is announced and they step up on a block, Karen Nazor Hill morphs into the best cheerleader this side of the Mason-Dixon Line. When I start cheering, their little faces search me out and they flash me big "I'm glad you're here" grins.

My love of the sport began with my four children. I had a friend whose daughter was a competitive swimmer. I was impressed. So, I signed my kids up on a swim team, and within the next few weeks, the Nazor kids were competitive swimmers. We were hooked.

Decades later, I still question my decision to get involved with swimming.

I'm a redhead. I burn. Badly. It's genetic. My red-haired father had a heat stroke on a ship while in the Navy during WWII. I've made several trips to the hospital during my younger years because of sunburns.

Thankfully, today's sunscreens have saved us. My red-haired granddaughters and I rarely burn.

I know without a doubt that getting my kids involved with swimming is one of the best things I did as a parent. It has been worth every sacrifice.

You don't have to be fast to be a swimmer; you just have to master the strokes, dive off the block and swim your best. Sometimes your best wins. And if it doesn't, you're still a swimmer - a skill that will last a lifetime.

Tilleigh, 11, has been swimming with the Signal Mountain Green Giants since age 5. And though she's a dedicated swimmer and participates in every meet, it's theater that demands her devotion. She starred in a leading role - that she nailed - in a community play on the mountain this summer, as well as participating in Girls Rock Chattanooga camp, where she was the lead singer in the Pineapple Grenade band and performed before a packed house at Songbirds in Chattanooga.

Evie has been a competitive swimmer for three years. She's one of the area's top swimmers in her age division and swims year-round (which you have to do to be competitive). Like her Aunt Karah accomplished in 2008, Evie wants to swim the English Channel.

Karah, my second child, became an open-water swimmer while doing her post-doctorate work at the University of California, San Francisco. She fell in love with the sport (no walls to hit, she says) and brought the love back home to Chattanooga, where she started Chattanooga Open Water Swimmers (COWS). Karah's Swim the Suck, a 10-mile race held annually in October on the Tennessee River, is a popular open-water event bringing swimmers from around the world.

Karah also holds an open-water event, Cownado, for child and teen swimmers at Chester Frost Park on Aug. 25. Evie and Tilleigh will participate. Evie was 5 and Tilleigh was 7 when they participated in their first open-water swim.

William, 5, loves to swim and is a good swimmer, but he's not ready to compete on a team. If he's not ready, he's not ready. The important thing is that he knows how to swim.

Last week, William told me he dreamed he was on a team and "swam in a pool for an hour without stopping." That day, he jumped in my pool and swam the length, back and forth, without stopping. Though he had never attempted to do this, he said he knew he could because he did it in his dream.

He's doing it on his own terms.

With the exception of record-breaking gold-medal swimmer Michael Phelps, I don't know that anyone has gotten rich being a swimmer. It's not a moneymaking sport. It's a personal one - one that can save your life and one you can do all your life. It's also beneficial for your physical and mental health.

So I'll take the sun, the hour-upon-hour-long meets and cheer for my Nazor swimmers. But I'm glad for the break. Winter swimming starts soon for Evie, and, honestly, I can't wait. I love to watch her swim.

Contact Karen Nazor Hill at khill@timesfreepress.com.

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