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Kate O’Neill: Mother Whales and Human Mothers
(Elite Athlete Blog - Entry #8)

Posted May 13th, 2008 at 12:30 PM by Kate O'Neill

Section: News & Results, Elite Athlete Blogs, Kate O'Neill

Hi, this is my blog in TFS’s Elite Athlete Blog Series. Bookmark kateoneill.thefinalsprint.com and check back every other Monday for my latest entry as I strive for the 2008 Summer Olympics!

Happy belated Mother’s Day! On Sunday I went to a bookstore for story hour with my boyfriend and his mother. I had seen that the author of a book called Delta & Dawn: Mother & Baby Whales’ Journey would be coming to read aloud. The book tells the true story of two humpback whales that wandered into the Sacramento River last year. Humpback whales spend their winters off the coast of Mexico where they give birth and then travel along the coast up to Northern California for feeding during the warmer months. Somehow this duo got separated from the other whales and swam under the Golden Gate Bridge. Having lost their bearings, they continued swimming further up the Sacramento River toward the state capital.

This story hour was of course intended for children, but the event had caught my eye when I was looking at the bookstore’s list of visiting authors. My parents took me on whale watching boat trips when I was younger and the whaling industry had an enormous impact on the area in which I grew up. (Plus a whale played a very important role in a Seinfeld episode involving a golf ball, a little lie, and a walk on the beach. Seinfeld fans know what I’m talking about. All others should really rent the series DVD.)

The book has a happy ending (unlike the Seinfeld episode). The media fell in love with the mother and baby, eventually naming them Delta and Dawn. Families followed their progress on the local news reports and drove to the river to catch a glimpse of them swimming past. Marine biologists, the coast guard, and volunteers in the area were eager to help the whales find their way back home. They tried playing recordings of whale noises to lure them back to the ocean. When that did not work, they tried scaring them by banging on metal pipes. Both Delta and Dawn had enormous wounds and marine biologists began to fear that they would not survive much longer in fresh water. Finally, the whales started moving back toward the ocean. It isn’t clear that any of the tactics described above had worked. They may have decided to move the right way independently. By the end of May, they had passed under the Golden Gate Bridge and re-entered the ocean.

The mother’s love for her calf played a major role in the story. No matter how much they struggled, Dawn did not let Delta out of her sight. Despite the pain of her wounds, she continued swimming alongside Delta. She must have known that they were heading the wrong way as they left the salt water behind and entered freshwater, but she would not leave her baby behind.

Because it was Mother’s Day, I started thinking of all the times that my mom had been a similar pillar of support. My mother, like most women who went to school before the passage of Title IX, did not have the opportunity to play sports when she was growing up. When people ask her if my sister and I inherited our running ability from her, she always jokes that she brought the wrong babies home from the hospital. She did play basketball for a few years with a church youth league, but before every game her coach told the team that she didn’t care if they lost, as long as they conducted themselves like ladies. I have never heard a coach say anything like that. If I ever do hear a coach say anything like that, I do not know how I would respond. While sportsmanship is important, it’s unfortunate to think that generations of women were discouraged from playing with competitive desire for excellence.

Although my mother’s background in sports is small, she played an enormous role in making me into a competitive athlete. When my sister and I swam on a swim team in middle school, she and my dad drove us to our early morning practices and sat in the bleachers of poorly ventilated indoor pools for hours while we competed at meets. The summer before our freshman year of high school, when we decided to run cross country, she brought us to the beach to run every day so that we could run in cooler temperatures. She has listened to me cry during injuries and disastrous races and she has never stopped believing in me. My dad has also been at all those early morning practices, watched meets in the rain, and been an unyielding supporter, but he had the opportunity to compete in sports. He played baseball, basketball, football, tennis, etc. I am amazed that my mom understands my competitive desire even though she never had the chance to personally experience athletic competition. She still always knows how to encourage and inspire me.

Thanks to my mom and all the moms out there who have been such tireless advocates of their children’s athletic endeavors!

- Kate

Be sure to check back on Monday, May 26, 2008 for Kate’s latest entry at: http://kateoneill.thefinalsprint.com/

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