I remember going to college as a music major. As a double bass player, I was used to borrowing someone else’s instrument. I only got an instrument of my own for the purpose of taking it to college.

I wasn’t in school long before I needed a new instrument. The plywood instrument just didn’t do much to showcase my skills. As a matter of fact, it hindered me. When I got a better instrument, my playing improved markedly.

They’re saying a swim suit can do the same thing for elite athletes. In spite of myself, I couldn’t help but be skeptical. Come on, don’t swimmers win races, not swim suits?

But then I read that of the 41 world records made since late May, When Speedo introduced its new LZR (LASER) suit, 37 were made by athletes wearing the LZR suit. The suit applies science to keep within the rules. The Olympic rules state that you can’t make a swimmer more bouyant. Speedo instead makes the swimmer smaller by compressing the areas of the body more prone to drag. Ah, the dreaded form drag, where your body actually works against you to slow you down in the water. This LZR suit addresses that issue, and top athletes are trying to wear it, no matter which company they endorse. It’ll be available to the public this fall. I’d like to try it, even though it looks painfully tight.

Remember that Spike Lee Nike commercial?

That’s what they’re saying about this suit.

Ok.  So I was really disappointed in the Olympic swim trials.  Not only did I see nobody black but Cullen Jones, but I didn’t even see our local folks.  Yes, there was a boy and a girl from Great Lakes Aquatics that made Olympic swim times, and Brie even said she was going, but if you’re not a superstar, or an emerging one, NBC won’t even show you at all.

Which is where we find Cullen Jones.  There he was, with all that speed and potential. . . and he finishes third.  A few times.  So he’ll be on the relay team, like Maritza in 2004.  Btw, when I was scouring the  internet looking for proof that our local girl, Brianne Powers was actually going to the Olympic trials, I found that Maritza Correria was # 3 in the 100 M free,  time-wise.  I was doubly disappointed that she retired in May.  And where was Brielle White?

It must be awfully frustrating to be a pioneer.  I heard that Anthony Ervin, who’s credited as the first African-American man to make the Olympic team has said, “I don’t look black anyway.”  Which is true enough.  And although he tied with Gary Hall, Jr. in the 50 free for gold in 2000, Ervin is more lauded as being black, while Hall jr. is lauded for being a decorated swimmer.

It must have been like that for the early basketball/baseball/football integrators.  Nobody thinks anything of a black man excelling in basketball anymore.  That probably wasn’t the case in the early days of that sport’s integration.

So now it’s up to the kids in the swim clubs to keep plugging away.  We knew a determined black swimmer in our local club.  I wouldn’t be surprised to see Kiya Mitchell make a big splash nationally in a few years.  And Kalamazoo is far from a black city.

So it starts with these pioneers.  And then others get the glint in their eye about swimming.  And maybe black folks can get a glimpse of a different life, and escape generational poverty.

And America has a chance at remaining dominant in swimming in the years to come.

The first thing they did at the city pool was introduce us to the deep end. I decided that the worst thing that could happen was that I could die, but I didn’t think that was very likely, so I just got over myself and went in the deep end. My brother liked to swim along the bottom of the 12 foot water. I wasn’t going there, but I could at least jump in the water and swim along the surface.

The miracle was actually swimming a whole length of the pool without stopping to walk, like I’d done at Girl Scout camp. In fact, that one skill—not touching the bottom of the pool—was what separated the two of us who passed from the rest of the class. Only two of us—both black—received our advanced beginner certificates that summer, but all of us could now swim.

My brother and I surprised our parents that summer on vacation. They took us to Mexico, and during a sight-seeing cruise, the boat stopped a few yards from the shore. We were given the choice between swimming to shore for lunch and waiting for a small rowboat to take us ashore. While our parents waited for the rowboat, my brother and I jumped overboard and started swimming shoreward. My mother shrieked. Neither she nor my father could swim well enough to go after us. A man on the boat offered to swim after us to make sure we were ok. I would stop swimming every so often to check how deep the water was. My brother talked about fighting a piranha on the way to shore, but I didn’t believe him. We made it! It was like a curse had been lifted. Now we could swim, and we could really enjoy life!

Well, there you go. Watching the Olympic trials and trying to follow a swimmer who is not the one NBC wants you to follow can be tricky. Gary Hall jr. cast a big shadow over Cullen Jones in the lead-up to the 50 free finals. They followed him with his big superhero cape. They did the brief bio of him. . . ‘and there’s Cullen Jones, the American record holder in this event.’ So there was that.

Then the two hyphenates, Wildman-Tobriner and Weber-Gale were so competitive in the 100 M finals and the 50 M preliminaries. The hype was longer than the race itself. It was over in 21.47, as Weber-Gale took the race. At 21.65, Wildman-Tobriner out touched Cullen Jones, who finished third at 21.81. Mind you, as I was only watching the black arms, I thought Cullen Jones had won the race. In the slow-mo replay, I saw that he took an extra stroke at the wall, as he had done throughout the Olympic trials, coming in 3rd each time. When he won his heat in the prelims, that extra stroke was absent.

So, I am disappointed that Cullen Jones didn’t dominate at the Olympic trials, but I am glad that he made the team in the 100 free, and will likely be on the 4 x 100 relay team.

If you blinked last night, like I did, you missed Cullen Jones in the 50 M semi-finals. I was all, NBC is wrong for that! I was fussing!

But we have a DVR, and I asked my husband to rewind it. And it was such a short clip that I almost missed it again! My husband had to explain to me that it was a high-light, not an actual race. I began a whole new round of ‘NBC was wrong for that!’

And I did what I do every day anyway. I checked nbcolympics.com, and I watched the whole race. So it was two heats. The first heat featured the two hyphenated dudes that swam the 100 M free–Wildman-Tobriner and Weber-Gale. Blah, blah, they came in 1 and 2. The second heat featured Cullen Jones and Gary Hall, jr., who was going for his 4th Olympics. Going into the race, Cullen Jones was the US record holder in the 50 M free, and Wildman-Tobriner, the world record holder.

Cullen Jones swam like I’ve come to expect him to swim. He starts slow, and then grows in speed until the last 15 M, when he races and reaches for the wall. Unlike his finish in the 100M, however, this time he didn’t take an extra stroke before touching the wall. He just reached and glided, and touched the wall first. His time of 21.71 ensured that he won his heat, and was second overall behind Wildman-Tobriner, whose time was 21.65.

The times to beat are Jones’ American record time, which he set earlier in the day at 21.59, and Wildman-Tobriner’s world record time, set last year at 21.28.

The finals are tonight. I can hardly wait.

The 100M trials final last night was a field of big men. The average height of swimmers in finals was 6′4″. At 6′5″, Cullen Jones may have been lost in the field if it hadn’t been for his dark skin. While the commentators went on and on about Jason Lezak and his advantages and disadvantages, and Garret Weber-Gale and his strength and speed, I watched Cullen Jones.

He was slightly behind the pack at the turn, and did a slow burn towards the finish. There were few people pulling ahead the whole race. I noticed the swimmer in lane 7, (Ben Wildman-Tobriner), next to Jones, speeding up. The commentators mentioned that Wildman-Tobriner was challenging the leader. Then I watched Jones pull closer to the wall. “He won,” I shouted. Then I saw the names of number one and two in the water. Weber-Gale and Lezak. Jones came in third.

Then I heard the commentator say that Cullen Jones is a first time Olympian, and they do take the top 6. Phew!

Weber-Gale’s first place time was 47.92. Jason Lezak came in at 48.05, and Cullen Jones finished at 48.35. For perspective, the guy who came in 8th clocked a time of 48.93. It was a close race indeed.