April 3, 2007

Probably Improbable

I’m always troubled (well maybe troubled is a bit of an overstatement) when I hear or read things that just don’t sound believable. Things that make your ears perk up and you think to yourself “What! Now that ain’t right.” Today was such a day when I heard such a thing.

So I’m sitting at the doctor’s office and I over heard a middle aged man talking to the lady next to him about his daughter. Apparently the daughter is currently a senior in high school and desires to go to college. She’s also on the high school swim team. The daughter has been offered an athletic scholarship, due to her swimming abilities, to some college. However, the daughter desires to go to a different college and has not received a scholarship offer from this college.

So the father has been lecturing his daughter about why she should take the scholarship, and how she’s making the wrong decision. And all this lecturing is being done by the father from an on-high point of moral righteousness or something like that.

Anyway, I suppose I can sympathize with the father’s frustrations that the daughter isn’t taking the less financially painful route. But all that aside, what perked my ears was his comment about the daughters swimming abilities. He said, “She can swim 500 yards in like a minute and something.”

Say what?

Now I’m not saying that his daughter isn’t talented, but I’m not buying 500 yards in “a minute and something.” Someone running a quarter mile in a minute would be pretty fast – although it would be a far cry from a record – but swimming an ever greater distance in “a minute and something.” I don’t think so. I think back to the days when I use to swim 1000 yards two or three times a week. (Think 1977 – 1979 here.) It would take me 20 minutes or more to swim 1000 yards.

A quick check on google shows that collegiate records for swimming 500 yards are in the five minute range.

OK, so the father’s statement is erroneous. It just strikes me as odd that he would be so unknowledgeable about a subject that he has such a vested interest in.