5. Don’t mistake sacrifice for investment.

Swim parents are absolutely unbelievable in terms of sacrifice.

They spend a metric ton of time, energy and money in helping the sport go round. From all of the time spent organizing fundraisers, driving back and forth to the pool, countless swim meets, hotel rooms, flights, and more we sacrifice a lot for our swimmers.

And so it’s tempting to have this sacrifice sometimes blur into a sense of investment, causing parents to expect measurable dividends of some sort (college scholarship, sponsorships, etc).

Swimming (and sport in general) isn’t something that can and should be measured in terms of dollars and cents. The time spent in the pool now shouldn’t come with a balance sheet later. The gold medals they don’t win today still translate into healthy lifestyle choices they carry with them for life.

Part of a blog post by Olivier Poirier Leroy