Olympic Glory with Hometown Roots

Tuesday night I watched the Olympics for a little while on TV. I like to watch the swimmers because it’s the only time you ever get to see competitive swimming on network television. I know - I get the same reaction when I tell people I like to watch golf on TV too. I can’t play golf (although I drive a mean cart!) and I quit the swim team when I was 12. But I still think it’s the best sport of the entire summer games, and definitely the best one to watch.

I’m particularly fond of Michael Phelps, the swimmer on the US Men’s team who has made history with all his medals and his amazing “boat-like" body plowing through the water as if he was part fish. I first heard about him when I lived in Baltimore and would hear his name on the local news every once in a while, where his remarkable talents were discovered and honed in Charm City.

Phelps’ 2nd swim of the evening was the men’s 4 x 200m Free Relay. Along with his teammates, including Ricky Berens of Charlotte, they finished with a world record time, under 7 minutes. Of course they took home the Gold for their unbelievable achievement. On the local news after the Olympic coverage they reported from a restaurant where some of Berens’s fans had gathered to root for the home town kid, cheering him on halfway around the world. Isn’t that what the Olympics are all about anyway??

So the local news girl interviewed someone who had coached Ricky back in the day, when he was still swimming in Charlotte. Her name is Patty Waldron, and she’s a coach at MAC (Mecklenburg Aquatic Club), one of the more celebrated year-round swim teams in our region.

I immediately recognized the sparkle in Patty’s eyes, then confirmed her identity when they showed a clip of her whistling with 2 fingers and whooping it up as her former swimming pupil took the Gold. Patty was MY swim team coach at Sardis Swim & Racquet Club back in the early 80’s when I was a kid! How cool is that?!

So I went online right then to see if I could find anything about Patty Waldron, because when she coached for Sardis her name was Patty Hughey. Sure enough I found her email address straight away, so I shot off a congratulatory email to her, and added that despite the fact that I had quit my competitive swimming career at age 12 (separate post - long story), she left an indelible mark on me at such a young age with her incredible team spirit, and told her she was one of my earliest influences when it came to being competitive.

I was so pleased to open my email the next morning to find she had written back, and said she remembered me and my sister Ele! This is one of the coolest things about “growing up” and then getting reacquainted with people you knew way back when. Especially when you’ve moved around like I have, to know that I still have roots in Charlotte that go back so far has a real grounding effect on me.

Congratulations, again, to Patty for her role in Ricky Berens gold medal swimming career, and for leaving such a huge positive impression on me and countless other kids of Charlotte.



Here's the Sardis Swim Team circa 1982: