I wish I’d stumbled upon this list from the International Swimming Hall of Fame earlier! I could have been all sweet and relevant and had a new entry for most of the days of Black History Month. But, alas, I didn’t. Here we are at the last day of the month, and I’m only on #6. That won’t stop me, though. I’ll keep talking about our history into March. Then I’ll look for more history into April, and so on. . . We can’t be contained in one month!

Tonight I bring you Fred Evans. His distinction as ‘first’ is as the first black swimmer to win a national collegiate championship. From his LinkedIn page, I give you his swimming achievements in a nutshell:

Mr. Evans was the NAIA National Champion in Swimming thus being recognized as the First African American National Collegiate Champion. He was also a three time NCAA Division II National Champion in the 100 yard Breaststroke and National Record Holder from 1975, 76, 77 and also held the record in 1978. Mr. Evans continued his career as an influential Swim Coach throughout the Chicago area for more than 25 years.

In 1983 Mr. Evans was honored by the International Swimming Hall of Fame and has been honored with Resolutions from the State of Illinois, Washington, D.C. He was inducted into the Washington DC Hall of Fame for his achievements in swimming and the community.

Fred Evans furthers the idea that swimming success equips you for greatness. I look forward to our next ‘first!’

Tonight we focus on the NCAA. Our ‘First” is The first black swimmer to score in an NCAA championship final. Nate Clark holds that distinction. He was a sophomore at Ohio State from Pittsburgh in 1962 when he did it.
Butterfly was Clark’s stroke, and he placed 5th in the 200 meter butterfly in the 1962 NCAA championships.

In 1960, Clark was the first black swimmer to receive a full scholarship in swimming to a major college (Ohio State). Clark made All American at Ohio State in 1961, 1962 and 1963 in the 100 and 200 meter butterfly. At the time that Clark received his scholarship to Ohio State University, Ohio State was the top swimming school in the country. In high school, Clark broke the National Scholastic Record in the 100 meter Butterfly.

Read more about this great athlete here.

This is also the 4th of 20 Black History Swimming firsts. Andrew Young, who became U.S. Ambassador to the UN in 1976, and Mayor of Atlanta in 1981, was also a collegiate swimmer. He received swimming’s highest honor, The International Swimming Hall of Fame’s Gold Medallion Award, because has achieved national or international recognition in government, business, science, entertainment education or the arts.

Tonight we learn about the first Black swimmer to win the Navy medal for heroism. Charles Jackson French, 23, a “Negro mess attendant” from Foreman, Arkansas, was commended by Admiral William Halsey, Jr. and awarded the Navy Medal in 1943 for swimming 6 – 8 hours in shark invested waters, towing a raft filled with 15 wounded (white) sailors to safety, after their ship was sunk by the Japanese off the Solomon Islands. The raft was drifting toward Japanese occupied territory and if it had washed ashore, the sailors would have either been taken prisoners of war or killed. The raft was eventually rescued at sea by an American craft. “His conduct was in keeping with the highest traditions of the naval service.”

I can’t even imagine swimming 6-8 hours, let alone in shark infested water! French definitely earned his medal! Also of note is the year. 1943 was very segregated back in America. I wonder what life was like for this hero after he returned home.

Oh, that’s nothing to write home (or blogs) about, but I would like to have a record of when I hit the pool here.

It’s been a tradition for me to celebrate my birthday by going swimming since 2003. I bucked the trend this year by swimming a day early. I have a hair appointment on my birthday, see, so it was today or forget it.

And of course the temperature was 10 degrees colder than it had been yesterday. I didn’t let that deter me.

I was really tired in the pool, though. That was a disappointment after last month, when swimming was easier than ever. I thought maybe I was worn out from cardio tennis yesterday. Or maybe it was the fact that I was hungry. Whatever it was, I had to fight for my yardage today, and even went back to catching my breath at the wall.

My IM time was a second slower than last time; I was pretty proud of that, considering how much I struggled today. In the end, I swam 900 yards. I hope to swim sooner than in a month, and to add 100 yards to my set.

Tonight’s black history moment connects two unlikely sports, swimming and boxing. Peter Jackson, of St. Croix US Virgin Islands was the first black swimmer to become a world boxing champion. If he was the first, there must have been others, no? Jack Johnson, the first “colored” boxer to win the world boxing championship in 1908 was also a swimmer.

That was several years after Peter Jackson’s career. Jackson won several swimming championships in Australia and taught swimming at the Cavill Swimming School in Sydney before winning the “Colored” boxing champion of the world in San Francisco, in 1883. The “white” champion, John L. Sullivan, refused to fight Jackson. “If God wanted me to fight Jackson,” said Sullivan, “he would have made him a white man.”

I think it’s interesting that it took 25 years for boxing to eliminate color lines that didn’t even exist in swimming during the same time period. We have a rich swimming history, indeed.