(Belated) My Swimming Icon Back on the Blocks

21 July 2026

Note - this is a very belated post that I thought I had published on August 7, 2022 after my father and I swam at the 2022 USMS LCM National Championships in Richmond, Virginia. I was chatting with my swimming family about trying to get our gang back together for some family relays at next summer's 2027 USMS LCM Nationals in Richmond. I wanted to look back to this post ... which I found unfinished in my drafts! It's high time I finished this.

I had written this longer post in 2024 after he and I swam together in Indianapolis, but wanted this one there for the archives.

Swimming has meant so much to me in so many varied positive ways in my life, but, more than anything, swimming is all about family for me. I owe so much credit to both of my parents, who were the kind of positively uber-involved swim parents when I was growing up - timing, officiating, running the 'back office' operations for meet, serving as board members, running swim-a-thons, driving us all over creation at odd hours for practices and meet, and on and on. You name a swim parent job and they did it.

But, none of that would have likely come to pass had my Dad not been Swimmer Number One in our family. He threw all four of his kids in the water and each of us still has some connection to the pool to this day ... and a good number of his ten grandkids also spent time in the sport.

This picture was taken at the excellent SwimRVA facility at the conclusion of that meet ...

... and this event was special for me because it was the first racing my father had done after all the scary times and lockdowns of COVID. At 79 years old, he still got up on the blocks and threw it down! And, when he wasn't in the pool, just like the old days, he and my Mom were in the stands cheering me on.

He was, is and will always be the Ultimate Role Model of a Man (& Swimmer) for me.

... now I just have to get him excited to do this again, five years later :)