It was a hot Wednesday afternoon in model high school, the school's swimming team was practicing in the aquarium.
Coach Tantrum was putting the girls and boys through some routine drills, the state championship was on its way and they had to defend their title as the 5 time champions of their state.
The day before he had lost his most important athlete to a leg injury, which was a major setback as Claude was the best on the team. Getting new swimmers to fill in the empty space was almost impossible, because it was the middle of the school year and students were always concentrating on their studies.
Coach Tantrum had scheduled a meeting with the director of the school that evening, they were to have a serious discussion on how to find a replacement for the team. After the day's training session, coach Tantrum had a meeting with his athletes and assured them that they still had a spot at the championship even though they missed someone important.
"What do you think is the best solution to this problem, Mr Tantrum?", the principal asked in the meeting that evening, " I think we should set up a random tryout, anyone can try out, even non athletes, we should get some natural talents there" .
Coach Tantrum's idea was a creative one but it failed woefully, just one person attended the try outs and he was the weirdest and most goofy kid in school. His name was Otis, known to everyone as Otis the tripper. He got the name tripper because he was always tripping in the hallways. Everyone bullied him in school, even the unpopular students, he was just everyone's punching bag.
But the team had no choice but accept him, he was their only hope and option for the championships, his other teammates found it difficult to accept him into the team but with time they accepted his goofy behavior. Now it was just down to training and catching up.
Otis had private training sessions with coach Tantrum every evening for the next two weeks in the gym, but his sessions were not going too well and he wasn't fit enough. He needed more time to work on his weight, but that was lacking as the championship final was just four day away.
One evening after training with coach Tantrum, Otis felt so bad with his performance that he confessed to the coach that he was scared and he knew he would disappoint him and the school. "Everyone knows you're a goofy kid son, you just need to use that to your advantage, do it to make yourself proud, not for anyone else" .
The day of the final finally came and it wasn't over hyped, the stadium was full to the peak, each school had its own sections for fans. The competition involved 7 activities performed by seven different athletes of the same team for each school. Each school had to win all the 7 activities to win the championship.
It was a long time before it got to Otis' turn, every single one of his team mates had won their race and it was now left to him. If he failed to win they would lose the competition.
The whistle was blown calling him to stand in front of the pool, the walk up to the mouth of the pool wasn't in fact an easy one for him knowing that hundreds of eyes were on him. He just took a deep breath and tried walking straight and confident, but when he got to the spot he was supposed to stand, he tripped and fell into the pool. There was a loud roar of laughter from the crowd as he scrambled his way out.
Otis felt so embarrassed, tears ran from his eyes. But the moment the whistle was blown, he dived into the pool like a sea monster hungry to get to its destination, he swam like a mermaid to the finish line, beating the competition's all time record for the event.
When he got out of the water, there was absolute silence in the arena, before a loud cheer that lasted for hours. Tripper! Tripper! Tripper! His schoolmates kept chanting.
THE END...
