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I just saw a video of Cullen Jones on the Today Show. A few things stood out to me. One was how far Black History Month has slipped down on my priority list.

I’m pretty sure I dredged up as much black swimming history as I could last year, and posted just about every day in February.

This year, I’ve been focusing on other things. I haven’t meant to neglect the blog, but it has become a casualty of new priorities.

That said, something in the Cullen Jones interview really touched me. The video included a reenactment of his near-drowning incident at the age of 5. Just seeing the water, and hearing Cullen’s recollection of how he saw water, then blacked out made the incident come into focus. It was no longer a statistical blip, but it had been a real, life-changing moment in time.

His mother could have done what so many non-swimming parents do when they come that close to a drowning–she could have tried to keep her child as far from the water as she could, for the rest of his life. Instead, she made the opposite choice. She enrolled him in swim lessons as soon as she could.

Cullen Jones could have just learned to swim, been successfully waterproofed, and gone on with his life. Instead, he caught the bug, and hasn’t let swimming go yet.

I can understand that. Overcoming fear is intoxicating. Then it moved on to something else for Jones. Maybe he had other fears, like losing, or not measuring up and what-not. But more likely, he used the courage gained in learning to swim and ran with it, realizing there was nothing stopping him.

And now he’s doing his part to spread the bug. Some of the children he teaches to swim will be waterproofed and go on with their lives. But some? Lets just say the Olympic pools 15-20 years from now might look a lot darker.

A Brooklyn teacher is about to get a tough lesson in the power of social media. After making a callous remark on her cell phone about a beach field trip that had resulted in a student’s death, her friend took the discussion to Facebook.

When her friend asked the teacher if she wouldn’t throw a life-jacket, she responded, “No. I wouldn’t for a million dollars.”

During her phone conversation, the teacher also commented, “I hate their guts!”

The Facebook remark was copied and forwarded to the school’s vice principal. The teacher is now fighting for her job, claiming that she does a good job, and those comments were supposed to be private.

She picked the wrong time and forum to vent.

Sabir Muhammad, famed swimmer, has just told his story in a children’s book. Full of positive role models, beautiful watercolor illustrations, and plenty of examples of black swimmers, Born To Swim
is a must have.

Some people are all-around athletes. Milt Campbell, 1956 gold medal decathlete, was one of those people.

Recently featured in the International Swimming Hall of Fame, (ISHOF),the Olympic champion told his story to Bruce Wigo, president of ISHOF.

It wouldn’t be surprising that a decathlete would be a strong swimmer, but, given Campbell’s race, it wasn’t obvious. His own teammates had to be convinced by his superior athletic skills that swimming was a good third sport for this dynamic athlete.

Good coaching didn’t hurt. His coach was hall of fame hero Victor Liske, who saw potential in young Campbell. Despite my great love for the sport, I’ve never joined a swim team, because I don’t think I swim well enough. Campbell didn’t suffer from that problem. He was confident in his proficiency as a swimmer, having learned as a child from his father. Did he start out a strong swimmer in High School? No. But Campbell flourished under coach Liske’s cultivation, becoming the team’s strongest sprinter by his sophomore year.

Since swimming was not his main sport, Campbell cut his swim career short in pursuit of his Olympic dreams. Many are convinced he could have been an aquatic Olympian, had he stuck with swimming.