Now there’s an idea! A how-to-swim video! Lee Pitts does a great job of telling his own story. Here he’s featured on CBS this Morning.

Part of the Memorial Day weekend National Black Heritage Championship Swim Meet honored some North Carolina swim pioneers. They told of days when blacks may have been prohibited to swim in public pools, so they learned anywhere they could, including back yard pools, and ‘swimming holes.’

Honored swimmers were:

Weston B. Butler, who taught swimming from a young age to Boy and Girl Scouts, and later taught water survival in the military.

Yvonne Lewis Holley, who worked for the Raleigh Department of Parks and Recreation, as a lifeguard in the late 60s through the early 70s. She also worked her way through Howard University by managing indoor pools for the City of D.C. parks and recreation department.

Lee Lewis, Yvonne’s brother, joined the city parks and recreation department at the age of 14. He played tennis in college, (N.C. Central), and joined the swim team in 1973.

Tanya Renee Moore-Boone is proof that swimming proficiency is generational. Her parents were swimmers, and she became a jr. lifeguard at the age of 11. She became a lifeguard after watching her best friend almost drown. Moore-Boone has taught swimming since then, and is co-founder of the NC Aquablazers, a minority AAU year-round swim club that sponsors the heritage swim meet.

Ruth Palmer has been teaching young people to swim since 1988. She has taught over 3,000 black swimmers in her area alone. She gets special joy in teaching senior citizens to swim.

These are heroes in the trenches of turning around that horrific drowning rate. I hope they continue to highlight such swim championships, and I wish the National Black Heritage Championship Swim Meet much success in the future.

I should have known that Howard University would be the school to google in my HBCU swim search.

Rather than boast of one breakthrough swimmer, Howard University has a whole team to be proud of.

At the Coastal Collegiate Swimming Association (CCSA) Championship in February, the men’s 800 free relay team won a bronze medal, and the school set 10 new school records.

A few weeks earlier, Howard hosted the HBCU Championships, winning several events: men’s 200 medley relay, men’s and women’s 1000 free, 200 free, 100 free, 50 free, men’s 200 IM, women’s 100 fly, and men’s 100 back.

Names to be on the lookout for: Jules Graham, Miguel Orellana, Damjan Strbac, Isaiah Allen, Nzingha Murphy, Polo Edwards, Aminah Murphy, Shaun Armstrong, Monique Major, and Damjan Strbac.

That article yesterday got me thinking about other black colleges and their swim programs. Somehow, Morehouse College came to mind, and I googled it.

Turns out, the Atlanta college for men had a decorated swimming history. From 1955-1976, Morehouse was known for swimming. During its existence, the swim team accumulated 255 wins, with just 25 losses and over 15 SIAC championships from 1958 to 1976 resulting in one of the most successful sports team in the Morehouse history.

But the team was dissolved in 1976 due to money, or, rather, the lack thereof. Call me naive, but I just didn’t buy the argument that there is a dirth of black swimmers because of finances. Every sport costs something to pursue or excel, and swimming is not any more expensive than any other, is it? I thought the non-swimming issue was more priorities and generational. ie., one generation didn’t think it was important to learn to swim, or they didn’t learn to swim, and the next generation followed.

Then I run into two stories of successful swim programs or swimmers who were shut down because of a lack of funds. I don’t know what to say.

I ran into an article that excitedly announced the resurrection of the Morehouse swim team. The article is from September 2008. Then I found a follow-up article, written today, which catches us up to date on the Morehouse team.

It almost sounds like an intermural thing, or an extension of gym class at this point. The swim team is to come. But the cool thing is the passion of the coach, Gary Wyatt. He gets the whole love of water, and that could go a long way to re-establishing Morehouse’s dominance in swimming.

One of these days, I can stop writing about the first black swimmer, blah, blah, blah. Until then, check out Mujahid (MJ) El-Amin, from FLorida AM&N (FAMU), who, in 2008 was the first swimmer from a Historically Black College or University to qualify for NCAA Division One championship competition in the 100 M Butterfly. He swims IM, he swims fly, he sprints freestyle–sounds like Michael Phelps territory.

This cat is bad. And so is title IX. In 2005, because of title IX, FAMU was forced to shut down certain men’s programs, like swimming, and to open certain women’s programs like swimming. How did that affect MJ El-Amin? Well, he was on track for the 2008 Olympics, but with the swimming program cut, he couldn’t train for it. Furthermore, he had to get two jobs just to stay in school. He remained loyal to his school, wanting to put FAMU on the map.

Swimming since 3, and on his Atlanta swim team since age 6, MJ got an Olympic qualifying time at the age of 16 for the 2004 Olympics.

I can’t find anything else about him after 2008. He ran into financial difficulties at school during his senior year, also the year of the Olympics. We know he didn’t make the team, but I don’t know whether he had qualified or tried out for the team in 2008. MJ is another swimmer to look for in 2012. Anybody got any information on this phenomenal swimmer?