There was this family at swimming that started just the summer before my kids started swim club. When I say ‘started,’ I mean that they started in the competitive swim club. They had a boy my daughter’s age, 10 at the time, and a son the same age as our son, 7 at the time. Both boys were regular fish, swimming at the top of their age group. My kids struggled to get to the top of the middle.

I asked their mother about their swim background, and she said this was their first time really swimming, but they used to spend every summer on the lake.

My daughter just went to her friend’s house for a running club. Her friend lives on the lake, so she promised there would be swimming after the running. The girls ended up going tubing, my daughter’s first time.

We have friends that include tubing and water skiing as part of every summer activity. And swimming came easy to them, too.

Yet I feel like such a weirdo for liking water parks.

My point is that swimming is part of a water loving lifestyle. There’s a lot of talk about black people not having access to pools, and that being a barrier to swimming in our community. But I think there’s more to it than economics. I think that the lifestyle of being in the sun and around water is not one that many of us choose.

I remember going to the park with my mother and sister in law and looking out over the lake at the park. I could see docks and boats and houses on the other side of the lake, and I dreamed out loud about having a lake house some day. Neither my mother or sister in law was the least bit interested in that. My husband likes the idea of owning a boat, even though the idea of swimming in a small, man-made lake is completely unappealing to him. And forget about water parks! He’s done after a couple hours, whereas I could be at the water park all day.

Maybe it’s a cycle: don’t like the water, ’cause can’t swim, so I don’t like water. . .

And I’ll tell you that I don’t get the whole lying out in the sun thing. It’s hot, sweaty and boring. But the idea of not going to the beach or the lake ever is not cool. There are so many interesting things to do in the world of water.

I had read about this swimmer in Splash magazine for a couple years. The first black woman on the US Olympic swim team, it said. I saw that last name and thought, hmm, black, huh?

Then I read her story. Maritza Correia was born in Puerto Rico, but moved to US at 7. She was diagnosed with scoliosis in Puerto Rico, and the Dr. recommended swimming to treat her curved spine. She started swimming in the US, and something just clicked.

So she stuck with it, swimming in the age group swim clubs, up through US swimming, and she swam on the University of Georgia swim team. She tried out for the Olympic team in 2000. She was at the top of her game, ready to represent. Maritza, nicknamed Ritz could have swum for her native Puerto Rico, but preferred the challenge of making the US team.

Then she didn’t make the team. Heartbroken, Ritz returned to college, where she had a decision to make. Should she forget about her Olympic dream, or train harder and go for it? After being consoled by her coach and University of Georgia teammates, Ritz decided to go for it!

She trained her butt off. In 2001, Ritz won a gold medal in the 800m freestyle and two bronze medals in the medley and 400m freestyle relay as a member of the U.S. Team at the 2001 World Championship celebrated in Japan. She won both the 50- and 100-yard freestyle in the 2002 NCAA championships, becoming the first African-American woman to win an NCAA championship. In both events, Ritz set American records, bettering the marks of two Olympic gold medalists (Amy Van Dyken and Jenny Thompson) in the process. She also earned seven All-American certificates and she was awarded the Commissioner’s Cup as the high point scorer in the SEC Championships.
In 2003, Correia earned a gold medal swimming on prelim 400 m free relay at the World Championships.

Ritz went all out in the 2004 Olympic trials. She thought if she didn’t make this team, it may be her last shot at it. She went for it. .. and made the team! She had the fourth fastest time in the 100 M free, good enough to represent the USA. Her race in the 2004 Olympics was like the first event, so she missed the opening ceremony. The US relay team won the silver medal in the 4×100 relay. So all her hard work paid off with a silver medal. At the Olympic Games in Athens, Correia was on the silver-medal-winning 400-meter relay team, despite not making the cut as one of the four who swam in the final medal race. It was a disappointing finish to her Olympic experience, but she appreciated every moment nonetheless.

She was young, 22, and came home to finish college, and get ready for another shot at Olympic glory. I was looking forward to finally watching her swim at this year’s Olympics.

But Ritz retired from swimming in April. She cited shoulder injuries as the problem, and she was grateful for the time off from swimming to be able to help take care of her father before he recently passed away.

Ironically, she may be more visible post retirement as a Nike spokesman, a role model to encourage minority children to swim, and she’s featured in Parting the Waters, a swimming documentary.

Why a swimming blog? Well, for some reason, I’m passionate about swimming. I get what the deal is with swimming, even if it’s hard to explain. Maybe if I go back and recount my story it will make more sense.

When I was in Kindergarten, I went to a private school. We went swimming every Friday. I remember being scared to death, and dreading Fridays. Once, I even made myself throw up so I didn’t have to swim. It wasn’t swimming so much as going up and down the pool with a kickboard.

Then I remember going to the Y with my family when I was in the first grade. I watched a man dive off the side of the pool. That looked cool, I thought. Let me try! I hit the water hard, SPLAT! I found out about belly flops the hard way. I didn’t know what I had done wrong.

Around 4th grade, I found myself in another swim class. This time we did something unique—we swam up and down the pool with kickboards. My friend Charlotte had a different swimming story. Her parents threw her in the pool as a baby, and she swam around like a fish.

I wanted to learn how to swim so bad I could taste it in my mouth. Yet I kept getting older and older, and it just didn’t seem to click. What did a kickboard have to do with actual swimming?

to be continued. . .

The well of black swimmers seems to be endless. I found this swimmer, Enith Brigitha with just a little googling. Born in Curacao, Netherlands Antilles, Brigitha swam for Holland in the 70s. She first became a force to be reckoned with in 1970, swimming the 100m free at 1:05.0, while still in Curocao. She moved to Holland in 1971 and made their national team, swimming the 100 at 1:00.5, the 10th best female time that year.

She went to the Olympics in 1972 and won a medal for relay, and had shaved another 20+ seconds off her time in the 100m free. (she also swam the 200m and 400 m freestyle) During that year, Brigitha tried the backstroke for the whimsy of it, and was competitive in that stroke as well.

In 1973, Enith Brigitha won bronze in the first World Championships. By 1974, her time in the 100m free was 57:68. She also had competitive times in backstroke that year, as well as in my favorite event, the individual medley, of IM. The IM is where a swimmer swims one (or more) lengths of four strokes: butterfly, back, breast and freestyle.

In the 1976 Olympics, Brigitha swam: 50, 100, 200, 400 free, 100 IM, and 100 back! That sounds like somebody who loves swimming and is really good at it! She swam the 100 free in 56.61 seconds, winning a bronze medal. She also won bronze in the 200 m freestyle that year.

I’d look like that after swimming that much!

She continued swimming, slowing down just slightly in 1977 to 56.7 in the 100, and adding a couple seconds to her 200 time.

Just another swimmer putting an ax to root of the tree that says black folks can’t swim.

I just found out about this swimmer from Suriname, Anthony Nester. He’s a coach at the University of Florida now, but he won the gold medal for 100m fly in the 1988 Olympics. I also found out about a woman from Dutch Antilles that swam for Holland in the 50s. More on her next time. It’s fascinating to find these Black Olympians of the swim world with a little googling.

Here are the Olympic swim trial dates that I copied from their website.   Let’s watch and count all the black specks!

port                                                              Airdate                   Time                       Network

U.S. Olympic Team Trials, Swimming              Sunday, June 29     8:00-9:00 pm ET          NBC

U.S. Olympic Team Trials, Swimming              Monday, June 30     8:00-9:00 pm ET          USA

U.S. Olympic Team Trials, Swimming              Tuesday, July 1       8:00-9:00 pm ET          USA

U.S. Olympic Team Trials, Swimming              Wednesday, July 2  8:00-9:00 pm ET          USA

U.S. Olympic Team Trials, Swimming              Thursday, July 3      8:00-9:00 pm ET          USA

U.S. Olympic Team Trials, Swimming              Friday, July 4            8:00-9:00 pm ET        NBC

U.S. Olympic Team Trials, Swimming              Saturday, July 5        8:00 -9:00 pm ET       NBC

U.S. Olympic Team Trials, Swimming              Sunday, July 6         8:00 -9:00 pm ET        NBC