It was the spring of 7th grade, and a young and naive Jackson Lampley was training to become a Tennessee Future Star. The Tennessee Future Stars is an all star football team for 7th graders, and there is also one for 8th graders. After trying out for the seventh grade team in the 6th grade, and not making it. 13 year old Jackson Lampley was determined to make the 7th grade team. I was so determined like Rocky Balboa in Rocky VI (the best movie of the series), you could 've probably made a pretty epic training montage for me. I started running up and down the massive hill that I have for a backyard, and I also bought a rope agility ladder to improve my footwork. I would do about 100 push ups and sit ups a night, and yes at the time I thought
You never know how helpless you are until you have a near death experience. One summer, when I was young, my family and I went to a water park. I didn’t know how to swim, but thankfully the majority of the park required no swimming ability. For one of the rides, I wanted to get out of my tube and jump around, but once I climbed out, I immediately sunk to the bottom. I tried to kick back up and just as my legs gave in, a lifeguard climbed in and pulled me up. I was grateful to him, but something was bothering me. I couldn’t save myself. That was the moment I decided that I was going to become a lifeguard someday to help myself and many others.
It was mid season, I had just made section time in the 100 backstroke a week ago. I was on my way to being top four on the Sartell swim team, and making the state team. Then one day during the beginning of practice I came above the surface of the water but something was off. I looked around and everyone was looking at me. I thought I just went fast or made a weird noise, but I was wrong. The coach came over and told me to go to the showers. I was concerned because the workout was not over yet. I went to the showers and rinsed off, I still did not know what was wrong. Then I looked in the mirror. My face was a bumpy, gross tomato.
Trying something new can sometimes be a scary process. Sometimes it can be easy for someone, or it can make someone feel quite anxious. How it will turn out is a mystery and that can contribute to the feeling. I felt very anxious when I tried something new. When I tried it out, I ended up having a lot of fun and I still do it today.
It was a cold November morning and I was racing in the 2014 Florida Swimming State Championships preliminaries. After training hard for a year, I was confident I would achieve my goal of making US Junior Nationals in the 200 individual medley. How could I not? I gave everything in practice, every day, and I was hopeful my hard work would pay off.
The Reality of a Rye Rescue. ‘I am going to die’ were the words I continued to hear for many weeks. A reverberation in my head like a Catholic Church Bell in a small Romanian village that bellows in continuous motion dominating the night. How did this happen? How did
A quote I have heard many times throughout my life is “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting a different result.” This has constantly been harped on me by my dad all throughout my swimming career. Whether it was my breaststroke or freestyle I always strove to do better but wouldn’t always come up with the results I was looking for. That is when my dad would mention this quote and explain to me that in order to get better I would have to put in the extra work and do things I had never done before in order to get better. Many times I never really listened and didn’t take the time to do what he suggested in order to improve myself. I would often brush off the meaning behind the quote and deem it as useless, but one
Chapter One I’m sitting on the beaches of the west coast. Running away to Northern California and the sky is pitch-black, I should’ve stayed home. Slightly inebriated with the drugs beginning to take influence though regardless, I had already settled even before I got to this state of mind. I just
There I was standing in my yard waiting for my ride to Whittier to show up. All was quiet mostly because we all knew when that old Cummins pulled in the driveway It would be goodbye for a while. I had been looking forward to this for a long time 4 months to be exact. I had wanted to commercial fish since I was a small boy. Us Zimmerman’s always did have sea legs. As my captain rolled into the driveway I picked up all 100 pounds of gear and started the Longest 30 foot walk I have ever encountered. My captain jumped out of the truck we shook hands. As my father had always told me “A man is as good as his Handshake” I turned around and said my goodbyes hopped in the truck and we were off to Whittier.
Work hard, push yourself, put the time in, and stay determined and you can do great thing in life. This was something my parents told me repeatedly throughout my childhood. When they would tell me this I never really believed them. However, many years later I realized that their words could not be more true.
A warm morning, sun shining with a slight breeze, and calm waters; the perfect day to learn how to water ski. I had never been water skiing before, I barely knew what it was, I was anxious to say in the least. I stood on the dock as my parents maneuvered the boat into the water, I’ve never been so uncertain. My family reassured me that everything would be okay as I was strapped up my life jacket. I stood on the edge of the boat, apprehensive, but I had to jump in the water, it was now or never.
Have you ever been beaten by a girl in a swim race! I have I was swimming in the deep end and I saw a 12 year old girl and I challenged her to a swim race and she accepted. My whole family was watching under the hot weather they
For a lot of us swimming is beyond being just a sport. With the amount of time that we have invested into the pool it has become something larger than a hobby or a way to stay in shape. It has become part of our identity, part of our lives, part of who we are.
It was a hot and sunny Friday afternoon in Aruba. There was a Surf for Breast Cancer event going on at the beach and I was asked to surf in it because i’m one of the top surfers in my division. The competition started at 3:30 so I got there early to clean my board and practice with my bestfriends, Venus and Malani. Venus was a short redhead with green eyes and she loved to take pictures on the beach and post them while Malani was more on the shy side. Malani was average sized with golden skin, curly dark brown hair, and loved animals. We all met up at the beach and practiced then hung out before the competition started. When 3:30 came, the beach filled with people of all shapes and sizes but all had the same
I’ve been playing soccer for over ten years, and I am very passionate about it. However the passion and dedication hasn’t always been there with me. It took a long time to realize that I needed to actually work hard to be at the level or above the level of my teammates. I have always worked hard to get good grades, but for some reason it took me a long time to learn to work hard in sports. Even today I have a hard time with this.