Christmas holidays. WOW. They are already here – I can’t believe it. Tough weekend for the Austin High School swim team. The team left Thursday after school for TISCA – a state-like meet in San Antonio. It’s supposed to be a fun time and an “out of the ordinary” meet for the swimmers. A “get you out of your comfort zone” meet for the kids. Sounds like the ride up there was uneventful for the swimmers, can’t say that for the coaches. Riding in a 12 passenger van with 9-10 high school swimmers can’t POSSIBLY be easy. They arrived safely at the hotel, and I’m sure after normal high school kid antics, got a good nights’ sleep because they swam GREAT at prelims. After prelims, Chase checked in as he was supposed and he was pretty pumped. He had made it to finals in his 200 breast. We chatted, I enjoyed his excitement and he got off the phone to walk in to lunch.
Chase called again about an hour later all fired up because one of their two vans were broken into. Nice. I attended lunch with them last year. This a great strip mall with multiple stores and eateries offering a choice for 20+ swimmers. NOT a slimy, scummy, dark place. A quite clean and nice place if I call correctly. Since the swimmers were between prelims and finals, they still have their “swim bags” with them. Now these bags…….are something else. They are very large, Speedo backpacks ($80)s with a million pocket for wet and dry items. Most of these kids could probably live out of them food wise for a week or so due to the snacks, drinks, and other sundries they continually pack. If you don’t know………swimmers eat A TON! At first Chase was just mad that someone had broken in and stolen their swim bags. First question. “Chase, tell me you guys all still have your suits on.” “Yes m’am.” WHEW…….then we started talking about what was in their bags. Googles (3 pair at $20-24 each), another suit (call that $30-35), team sweat suit ($100 – yes, parents bought the suits, not the school), towels (who cares), various sentimental caps, chemistry homework/review and book (oooops), history book (another ooooops), and the big loss……..the iTouch ($350). And that’s just Chase. Other swimmers lost school backpacks FULL of school books, binders, exam reviews. The coaches had tests and homework to grade upon arrival at the hotel after the meet. You know….life goes on. 911 was called, reports filed, and the swimmers settled and kept checking in.
At this point on Friday, there is nothing that can be done other than to buy some goggles, grab a towel from the hotel and get your head back in the game. Right? Some settled more than others and there were some good swims. Back to the hotel for dinner and sleep, and to pack what the kids had left for the next day’s prelims.
Chase checked back in after prelims. He swam okay and had evidently participated in some burrito eating contest at Freebirds with some of the other guys. High school antics – thus the “swam okay.” Have you ever seen the SuperMonster burrito at Freebirds? Check it out online. You’ll understand. The team warms down and off to lunch. After much discussion and planning on the coaches and chaperones’ part, they decide to go to a restaurant where they can see the vans as EVERYTHING (that was left) was now in the “good van” now because they had checked out of the hotel. Some parents took their kids’ stuff and put it in their cars. But again…..there were 20+ kids plus the coaches’ bags (one of which was stolen).
GUESS WHAT? As they were sitting in a completely different restaurant, completely different parking lot…….different day, two guys with screwdrivers try to break in to the GOOD VAN!! A hero of a dad jumps up when he saw feet standing under the van and runs out there………here they go again. Call 911 – at this point the poor head coach was seriously annoyed – and he called the number supplied to him the day before. And guess what. The SAME cop shows up. I would have LOVED knowing what was going through HIS head. When Chase checked in with THIS story, I’m thinking there is NO FLIPPIN’ way this is happening like he’s telling me. Guess it did……..
It’s just that time of the year where you have to watch your back all the time. These people were praying on children. When I blog, I try to share something important, funny, newsworthy or just something that annoys me. Sometimes I tie in clients that I’m working with website-wise and the only clients i can tie in to this one are my insurance agent in Spring (wouldn’t want to be handling the auto insurance claims on this one) and my Houston bail bond client – Andy Glenn Bail Bonds. I bring these 2 clients up because it kind of makes me mad at the thought of these robbers getting caught, and then getting out on bail to terrorize someone else. Come on. These are swim bags……who wants the junk in there? Stinky, smelly, chlorinated (natatorium chlorine smell is the worst) towels and suits. I know they didn’t know what was in there, and I’m sure they saw this nice looking group of kids get out of the vans on nice phones, plugged into iPods, dressed decently all-be-it probably still wet-headed, but come one………..some parent failed miserable somewhere in these robbers’ lives.
Merry Christmas – yes I said it – not Happy Holidays to these swimmers and coaches, right? And for the parents (like me) that are receiving texts/emails today with a child still realizing what was in his bag – like his practice suit for TODAY’s practice. Oh well. Live and learn. Lesson today: don’t like anything visible in the car. Call your car insurance or home insurance company and find out if this had happened to you, and you have a low deductible, could you have claimed it? You should know………good luck!
And – GO AUSTIN BULLDOGS Swim Team!
