MERRIAM, Kan. — Swimming has been a part of the Olympics since the first modern Olympic Games in 1896.
Mary Jo Klier, a professional swim and infant aquatics coach, was close to a gold medal herself at one point.
"My sister and I both qualified for Olympic trials, but we had to have a time in a 50 meter pool, and there were no meets in upstate NY with a 50 meter pool, so we didn’t get to go in 1964," Klier said.
Klier came to Kansas City in 1973 after working for an Olympic swimming coach.
She started her own team years later called the Kansas City Swim Academy and Infant Aquatics.
"I get just as much joy working with the little kids because there’s a difference knowing you’re saving a life and making the Olympics," Klier said. "I get joy working with a child that has sensory problems right now."
Klier has sent around 30 swimmers to the Olympic trials and many of them have won state championships.
She's a big proponent of survival swimming, so many of the children in her program are taught to understand the water before they can walk.
"When I'm working with the younger kids, especially the little ones, to me it's about technique," she said. "If you start young and teach the correct way you want to be safe around the water, you’re getting good feelings, because you’re doing something that could save their lives if they have an aquatic emergency."
Klier has coached hundreds of swimmers and went Indianapolis this past weekend for the Olympic trials.
"Making the Olympics is like 1.111 percent. It's very hard to make because they're only picking two. I've been to trials where someone set a world record, and still didn't make it because they got beat," she said.
She's had the privilege many times over of watching her swimmer's dreams from the sidelines.
"The hard thing is when your child, your swimmer, doesn't make it," she said.
Even if it's not TEAM USA, many of them will always remember all of fundamental lessons from being on Team Klier.
"I think I was listening to Travis Kelce say the other day, he was talking about doing sports when he was playing hockey and baseball and he said, 'You don't wanna win. You don't want to win all the time because you get more out of losing than you do winning,'" she said. "When you lose, you gotta go in there and fix it. When you're winning, it's green light, green light, you just keep doing what you're doing."
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