Due to the differing nature of each sport, high school coaches often take varying approaches in working with their respective athletes.
Swimming is an individual sport in many ways although team scores are kept and compiled. For Winder-Barrow High School swim coach Jennifer Blevins, there are a number of methods she uses to motivate her athletes in an attempt to drive them to do their best.
“Coaching swimming is definitely different,” Blevins said. “First of all, the athletes don’t have as much control of their breathing as they do in any other sport. This is always an interesting concept to teach the swimmers. They have to find a breathing pattern and get used to limited air. It is definitely a learning process and my new swimmers are the ones who grow the most in this area. Yet, swimming is a sport that can get someone into shape quick and is no impact so the pressure of being on land is not pressed onto the body.”
Another difference in swimming is the injury factor or the lack thereof.
“I rarely have kids with injuries,” Blevins said. “We have the clumsy mistakes once in a while. For example, a kick in the face, hitting the bottom of the pool, slipping off the block, burned eyes from forgotten goggles and hitting a lane rope or wall too hard. I do have swimmers get mild cramps and the worst injuries come from overuse of the shoulder. Mostly, though, the swimmers have been fairly healthy.”
Blevins took over the WBHS swim program in 2003, her first year at the school. Then-athletic director Jeff Beggs asked her if she was interested in working with the program.
“I had never really coached it before, but loved the sport, so I told him I would,” Blevins said. “I met him at the school that week and he handed me a file case and told me that the history of Winder-Barrow swimming was in that box, that they practiced at the University of Georgia the last year and if I needed anything then he was there for me.”
With that introduction, Blevins took the “record box” home, dug through it and got started.
“My first year, we did practice at UGA as we had four swimmers — three girls and a boy,” Blevins said. “I was perplexed at why the numbers were so low, considering that two years before there were around 35 swimmers. I then caught on to the fact that the school had recently split and some of the kids that may have been swimming were at Apalachee. Also, traveling to Athens and practicing from 7:30 to 9 at night was not very inviting.”
The next year, the team grew to nine members, then to 11 and then to higher levels.
See the Jan. 25 print edition for compete story.
