Dēda

Swim Team 1956

When transferring into a new school you really don't know what to expect. While you hope that it will be just like your old school, deep down you know that's not going to happen. However, some things are just totally unexpected. Joining the swim team is a good example of just how different things can be.

Looking back after all of these years, it's hard to tell people what it was like when I went out for the swim team in the fall of 1956. That was at my new school after we moved to Illinois when I was fourteen, and was just entering the ninth grade. With all of the changes in attitude over the years, just telling people that I once swam naked at my school always gets the same reaction from young and old alike. They look at me with a cross between disbelief and "Are you a dirty old man?" I just shake my head and think to myself that one day they'll probably be telling similar tales in their old age.

My father was a railroad man and in those days, they could and did move you around at the drop of a hat. That is of course, if you wanted to keep your job. Well, we had been living in the Little Rock, Arkansas area where I had started school shortly after my father's last move. I guess that I had just assumed that we were never going to move again. Boy, was I wrong!

I'd been swimming since I was in the third grade and enjoyed being on the swim team at the local Boys Club that was only three blocks from our house. Now, if you grew up in an area where indoor swimming pools are common, then I need to share something; at that time, as with today, there was not a single indoor swimming pool at any school in Arkansas. As a result, all of my swimming up to that time had been at outdoor pools where everybody wore suits. That was about to change.

As soon as we settled in at our new house in Illinois, I went down to Washington High School and registered for the new school year. It was only a couple of weeks before school started and I needed to get my class schedule lined up. When I asked about the swim team, the School Secretary told me that I would need to see Coach Hart if I was interested in joining the team. She directed me to his office a few doors down the hall. Finding it, I took a deep breath and knocked on the door. From within came a strong bass-baritone voice saying, "Come in."

I opened the door and saw a man in his mid-thirties, sitting behind a desk, who I rightly assumed was Coach Hart. He had dark brown hair that was cut short and a good tan. His form-fitting golf shirt allowed me to see that his upper body was well muscled with good pecs and biceps. I correctly guessed that he was about six feet [1.80 m] tall and weighed about 180 lbs [82 kg]. Later, I was to learn that he had played baseball and been on the swim team while he was in college.

"Coach Hart? I'm Dave Crawford. I'm a transfer student from Arkansas. I swam on the Boys Club swim team where I used to live, and would like to try out for the school team here at Washington."

"You would, eh?" said the older man, as he stood up and shook my hand. "In what events have you been competing? I can always use another good swimmer."

Coach Hart seemed like one of the good guys. We spent ten or fifteen minutes discussing what I had been doing as a member of the Boys Club team back in my old hometown.

Whatever tensions I may have had, had melted away and I was getting comfortable when he said, "Come by the school gym tomorrow at 9 a.m. We're going to have a team practice for the returning varsity. You can work out with them and give me a chance to see you in action. If you're as good as you say you are, then there's a place for you on the team." I could hardly wait.

***

Perhaps showing my eagerness, I arrived at the school locker room a good fifteen minutes before nine the next morning. Not knowing what to expect, I had brought my old Speedo and a towel with me figuring that I would need them. However, once I was through the door of the locker room, I saw that there was an equipment booth right beside the door. A red-haired kid about my age was behind the counter handing out towels. He looked surprised to see me, and stepped back a bit.

"Who are you and what do you want?" he asked, in a none-too-friendly voice.

I stood there dumfounded. The kid behind the counter was quite obviously naked. He was about my height with a slim build and well-defined muscles. As I stood there at the counter, I could also see that he was quite obviously hairless from the neck down. There wasn't even a hint of shadow where his red pubes should have been.

Before I could say anything, I heard Coach Hart yell over the locker room noise, "Burton, that's Dave Crawford; he's a transfer student from Arkansas. Give him a locker. He's going to work out with the team today."

"Yes sir, coach," replied the kid behind the counter, acknowledging the coach's order. He fumbled around behind the counter until he found a padlock.

Turning to me he said, "Okay Dave, now you know that I'm Burton, Rich Burton. I'm the Team Manager. I can give you Jim Martin's old locker. He graduated last June. Here's a padlock with a combination tag on it for the locker. It's number forty-three over there on the wall behind you. If you're going to work out with the returning team members, you need to get out of your clothes, take a shower, and head on out to the pool. Coach doesn't take to being kept waiting. Any questions?"

"Yeah, why are you naked?" I asked him, still puzzled by the fact that the Team Manager was standing there issuing towels and locks completely nude.

"What kind of team did you come from? Of course I'm naked. The whole team's naked! We train that way. We also compete naked, unless we're at an outdoor pool, or the other school wants to let girls in to watch the meet," he replied.

I was stunned for a moment. I had heard that there were places up north where they swam naked at school, but I had dismissed that as just something that someone had thought up to scare guys like me who were going there for the first time.

I stammered for a moment, groping for something to say, and finally replied, "We only swam at outdoor pools where I lived. Swimming naked was not an option."

"Well, that's not the way it is here at Washington," responded Burton in a surly tone of voice. "You'd better get a move on it or, new kid or no new kid, you'll get a couple of whacks on your transferred butt from the coach."

This guy's a real piece of work, I thought to myself, as I turned and headed for the locker that he had assigned me.

Once there, I quickly stripped out of my clothes and hung them in the locker. I stood there for a moment and pondered the fact that here at Washington, swim team training was done nude. I scratched an imaginary itch on my ball sack and thought to myself, What the Hell. They're all boys. I don't know of any differences; I mean, they haven't got anything that I haven't got, so I bucked up my courage and headed for the shower. I told myself that I didn't think anything about being seen nude by other guys in my age group. There had been plenty of that back at the Boys Club in Arkansas. However, I had never before been swimming nude, let alone trained for the swim team nude. This was definitely going to be something new.

I'll admit that, at heart, I was a little scared. I had never done anything like this before. However, at fourteen, I stood 5 ft 8 in [1.74 m] and weighed nearly 145 pounds [65 kg]. I had a good start on a muscular build with good pecs and abs, and low body fat. I told myself that I could hold my own with whomever Coach Hart had on his team.

It wasn't until I got to the pool that I realized there was a difference. Looking around the room, there were boys there who I assumed ranged in age from 14 to 18. Some of them were warming up and doing exercises alongside the pool. Others stood around in small groups talking and laughing with each other as they caught up on what they had been doing during the summer vacation that was just ending. As I looked around the room, I suddenly realized that I was the only kid there with pubes! All of the other boys were completely hairless below the neck. Being different, I started feeling self-conscious.

Coach Hart came out of his poolside office and blew his whistle. I noted that he was the only one wearing any clothes, but even then, all that he had on was a pair of gym shorts and a tee shirt. All of the boys hurriedly got into two lines beside the pool facing each other. Not sure of what to do, I moved to the end of one of the lines and waited to see what came next.

The Coach gave what must have been his standard speech about what he expected from the team, including his dos-and-don'ts, before he spotted me. I could see his face take on a look of displeasure before saying, "This is Dave Crawford. He's a freshman transfer from Arkansas. He'll be trying out for our team. Looks like Dave has been swimming where they wear suits." Most of the other boys had turned to look at me, and I felt the heat of embarrassment. Even in that era, a teenager never ever wanted to be different from the rest of kids in his peer group.

"Burton, take Crawford and help him get rid of that hair and then report back to me," ordered Coach Hart.

"Yes sir!" exclaimed the red-haired manager, from somewhere behind me.

At that moment, if I could have had the floor open under me, and swallow me, I would have gladly let it happen.

Unfortunately, all that I could do was to go back through the door to the shower room with a smiling, no, smirking, Rich Burton, while I kept my eyes mostly fixed on the floor in front of me.

"Wait here in the shower and I'll be right back," said Burton as soon as we were back in the other room. I went over to the nearest shower, turned it on, adjusted the knobs until I got the water warm, and waited for him to return with God knows what.

It was only a minute or so before he was back with a tube of some sort of gel in his hand. Still smirking, he motioned for me to step out of the cascade of water. Then, he squirted some of the green stuff on his hand and, without asking, started to rub it on my pubes.

I didn't know how to react. At first, I jerked back a little. I had never had anyone touch me down there before. I was too dumbfounded to ask why he didn't just hand me the gel and tell me to do it myself, so I just stood there petrified and let him rub the stuff all over my crotch. Then he offered, "This goes quicker when you just let me do it; two guys are better with it than one." I was wondering what he meant by that when he said, "Spread your legs. I need to get this stuff on your balls. Every hair needs to go."

I did as he asked and felt his hand rubbing the gel on my balls. I was getting a serious case of goose bumps, and I don't mind admitting that I was more afraid of getting hard from him rubbing that stuff all over my package than I was of anything that I had ever known up until then. Inwardly, I struggled to keep from having an erection no matter how good it felt to have someone playing with my balls.

Once he was done with my crotch he said, "Put your arms up over your head." After I did that, he rubbed more of the gel in my armpits. I couldn't help but twitch a bit, as I was quite ticklish there. Following this, he carefully examined the rest of my body, dabbing me with the gel anywhere he encountered even one hair.

None of that would have been too bad except for the fact that, despite my best efforts, my dick was starting to respond to all of the touching and feeling. By the time Rich stood up and looked me up and down, I had a four and a half inch [11cm] boner that was as hard as a rock. There was that smirk again. The only thing that kept me from running was the fact that I had all of that damn gel all over me.

Just when I thought that it couldn't get any worse, Rich said, "I need to check your hole. Coach is a stickler for team members being completely hairless below the neck. Turn around and let me see if you need any gel back there." I know that by now I must have been totally red-faced, as I slowly turned around, bent over, and pulled my butt cheeks apart so that a kid that I had just met could check my butt-hole for hair. I guess I really wanted to be on the swim team!

Sure enough, Rich claimed that there was some hair back there and painted my hole with gel. When his fingers made contact, I jerked from sensitivity, and I noticed I had begun to drip pre-cum. Just then, he reached out and slowly ran his hand up and down my butt, claiming that he was still checking for hair. His warm, light touch was too much for me; my abs tightened and I just stood there and shook as I climaxed, pumping cum all over the shower floor with a couple of long ropes of the light gray sticky stuff followed by three or four big spurts.

Burton laughed and said, "Man, are you horny! I didn't do that until last year's manager felt-up my dick. As soon as you rinse off, I guess you'll be ready to go back out and report to Coach, now that you're going to be hairless where it counts."

His comments helped me relax a bit as I stood under the shower and watched as my pubes and what other body hair I had had, washed down the drain. I looked down and saw my naked crotch for the first time in the last couple of years. Frankly, I had been rather proud of my pubes, but if losing them is what it took to be on the team, then so be it. Slowly, I ran my hand over my body and felt the silky smoothness that I had forgotten would be there once the hair was gone.

Rich and I went back into the big room with its indoor swimming pool. Coach Hart was demonstrating some technique or other with the team members clustered around him in a semicircle. He stopped his lecture and looked in our direction as we came up to where he was.

"Ok, Burton. I see that you've got Crawford's hair problem resolved. Come here and let me check him out. I want to be sure that you've done a good job," said the coach in a loud voice. "Crawford, assume the 'brace' position with your hands behind your head," commanded the older man, as he stood there looking me over like I was a piece of meat.

I assumed the position and stood there naked with my hands behind my head trying not to look down at my half-erect cock. What else could I do? By the time that Coach Hart was standing in front of me, I was so embarrassed that my cock had started to go down. First, he looked at my armpits, smiled, and ran a finger across first one and then the other of that now hairless area. The fact that he was touching me made me shudder. Then he bent down to get a better view of my package as he inspected my penis and the surrounding area for hair that was no longer there. I was mortified to notice a bit of semen had oozed out and was shiny on the end of my cock.

I could actually feel his breath on my newly bare skin as he glanced up at me while he was still crouched in front of me, with his face only inches from the head of my cock. "This looks very good," he said, and then looking at Rich Burton, he added, "Did you shave his package or did you use a depilatory on him?"

"I um, used, um, some of that new green gel that we got with the new supplies," Burton stammered.

Coach Hart still did not turn away from me. My cock was getting closer to him as it again began to stiffen. His eyes widened and an eyebrow went up as my cock continued to grow. "Eyes straight ahead Dave," he ordered. In response, I looked directly at the closest member of the team to me, who, equally naked, stood facing me. Thankfully, he was looking down at the older man's back and not at my cock.

"You did a fine job, Burton. Class, gather round here so you can see this." The class quickly closed around the three of us for a closer look at my cock, which shrank under the embarrassing scrutiny of what must have been twenty pairs of strange eyes.

Standing up, Coach Hart made a point of telling the whole class that I was 'completely hairless where it counted,' and that this was how he wanted all of them to be during the coming season.

I thought that my humiliation was over until he said. "Class, I also want you to see that Dave has a penis that is larger than I would have expected for a boy of his age." Then he added, "And it looks like we may soon be getting a better look at just how big it can be." I saw him smile while a few of the other gawking members of the team giggled. My embarrassment began to turn into something else. Done with me, he turned and walked to the edge of the pool and told us to line up for time trials in the pool.

By now, I was pissed. I didn't know what he expected of me. If he thought that he was going to get me to turn tail and run out in embarrassment, he had another thing coming. I lined up behind several other guys as we got ready for time trials.

The Washington High School pool was 25 meters [82 ft] long. I knew that I had always done well swimming the 50 meters [164 ft] down and back in the free style competition. I guess being pissed made me swim even faster than usual. I just wanted to show Coach Hart and all of the guys on the team that I could keep up with the best of them.

When I had completed my lap, the coach just stood there wide-eyed looking at the stopwatch in his hand. It seems that I had just set a new swim-team school record.

Everything changed after that. I became a welcome addition to the team. There wasn't any more of that embarrassing hazing; or whatever that hair-removal crap had been. The coach even went out of his way to make sure that I got the best of everything. In turn, I didn't disappoint him. I won my events in every meet that we had while I was on the team and even made 'All State' my senior year. I was good enough to get a swimming scholarship to the state university, and did well there, too.

Looking back after all of these years, I would have to say that losing my pubes that day had spurred me on to one of the best times that I ever had in the water. As to the cute redhead and what happened in the showers, well, of course, I can't tell that story to just anyone. They might not understand.

The End