Maria Dodaro is a swim coach and aquatics director. Swimming coaches help swimmers perfect their breathing techniques, swim speed, and may work with recreational swimmers or prepare professionals for meets.
My name is Maria Dodaro. I'm a swim coach at Saw Mill Club. I wanna talk today a little bit about time and what time means to me. From the minute I wake up in the morning and my alarm clock go off, I decide whether I'm gonna hit the snooze button or wake up for the day. At that point, it's a race in time. Time really to me is just who you are and what type of person you are. If you're the type of person that's late all the time, it just shows that you don't have any responsibility. If you're the type of person that kind of plans your day ahead and knows what is in store for you, then your focused. You know what you wanna do, you know where your time is going, and you really are responsible in your goals and what you want in life. I try to instill this in my kids when they come in. I coach a swim team and when they're not on time, I get down on them and I tell them, "You have to be on time. This is really important. We have an hour, you have to get in here. Put the hour in a hundred percent effort and then that's it. You're done." If they don't come on time, then they're wasting five, 10 minutes. That time has gone. You'll never get the time back. Once time is gone, that's something you can never, ever get back. So that's what I tried to share with them and let them know that if anything, that they should make sure that they're always on time.
Last Updated: August 15, 2022
