Sometimes You Win
I was an athlete growing up. Diving was my favorite sport and I was pretty good. By pretty good, I mean that I was probably the worst diver on the US team that I was on. That being said, I could throw a few cool flips and twists off the high dive.
The summer after my junior year of high school, our team was invited to a training camp at Mission Bay, run by the Olympic diving coach. I certainly wasn’t Olympic-bound but I was beyond excited for the experience.
We got to the airport in Florida and everyone that was headed to the camp was gathered waiting for a bus to pick us up. As I looked around, I said to my friend, Deb, “Hey, isn’t that Phoebe Mills???” If you were a diver, you were most likely originally a gymnast, or at least a fan, and Phoebe had won the Olympic Bronze on the beam in 1988 in Seoul.
And, I loved her.
“No, I don’t think so. Why would she be here?” was the response. Someone suggested we go around, say our names and where we were from. Hi, I’m Cathy from New Jersey. Hi, I’m Deb from New Jersey. Hi, I’m Cindy from Texas (I made that up, I honestly don’t remember anyone else). We get to my suspected medalist and she says, “Hi, I’m Phoebe….”
I KNEW IT!!!! Omg, I am at camp with Phoebe Mills. I was so stoked.
For 2 weeks, we trained at Mission Bay, many times next to the Olympic hopefuls. I remember watching Laura Wilkinson (I am 98 percent sure it was her) doing her 3 ½ Pike off the 10 Meter, she later went on to win Gold. The entire camp was a dream to me. I even met a boy. Tony, from Silver Springs, Maryland. I remember kissing while we were doing laundry. I was in heaven.
Not to diss on Tony and his gorgeousness, but the coach’s son Tim was beautiful. And SO ridiculously nice. He had to be a few years older than me and my knees knocked every time he talked to me.
The last day of camp, 2 things happened. One was life changing, one was just an incredible memory to pull up in my mind when I need to smile. The life changing one: we were practicing for our end-of-camp diving competition and I was doing the hardest dive I had learned off the 3 Meter. I got nervous and didn’t throw the dive correctly, landing flat on my back on the water. This injury led me to find chiropractic as the only solution to a year and a half of pain and helped me create an incredible career helping others as a chiropractor. The smile one: Earlier that morning Ron and Tim gathered us all up and we knew what was going to happen: the most-improved diver award was about to be given out.
“Phoebe has this in the bag!”
“It HAS to be Phoebe!”
“They are definitely giving this to Phoebe!”
Phoebe had learned so many new dives, our heads were spinning. As an Olympic gymnast, landing in the water, instead of on the floor or beam, gave her a no-fear kind of confidence that just couldn’t be matched. I, on the other hand, learned about six dives and, again, I was probably the worst diver there.
Tim goes to announce the winner and whispers of Phoebe strike back up, but he doesn’t say her name. This gorgeous man looked right at me and said MY name.
“The winner is Cathy Subber. We are so proud of the work she has put……”
I don’t hear the rest of what he says because….WHAT!!!???
To this day, this memory goes down as one of my favorites and (definitely) most surprising. They saw my effort. They saw me push past my fear. They saw me working my butt off to improve. I was never going to be standing on a gold platform for these efforts, but they saw me and I was all in. It didn’t matter that Phoebe had learned double the amount of dives, which she did 4 times better than I ever could, they rewarded the effort and hard work. I will always be grateful.
I hadn’t thought about that story in decades, but a conversation this week with my friends Patti and Anita resurfaced it. You know, you just never know how life is going to unfold and sometimes you win.
I had fun looking up Phoebe and Tim and Laura as I thought about writing this. Laura is now a motivational speaker and, I am just putting it out there, I would love to have her on The Socket Podcast! Maybe I will send a message.
To all of you striving and working and digging in deep….
I hope you find your win every now and again!