Sabir Muhammed is a good example of black swimmers being encouraged by other black swimmers. He began as a youngster on the City of Atlanta Dolphins (CAD) swim team, the second largest black swim team in the country. He said he and his teammates didn’t know that what they were doing was not something most black kids did.

That’s like my cousins growing up in Chicago.  They went to an all black high school, and all swam on the swim team. I was in awe of that. To have been able to do that. . .

Back to Sabir Muhammed.  He was the first black swimmer at Stanford University in 1994. He finished in the top 16 in the 1996 Olympic trials. Unfortunately, he never realized his Olympic dream.

That wasn’t the end of swimming for Muhammed, though. He also recognizes how dangerous it is for young black kids not to know how to swim. In 2001, he created Swim for Life! which was the basis for the Make a Splash program I mentioned here.  Running the program in Atlanta, Muhammed ran into issues like pool renovation and maintanance, which were expensive hurdles. Then came other issues like scheduling and standardization of how lessons were taught.

When USA Swimming chose Atlanta as the first site for Make a Splash in 2004, Swim for Life! had paved the way, and the two sort of merged.

Sabir Muhammed continues to encourage young swimmers, as he was spotted at an Atlanta children’s swim meet recently. And he still swims, having just competed in the US Nationals.

So he reached for the pinnacle of his sport, took action against drowning, and continues to swim to this day. Sounds like a role model to me.