Check this dude out. Naji Ali just started swimming last year, and in October, he swam across the Golden Gate bridge.

I love what he has to say about it: “After 1 hour and 29 minutes, the swim was over. I should clarify that: after 1 year, 1 hour and 29 minutes, the swim was over. You see, the date that I did this swim was also the date – exactly one year ago – that I learned to swim. Like so many other African Americans, I bought into the ludicrous notion that we couldn’t swim. We were meant to play sports like track, basketball and football and I bought into this myth. And if you looked at the stats on drowning, maybe folks were right to say this. Nationally, African Americans and Hispanics drown at a rate nearly three times that of whites.”

“That’s one of the man reasons why I did the swim: to hopefully get more people of color involved in swimming and open water swimming in particular. My 10K from the Golden Gate Bridge to the Bay Bridge was only a prequel to what I plan on doing in the open water. I have dreams of swimming the width of Lake Tahoe, doing a relay in the Catalina Channel, another relay in the English Channel and, hopefully, both of these solo swims in the future. But above all, I have one ultimate goal: to get more kids of color into the water and develop great open water swimmers, maybe even the next Charles Chapman, the first African American to swim the English Channel and around Manhattan Island.”

Go on, then! And I love his reason. I never thought of it that way, but I think when you come to swimming late after overcoming some hang ups–especially overcoming fear–you become a kind of swim evangelist. And I think that’s what we need to turn that drowning rate around. It’s so good to see people actually doing something to address this problem.

I will be on the lookout for more role models and swim heroes. I will continue to chronicle my daughter’s journey towards lifeguard certification. And, God willing, I will go back to the pool as soon as possible and write my own swim story.