Setting yourself up for failure isn’t every person’s ideal road to success.
Most of us fear failing at something because it can be disheartening, and we might lose our drive and passion the moment we fail.
That’s why we strive to be the best and come out on top as much as possible.
Yet, we can never escape failure; we’re bound to it somehow.
Seguin High School’s swim team had that mantra.
You might not think there’s anything worse than being at the bottom of the team standings, but their coach would beg to disagree.
For Coach Alex Weidemann, his sole worry was not getting disqualified.
Finishing the race was a mere bonus for him.
That’s right. Their swim team was THAT bad, and the standard they set was relatively low.
So low that when they couldn’t find someone decent to join the swim team, they did what others would consider completely ridiculous.
They got someone who had no clue how to swim.
Meet Gerald Hodges, Seguin High School Swim Team’s non-swimmer.
Coach Alex said they had to accept anybody on the team, even if Gerald couldn’t swim across five yards.
They put their hopes on him; after all, Gerald was a great athlete on land… but not on the water.
Through the years, his greatest achievement was not to drown and finish a few races.
But hard work and perseverance changed all that for Gerald.
“I felt like if I couldn’t handle not being good at something, then how could I consider myself a successful person,” Gerald told CBS.
That’s a powerful mantra that Gerald had for most of his time with the team.
He worked toward improving his skills, and by the start of his senior year, he had improved immensely, but he and the rest of the team didn’t know just how much they’d improved yet.
It was during the regional meet that they finally saw what he could do.
During a big regional meet Gerald surprised everyone when he got into the water to swim.
It was a 200-yeard medley relay, and Seguin was already in last place.
As usual, they just wanted to be able to say they finished the race.
With 50 yards to go, it seemed impossible to get out of last place.
But when it was Gerald’s turn to jump into the water and swim everything changed.
He swam like his life depended on it.
Yard after yard, lap after lap, he surpassed one person after another.
Nobody expected it, but the boy who couldn’t swim sent his team to the state competition!
Seguin’s swim team couldn’t have imagined they would be there, but there they were – thanks to Gerald!
His determination and drive to prove something to the world created a wave of change in his team’s fate.
After all those years at the bottom and often dismissed and belittled, all it took was a young man with heart and determination to turn the tide in their favor.
Watch this inspiring story in the video below.
