Making Waves: Black Swimmers Convene for 9th Annual Black Heritage Swim Meet

Making Waves:

Black Swimmers Convene for 9th  Black Heritage Swim Meet

by Mark Anthony Neal | Black Voices (AOL/Huffington Post)

We've all read the statistics; the drowning rates of black children far exceed those of their white peers. In addition, the swimming proficiency of black children, accordingly, also lacks in comparison to their white peers; purportedly nearly 70 percent of black teens and children possess little or no swimming skills. Thanks to organizations like USA Swimming (the governing body of competitive swimming in the United States), the Make A Splash Foundation and the YMCA, there have been sustained efforts to increase swimming instruction among black children.

Yet in the backdrop of this seeming crisis, a generation of black swimmers have been making waves in competitive swimming and many of them will convene this Memorial Day weekend for the 9th Annual National Black Heritage Championship Swim Meet, at the Triangle Aquatic Center in Cary, North Carolina.

The Black Heritage Meet was founded in 2003 by Kathy Cooper who coaches the North Carolina Aquablazers. Cooper's daughter's Candace (now a swimmer at UNC-Chapel Hill) was a year-round competitive swimmer and Cooper was frustrated by the lack of diversity she witnessed at competitive meets. Blacks make up roughly 1 percent of all competitive swimmers, a number that only gets smaller among elite competitors.

With the Black Heritage Meet, Cooper hoped to provide a forum where young black swimmers and their parents could network. That first meet, held in Charlotte, NC attracted 104 swimmers; this year's meet will feature 896 athletes of all races, from forty-seven teams and 12 states.

The image of competitive swimming has been given a boost in black communities in recent years because of the success and visibility of Cullen Jones (pictured above), who won a gold medal in the 2008 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia, as part of the US Men's 200M Freestyle Relay. Jones, who nearly drowned as a child and who was a collegiate swimmer at North Carolina State University, has used his relative celebrity to get the word out about swimming safety.

Less well known are swimmers like Maritza Correia (pictured directly above), a 2004 Olympic Silver medalist and 16-year-old Lia Neal, who is the Junior National champion in the 100M Freestyle. In 2008 as a 13-year-old, Neal (along with Missy Franklin) became one of the youngest swimmers to ever qualify for the Olympic Trials.

What makes the Black Heritage Meet such an experience is not simply the opportunity to come together with other black swimmers. Cooper describes the event as more of a family reunion, where extended family often travel hundreds of miles to see their kin compete against some of the best swimmers in the country. Indeed the sights and sounds of the meet, more resemble those found any Saturday afternoon in the autumn at an HBCU football game as opposed to most swim meet which can be dry events.

As part of the weekend-long festivities, the organizers sponsor a community breakfast, which fetes black swimming pioneers, not just in competitive swimming and diving, but also in the military. Competitors are also given the chance to swim with some of their idols. Last year, both Jones and Correia were in attendance and held swim exhibitions with swimmers. This year, Sabir Muhammad (pictured below), who was a member of the U.S. National Team in the late 1990s, will be on hand.

Competitive swimming also provides great discipline of black youth, while also providing other opportunities such as working as life guards and swimming instructors. As parent Joe Artis, whose children attended last year's National Black Heritage Championship observed, "It's another opportunity besides football and basketball that swimming gives us ... you're not gonna get rich swimming, but you can get a college degree."

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Mark Anthony Neal is a professor of African-American Studies at Duke University and the author of five books including the forthcoming 'Looking For Leroy: (Il)Legible Black Masculinities.' Neal is also a "Black Swim Parent," who resides in Durham, NC with his family, where his daughters swim for the YMCA of the Triangle Area (YOTA).

Olympic Gold Medalist Swimmer Cullen Jones Visits Site of Swimming Tragedy

USA SWIMMING FOUNDATION AND OLYMPIC GOLD MEDALIST CULLEN JONES TO VISIT SHREVEPORT, LA ON WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 10

Shreveport visit is part of “Make a Splash with Cullen Jones,” a six-city event series designed to raise awareness about the importance of learning to swim

Colorado Springs, CO, November 2, 2010 – Following the tragic drowning deaths of six teenagers this summer in Shreveport, LA, Cullen Jones and the USA Swimming Foundation will visit the community on Wednesday, November 10 to advocate for water safety education, raise awareness about the importance of learning to swim, and help develop life-saving learn to swim programs in the region.

The USA Swimming Foundation and Cullen Jones have been traveling the country for two years as part of a nationwide water safety campaign, “Make a Splash with Cullen Jones.” The series of events is sponsored by ConocoPhillips and works to educate children, families and community leaders on the importance of learning to swim. The Make a Splash initiative, through its nearly 300 local partner programs, offers free or low cost swimming lessons in hundreds of cities across the country.

In Shreveport, Cullen will talk with the local community about life-saving learn to swim programs, his personal story of near-drowning and what it took for him to later become an Olympic champion. He will also speak directly to hundreds of children at a youth assembly and then give a swim lesson as part of the team’s efforts to shine a light on water safety.

Drowning continues to be a major problem in the U.S, especially among minority youth. According to a recent study* by USA Swimming Foundation and the University of Memphis, 70% (seven out of ten) of African American children and 58% of Hispanic children report low to no swimming ability, putting them at an increased risk of drowning. The number one factor impacting a child’s ability to swim was reported as fear.

As a near victim of drowning at the age of five and now an Olympic gold medalist swimmer, Cullen Jones is a passionate spokesperson on these issues. His efforts, along with USA Swimming Foundation and ConocoPhillips, have resulted in major growth for Make a Splash since its inception in 2007. So far, there have been 563,000 enrollments in lessons at 285 Make a Splash local partner programs in 43 states. In addition, nearly 22,500 children have received lessons thanks to scholarships. The USA Swimming Foundation was also able to present $50,000 in total grant dollars to a variety of swim programs in 2009 and $100,000 in total grant dollars in 2010.

“Make a Splash with Cullen Jones” will make its last stop this year in New York on Friday, November 19.


About Make a Splash
Make a Splash is a national child-focused anti-drowning initiative created by The USA Swimming Foundation, which operates by aligning the nation’s top learn-to-swim resources in an effort to save lives. Make a Splash educates parents through a national awareness campaign, saves lives by joining forces with grassroots learn-to-swim programs and reaches thousands of children across the country. The program exists because nine people drown each day in the U.S., and in ethnically-diverse communities the youth drowning rate is 2-3 times higher. For more information, visit makeasplash.org.

About the USA Swimming Foundation

The USA Swimming Foundation was established in 2004 with the purpose of using the sport of swimming to improve lives and make communities stronger. The Foundation focuses its resources in three main areas: making children safer in and around the water to reduce drowning; encouraging diversity in the sport of swimming; and using swimming to promote a healthy lifestyle to combat issues such as childhood obesity. The USA Swimming Foundation is the premier charitable organization that supports the sport of swimming in the United States from grassroots to gold medals and is recognized as a national leadership organization for promoting water safety. It is the Foundation’s ongoing goal to teach every child in America how to swim. To help, to donate or for information: www.swimfoundation.org.

Confessions of a Black Swim Parent

You Don't Have to Compete, Just Learn How to Swim

Confessions of a BSP: A Black Swim Parent
by Mark Anthony Neal

The Mecklenburg Aquatic Center, site of the North Carolina 14-and-under Swimming Championships is located on the east end of Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd in Charlotte, NC. More than a mile away, on the west end of the boulevard, sits Johnson C. Smith College, a historically Black college.

The distance between the two institutions, both located on a thoroughfare named after a figure who personified the collapsing of racial boundaries in this country, is an apt metaphor for the lack of visibility of Blacks in the sport of swimming. With the exception of events like the National Black Heritage Championships Meet, the lack of a significant presence of black swimmers at competitive swim meets is a regular occurrence; a reality that is not surprising, given a recent report sponsored by USA Swimming that nearly 70 percent of Black teen and children surveyed possess little or no swimming skills—a number that was nearly twice the amount of their White peers.

Some of the reasons Black swimming rates are thought to be low are obvious. Finances and access to facilities remain primary concerns, though organizations like the Boys and Girls Clubs, The Y and Make A Splash, an organization funded by USA Swimming, have made herculean efforts to make swim lessons affordable (free in some cases). Even the issue of access was ultimately deemed less of an issue in the USA Swimming report as many of the respondents reported having access to local pools, including public ones.

What was far more of a concern as related to access was the issue of physical safety—some public facilities draw the presence of a criminal element, particularly in poor neighborhoods (the same element that one might find at a local basketball court, though that doesn’t keep folk from the courts). Many Black children and young teens are simply afraid to go to public facilities by themselves, preferring to be accompanied by a parent or another adult.

Not surprisingly parents hold the biggest key as to whether black youth will learn to swim or decide to take on the sport competitively. According to USA Swimming’s report parental fear of their children drowning outweighs even monetary concerns about swimming. As one parent surveyed states, “you’re already uncomfortable and scared. You’re like ‘I’m paying them so I can have heart palpitations on the side lines’…why should I have to pay money to be afraid.”

Read the Full Essay @ theloop21.com