My assistant decided to go out for the mile swim. So he woke up early Monday morning and went to the required mile swim practice at 6am. Because we had not gotten our swim checks on Sunday like everyone else, the LDS boys (including my assistant) had to do their swim checks at the beginning of the practice.
All the boys did fine, but my assistant only got 37 yards, meaning he wasn't even qualified to participate in the practice, because you have to have "swimmer" status to be in the deep end of the pool. To achieve this status you have to do a forward stroke for 75 yards, then the elem. backstroke for 25 yards, then float for 5 seconds.
One mile, 37 yards, who is counting the difference?
So I've been working with him trying to get him to pass the swim check. The reason this is important is so that he can do all the fun stuff at the lake (like canoes, the blob, waterslide, etc).
The second check he went 63 yards then quit. The third time he went about 58 yards. Meaning that both times he had something close to 12 yards to get to the backstroke portion.
So the question is whether I was too hard on him when I told him that if he had enough energy to pull himself up the side of the pool, he didn't give it his all. I told him that he prefers to fail with dignity than risk actually trying to finish and potentially failing without dignity (getting aid from the lifeguard).
If you failed the swim check, and you didn't swallow water and you didn't feel like you had been put in the washer on spin cycle, then you didn't try.
Am I too harsh?
He didn't do the swim check last night. One of my scouts has been calling him "quitter".
My assistant is a good kid (he's only 21 or so), but he has something to learn from this swim test.
It takes WORK and PREPARATION and HEART to go from 37 yards to 1 mile.