Typical Day
Marco Polo starts his day at 6:00AM by downing a protein shake, putting on his official Team USA practice Speedo, grabbing his cap and his goggles, and heading down to the pristine pool at Shmoopville University.
The first stop is the weight room with the rest of his teammates. They lift weights for an hour, focusing on arms, shoulders, biceps, and upper body strength, as well as doing squats with weights for the lower body.
Then it's time to go to the pool and start swimming laps. The entire team dives in and gets to it. Marco, one of the faster swimmers, is at the head of the first lane. He establishes a rhythm then pushes himself to go faster and faster to beat his time just a little more than he did yesterday.
After an hour and a half of laps, the team gets in their positions and starts running drills. Coach Wham reminds everyone of their weaknesses in the last game and has them go through ways of fixing their mistakes.
Another hour of hard core drills and they're ready to scrimmage. Wham puts Marco on the weaker side as a driver, showing confidence in his speed and ball handling skills.
Sadly, that confidence is misplaced. Marco screws up three times in a row, losing the ball twice, and just missing a shot. Wham does not look pleased.
"You need to get your eyes checked, Marco? Should I call your Mommy and ask her if she needs to get you glasses?" he asks. Marco feels his face redden.
"No, Sir."
"What?" asks Wham, holding his hand to his ear. "I can't hear you, Marco. Maybe I'm suffering from water in the ear like you are."
"No, Coach Sir. I can hear fine."
"Then listen up when I tell you to move, you move. When you're supposed to pass, pass the ball—to the open person. Tupac was wide open."
Coach points to Tupac, who looks very disgruntled that he was not given the chance to ram that ball in for a goal.
"And the cage is not a ping pong table. Don't be aiming for the sides and trying to lob it in...shoot straight, shoot hard, and make the connection."
"I will Coach, Sir," exclaims Marco.
Marco thinks Wham is going to take him out as Driver and substitute Tupac but he doesn't. He gives Marco another chance. Marco runs with it.
He gets the ball and swims it all the way down the pool, making waves at all the other guys chasing after him. Without thinking, without being able to see anything as the water is in his face, the sun's glare in his eyes, he shoots and scores.
Marco feels elated. Wham almost looks pleased. His teammates acknowledge him with high fives and approving looks.
"Well, that's more like it. Now if you can only do that when it counts, when you're up against the other team...we might have something there," says Wham, suppressing anything of a grin.
"Doesn't matter," thinks Marco, "I'll take it."
As the team finishes by doing an hour of laps to unwind, Marco drifts into a daydream of actually making it to the Olympics. He can practically feel the gold medal around his neck. That is until he feels Tupac behind him nudging at his feet and passing him.
"Slowpoke," Tupac says.
Marco can see Wham's face outside the water, and he does not look pleased at all. He writes something in his clipboard. Marco worries.
After practice, the team gathers inside to watch game films and discuss strategy. There's an important tournament coming up next weekend and they all have to be ready. Marco knows he will be ready.
That night, he showers, carb loads on his mom's homemade pasta with sausage, and falls asleep before 9:00PM. He'll be ready to start the next day on his road to the championships.