Today we traveled to Maroubra Beach where I had the opportunity to observe children ages six and seven participate in the Nippers. I saw these children race both in the sand and in the water, as parents encouraged them by clapping and cheering on the outskirts. I noticed that there was one man running the races by yelling out instructions and blowing his whistle to signal the start of each event. From lecture I had learned that the Nippers was a community sport run by volunteers, and saw this play out at Maroubra as I observed the man running the races asking for parent volunteers to stand at both the start and finish lines. I also spoke to one of the parents who explained to me that at this age the children were not competing but were only training to get use to the water and participating for fun. He told me that the kids really enjoyed it, and that the parents had fun serving as volunteers within the Nippers community as well. As I continued to watch the children and speak with parents, I thought of how much the Nippers community reminded me of my junior softball league in the United States. In this little league almost all of the coaches were parents of children on the teams and the assistant coaches were always parent volunteers. Parents also came to every game to cheer their children on and rotated bringing snacks for the players to eat after the game. Parents and children participate in this league because of their love for the sport, for their own enjoyment and for their community participation, all of which fuel the volunteer-based Nippers in Australia. Despite these similarities, the Nippers is also very different from any sport I have seen in America because learning water safety is not as crucial and water sports are not as common due to differences in geography and climate. I loved watching the kids have fun learning about water safety and observing the liveliness of the Nippers community and look forward to my future Australian sport endeavors!
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