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Swimming in Spirit
Pool Pedigrees
Flashback: Catherine Ellett starting the Tilden Woods swim team in 1964. There won't be any interest, warns the president of the neighborhood recreation association.
Title card: 42 years later. Ellett's 10-year-old grandson, Bobby, surged down his lane in the 50-meter freestyle at the July 8 meet against Hallowell, which Tilden Woods would end up losing.
Photos
Swim Spirit The team from Tilden Woods considers itself the most spirited and zealously dedicated in the Montgomery County Swim League. |
"Go, Bobby, go! Go!" bellowed his father, Rob.
Two hundred kids are on the team. Three of them are Elletts.
"I guess it's in the blood," Rob said.
The summer league is more team-oriented than club and school squads, everyone says, mostly because it levies the same responsibility on a 5-year-old as it does on an 18-year-old. Generations eddy through the team. With enough children properly spaced out, a family can be entwined in the league for decades.
Janice Schneider's three kids swim for Tilden Woods. Her aquamarine tank top reads, "dolphin mama."
"I haven't been on vacation in July for 12 years," Schneider said.
Why?
"It would be treason."
So being part of the Tilden Woods pool family is . . . time-consuming.
"It's time- filling . It's time- enriching ."
