Thunderbolts, It's a Beautiful Thing!

Summer…  We look forward to it all year long and much too fast, it’s over! Ours was great. We celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary this year. We took our first ever two-week (all at one time) vacation. Our house shifted from boys rule to girls rule! With one son in California and one in Afghanistan, we missed them terribly, but our two daughters and future daughter-in-law kept us entertained and busily distracted; our predominant activity being…drum roll please: Swimming!

Both of our girls swim for The Thunderbolts during the summer season. This year The Bolts had a particularly good year as we finished the season as the Gwinnett County Swim League’s County Champions! How fun is that? 

The Thunderbolts are an awesome organization filled with dedication and tradition. Even when we didn’t swim with them, we knew who they were by reputation. We’ve known kids who swim with The Thunderbolts forever it seems! Thunderbolt kids literally spend their summers together every year growing up with and swimming for Coach Jim Reason and his awesome staff of coaches.  Then – mostly, but certainly not all -- go to Duluth High School and swim for him there. Those who end up at other schools in other programs usually swim close by as challengers during the regular high school season. During those meets, they are cheered on and encouraged with love. They’re family. It’s a beautiful thing!

At summer's end, The Thunderbolts are pretty consistently ranked as one of the top three GCSL teams. There’s a REASON for that (Ha, I know it’s been done to death, but just couldn’t help but use that pun one more time!) Our coaches are consistent and dedicated. Because of THEM, traditions are established within the organization that settle deep in hearts and inspire loyalty from families and swimmers. The kids LOVE being Thunderbolts. It’s as simple as that. Most of them would attempt the English Channel if Coach Reason asked. They love him…because his love for them is so evident. Another testimony to this is his summer staff. They all swam for him. They return from college or careers every year for no other reason (Oops! No pun intended this time) except the love of swimming with The Thunderbolts. Their desire to pass down The Thunderbolt tradition that was established in them is a beautiful thing…and so it goes, summer in and summer out!

To swim with The Thunderbolts is not just a “We go when we feel like it” sort of dedication to the team. We practice four days a week and three of those are twice-a-day workouts. As do other families, we have swimmers in different sessions! That adds up to a lot of hours at the pool. But, it pays off. It pays off at the end of the summer when our hard work is most evident. It pays off when our kids make the transition to high school with a “leg up” socially by already being established and secure in a peer group of friends who feel like family. It pays off when our kids continue in that peer group’s accountability through high school. And, it pays off when they graduate from high school with self confidence because of accomplishments from hard work and dedication.

Side Note (Sort of): Duluth High School has gotten somewhat of a bad rap of late mostly from – in my opinion – those who aren’t comfortable with our school’s diverse student body. We don’t look traditional. Our demographics scare off some and make a few uneasy. But you know what? We have a reason to love Duluth! (Sorry, last time, I promise!) And our swim team is just one of them.

Because my blogs sometimes contain community sensitive issues, I feel the need to establish that any perspectives are, as far as I am aware, mine alone.