Op-Ed: How Does My High School Swim Team Swim Without a Pool?

It was kind of a silly coincidence that landed me on my school’s swim team. I’m not really a sport’s person – or a team person, but a friend of mine had the information, and I did a little swimming in middle school, so…

An important thing to know – McNair doesn’t have a swimming pool; so (like most of the other public schools) we practice in the Ferris pool. At six a.m in the morning. It was early, cold, and, quite frankly: miserable. 

I loved it. 

I met two of my best friends through the team. Several other close friends too – there’s something about practicing together at an ungodly hour of the morning that works as a very efficient team bonding exercise. 

I couldn’t imagine my life without the team. Well, I could… it would just be miserable. Kind of like now. 

My swim season was supposed to start in November. 

In November, we were told the Ferris pool was ‘broken’. Practice was delayed a week – and when the city didn’t fix it, our coaches bartered practices at the NJCU pool. Two weeks later, NJCU closed. 

Since then, we’ve just been in this… cycle. To people who aren’t athletes, it’s probably a little weird to think of – but you need constant practice just to stay at the level you’re at. Everyone on my team has been getting slower and slower, and nobody can blame them. It’s not their fault they don’t have anywhere to practice.

Sure, there are swim clubs – but we are public school students. I don’t swim with a club – personally, because I can’t commit the time – but there must be so many swimmers (great swimmers) who can’t commit the money. I repeat – we are public school students. 

When it was just a week, I totally understood. The Ferris pool – the whole building, in fact – sucks (a product of the underfunded public school system, I’m sure). I’m not surprised it broke – and I wish I could say I was surprised when we went a month without any communication on when it would be fixed. 

But we were supposed to start in November. It’s now January. My swim team has been homeless for two months. We’ve had countless after school hours, countless weekends – even a winter break. The pool could have been fixed by now – hell, they rebuilt my school’s cafeteria in a week.

Our swim season is almost over, and the freshmen on my team have never even seen their home pool. And they’re not the only ones – remember, three teams swim at Ferris. I’m fed up with waiting – and I’m sure I’m not the only one. 

It’s been long enough – all we want is a single pool fixed, a place for three teams to hold meets, for three teams to practice. Is that too much to ask?