Good Manners in Swimming. And Other Areas

By David

Three years ago, just as we were about to leave the island of St. Croix to come and live in Florida, I prepared an important article for Swimwatch on how to peel a banana. Extensive research revealed that several techniques are used in the peeling process. Surprisingly, class structure appears to have quite a bearing. Just watch a banana being peeled and class, breeding and probably education are immediately apparent. If any of you are thinking this is a strange research topic, then I recommend you go and live on St. Croix for two years and see what you end up writing about. Peeling a banana is unbelievably sane.

Unfortunately, in the confusion of packing and leaving St. Croix, this small but important addition to world's knowledge base was lost. I was thinking about the loss as I opened the pool this morning. There is ample time to think. Opening our pool involves unlocking ten doors; that’s 72,800 doors since arriving from St. Croix. The unlocking process also involves dodging a good number of toads that come onto the pool deck during the night to feed. A triathlete and biology teacher, my friend Steve tells me our toads are members of the Bufonidae family, noted for their very small brains. I have no difficulty believing that. Morning after morning they flee from me by pounding themselves into the wall of the Plant Room. Learning, it appears, is a difficult concept for your average Bufonidae. Steve tells me I should have no fear and directs me to the following study note.

“Toads, like many animals, detect their prey visually. A shape that is long in the horizontal direction looks like a worm, and so the toad's brain interprets that as food. A square shape elicits no reaction from the toad, and a tall, thin shape is seen by the toad as the "anti-worm."

How, on God’s good earth, do these people know this stuff? I would prefer to be the “anti-worm” but sadly fit certainly into the square “no reaction” shape.

I do not mean to be unkind but the photograph of Alan Greenspan on the cover of his book has a gentle toad-like appearance. It is probably just his droopy eyes. Besides, I’m sure Greenspan would be delighted to accept Kenneth Grahame’s description of toad in “Wind in the Willows”.

“No matter what he was doing, Toad was always smartly dressed to the point of parody. Mole thought he looked extremely dashing and compared his own rather somber black smoking jacket that he habitually wore, to Toad’s gay apparel. And if Mole dared admit it, Toad, who always used a good cologne, was a bit smelly”

Talking of Greenspan, I have finished his book. He’s a fanatic on the joys of capitalism all right. Like all fanatics he runs the risk of contradiction. For example he classifies most “popularist” manipulation of capitalism as bad. The welfare state should be resisted at all costs. Leave the production of wealth to the market and the poor will eventually get their share, he says. At the same time, didn’t he sit for years as the Chairman of the Fed, an organization specifically established to interfere in the free run of financial markets? Didn’t he use interest rates and money supply to disrupt and disturb the market? Market manipulation, it appears, is okay if Greenspan’s doing it.

Sadly, double standards are hard to avoid, even in swimming. Like Greenspan it is often those who trumpet the moral virtues loudest who offend most; the ones who lay claim to “building character” and all that stuff. I notice Florida’s High School Athletic Association have attempted to control bad behavior. Their rules say;

“Student-athletes shall adhere to the principle of good sportsmanship and the ethics of competition.” (A breech of the rule will result in the athlete being) “suspended from the competition for the remainder of the contest, but not less than the next two regularly scheduled contests.”

In the last two high school meets I’ve been at, I’ve seen a swimmer, leap out of the pool waving his arms in Olympic victory, well before any of his competitors have finished the race. Another trick is, three or four strokes from the end of a race, the same swimmer will lift himself out of the water and look back down the pool in contempt at those behind him and deliberately take a water-shot with a well directed butterfly stroke at a rival coach standing on the pool edge. Fortunately the coach noticed in time and the deluge missed. This is bad behavior and should be punished. Coincidentally, Timed Finals have an op-ed piece up today about good sportsmanship in swimming. This swimmer, and several others, would be advised to read it.