I've always been curious about what makes football and basketball so popular, and swimming so unpopular. I might have an answer that makes sense.

I didn't understand the true energy swimming gives off until I did it competitively. When someone is in the pool for thirty seconds to one minute, the team and audience goes crazy with cheers. It is extremely hard to hear your neighbour in a pool area during this time. The one thing that football, one of the most popular sports that supposedly has the most school spirit, has that swimming doesn't is any contact. Swimming is not independent though, it is teamwork and people based. Yes, you swim in your own lane, but you swim better with someone cheering you on. When I'm about to go swimming at a meet, and I go on the block to represent my school, many feelings go through my head. Excited, anxious, nervous, and worst of all, fear of failing. It really helps when I hear "Go! You can do it!" from my fellow swimmers to get me pumped up.

It's unfortunate when some people don't even know Fredericton High School (FHS) has a swimming team. It seems like all they care about is the sports that the media tells them to like and enjoy.

I believe the media has much to do with the unpopularity of competitive swimming. You don't see any Swimming Super Bowls. On television, they put more emphases on a football game on one channel than competitive swimming on another. It is unfortunate that some people will never enjoy the true beauty of swimming, and that I will never understand the point of football.

Even if swimming is not as popular as I would like it to be, the feelings I have for it will never change. Thank you media, for making the sport I love so popular, and making this world a better place.