I had been swimming competitively for five years but after such a long time, I was ready to quit. I was often the only African American at the swimming competitions and our team couldn’t afford good uniforms. However, my number-one reason for wanting to quit was that I kept receiving “Honorable Mentions (荣誉奖)”. Any athlete knows that you don’t want to have a bookshelf full of “Honorable Mentions”, which you get just because you showed up.
One summer’s day, the day before a big swim meeting, I decided to tell my grandma that I was quitting the swim team. When I told her, she looked me in the eye and said, “Baby, remember these words ‘Quitters never win and winners never quit.’ Your grandmother didn’t raise losers or quitters. You go to that meeting tomorrow, and you swim like you are a grandchild of mine, you hear?” I was too afraid to say anything but “Yes, ma’am.”
The next day we arrived at the swim meeting late, missing my group of swimmers in the 15/16 age group. My coach insisted I should be allowed to swim with the older group. I knew she expected me to take part.
As I mounted the board, all the other girls looked at me. I quickly noticed that these girls were all here to do just one thing — beat me. All of a sudden, my grandma’s words rang in my head, “Quitters never win and winners never quit. You swim like you are a grandchild of mine.” “Yes, Grandma, I will swim like I am a grandchild of yours,” I said to myself.
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The match began! I swam harder than I had ever swum before.
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It was then that I heard the claps and cheers around me.
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The Comeback
Laurie sat quietly in the empty dressing room at the ice-skating rink(溜冰场). She had not been skating in any competition since her left knee was badly injured in an accident six months ago. As she waited for her turn to skate, Laurie was very nervous. She knew that today was a very important day in her comeback.
“If I can win today,” she thought, “I can skate in the World Cup next year and then maybe I can make it to the Olympics.”
Laurie was told that she had a tough competition this year, and a girl from Connecticut named Jinny Jordan who was really strong in everything. “She is the one you have to beat this year,” the coach said.
Minutes later, the door opened and Laurie saw a young woman who was about her own age. The young woman dumped some of her belongings onto a chair. The bag fell to the floor with a sound.
Laurie felt uncomfortable as she looked at Jinny. “So this is my competitor,” thought Laurie, “Because of her, I may lose tonight.”
“This costume(服装) was my mom’s idea,” Jinny started the conversation, looking down at her red, white, and blue skating dress. “ looks like a flag.”
Laurie couldn’t keep from smiling. She pointed to Jinny’s skating bag. “Something fell out of your bag,” Laurie said.
Jinny looked at the clothing and equipment that lay scattered on the floor. As she began to gather her belongings, the door opened.
“Jinny,” called someone, “You’d better give the tape of your music to the sound engineer right away.”
“I thought I gave him my music tape an hour ago,” said Jinny, “Tell him it’s the green box with my initials written in white in the right-hand corner.”
“He said you never gave it to him. and he’s getting angry.”
“Then I don’t know what I did with it,” said Jinny, hurrying out.
Laurie knew that music was nearly as important to the program as skating itself. If she lost her music tape, she might as well forget about skating. Laurie stood up and walked to the chair to do a few more knee bends.
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Suddenly she saw something small and dark green behind the leg of the dressing table.
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Feeling relaxed, Laurie skated quickly to the center of the rink after the announcer finally called her name.
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