Very cool Dan!

I ended up being a USA Swimming Official when Grif was doing his thing. I was never any good at it and couldn't really take it seriously because.....well....it was swimming.

We had one meet where some people we used to call handicapped were competing. The head handicapped coach got all of the officials together and demanded that his people be judged on their stroke the same as any able bodied swimmer. All of the officials took it deadly serious, like they did everything, because, you know, their damn kid is going to the Olympics....

while I tried to figure out why we had to be stupid and race people with one arm or whatever against people with two arms......the whole thing just seemed dumb to me.

I played along for about 5 or 6 events and finally just got fed up how absurd the whole thing was. A one-legged swimmer was in my lane and after she touched the wall I put up my hand to signal a stroke infraction. The head official asked me what I saw and without even cracking a smile I said, "Improper kick". She just stared at me for about 5 seconds and then walked away. The official next to me almost had to be carried off the deck he was laughing so hard.

Swimming is stupid.

griffin