From about the age of 9 to 18, I was a member of a summer league swim team. I loved it. Swimming was my thang and I felt like I was pretty good. My teammates were my neighbors and my best friends and we spent every day and night together over the summer. Our team started out small, and not all that fantastic, but after about 4 years the tides seemed to turn. We got good….like REALLY good. We had several unbeaten seasons and always made a run at the Summer Championship swim meet. Not to mention we always had the BEST cheering section (our parents were great!) It was the time of my life, and I’m glad that I got to grow up making so many wonderful memories with that team. I can only hope that my future kiddos can have a similar experience.
So what was our team called? Oh, we were the Hardscrabble HIPPOS. Yup, we were hippopotamuses. You might think that we would be the butt of many jokes because of that….and we were. Especially when we were a losing team. “Hippos are fat,” “Hippos are slow,” “Hippos can’t swim!” Blah, blah, blah. Some people on the team rallied for a name change to the Hardscrabble Hammerheads, but the Hippo faithful rallied around our rotund mascot and vetoed the hammerhead name (and kicked those pro-hammerhead people off the team, kidding!) But when we started kicking everyone’s butt….well, people shut up and seemed to jump on the Hippo bandwagon. Everyone wanted to be a hippo 
And just to silence the argument once and for all that hippos are “fat, slow and can’t swim,” I present you with this. Thank you CNN.
Yea, that’s right. HIPPOS RULE, and we’ll chase your speed boat down and eat you at night!
