Riddle Me This

My swimmers have recently gotten in the habit of asking me riddles. They, of course, intend to test my knowledge as well as make me look foolish, which really isn’t that difficult but they don’t quite know that, and I have no plans to tell them otherwise. For some reason, most of them see me as a being with a superior intellect matched by none other Odin (want another picture). The only minor difference is I didn’t hang myself from Yggdrasil for nine days. Mostly because I couldn’t find the world tree though. This is a title that I clearly have no right to complain about, but it’s something I have the most difficult time maintaining. Deception truly is a work of art, a skill that I don’t yet possess. Coaching is somewhat similar to deceit though. It’s learning to solve each swimmer and adapt when the answer you give isn’t the one being searched for, even if you don’t necessarily have the answer. However, I often wonder how Iago had the strength to deceive a friend over something so seemingly petty. It’s exhausting, and takes more time and cunning than I’m willing to spend. It is strange though, somehow I am in a place to be able to deceive. Either way, it doesn’t matter as I am the one who got myself in this position.

A while back I started asking my swimmers questions about nearly every subject matter found in school. Learning is something of a passion of mine and part of that comes talking about the most interesting things I’ve learned. This talk of physics or literature or art changed into a challenge. That is, I would allow my swimmers to pick a subject pertaining to school education and then ask a question about that subject, which I suppose indicates I know much about all subjects, or at least enough to make several questions on that subject. After allowing each swimmer to guess once, they would be allotted to play a game at the end of the week. This would include sharks in minnows, relays, or something of their choice if approved by me. In my career of asking questions, only two swimmers ever got them right. It made me feel pretty good showing my absolute knowledge to twelve year olds.

This game stopped with changes of swimmers (ie them moving to different groups and therefore different coaches), which is how I put myself in my current predicament—they ask me riddles. This is how I’ve become the smartest man alive, at least to my swimmers. One of them decides to ask me a riddle at the end

Has a better thinking atmosphere than libraries

of practice (after completing warm down). Here’s what I remember: if 2 is 3, 4 is 4, and 5 is 4, what is 9? I tell him to give me a couple minutes to think this one through. I start visualizing the numbers in my head, wrapping the lines together, counting the number of curves in each number. Then one of my other swimmers gets to the wall while warming down, picks up her bottle of red Gatorade, and starts to drink it. Except she forgets where her mouth is and pours the entire twelve ounces all over her face, which makes her look like a vampire after feeding on a baker’s dozen, and I don’t mean his bread. Then she begins staring at me and says with sheer pleasantness “Gatorade is so good!” before pushing off to finish her warm down. Now the numbers in my head start taking showers of red Gatorade, which of course turns into blood. For some
reason they start dancing around 9 as 7 (like that old joke) begins to devour it, almost like a cult sacrifice. Then it’s too late for me to realize someone’s been trying to get my attention. When I come back to reality, the cult world was better, I have no idea the answer to his question so I do what any good man would do—lie! Actually I caved and said I know not, which is when his smile started taking over his face. Soon his face become a mere shadow to his smile. Picture slender man with a grin from ear to       ear. He explains to me in one of those high-pitched voices only boys whose voices fluctuate can reach that it’s the letters. 9 has four letters, so it’s 4. Should have known. But I care to little as the same girl reaches for another bottle of Gatorade and does the exact same thing. Red everywhere, floating on the surface of the water until the chlorine attacks and kills the dye. Though I don’t know where she got that one since hers was empty.

That was the last riddle anyone asked me. I guess stumping me once was enough for my swimmers. The problem with questions is that they don’t always goad the proper answer. Why did nine have to be four? Couldn’t it have much as easily been 5 or even 11? Different people want different answers, much like different swimmers approach sets or meets differently. The trick is figuring out which swimmer needs which approach, and how to use that approach for each swimmer. As a coach, the riddles for me aren’t questions delivered from voices of children trying to or not trying to challenge my knowledge (and as such self esteem), it’s learning to solve each swimmer and adapt when the answer you give isn’t the one being searched for. Riddles plague my practices. Good thing I’m smarter than Odin.