If you’re a young swimmer in the Memphis area, have I got the swim clinic for you!

Make a Splash mid-south is hosting the 2nd annual Diversity in Swimming clinic and developmental meet for beginning swimmers March 27. The event will be held at the University of Memphis Student Recreation and Fitness Center from 9 AM -1PM.

The meet is for young and developing swimmers from 5-18 years old. Swimmers will be teamed with experienced swimmers, including Olympian Gil Stovall of Memphis.

I wish we had something like this around here! You just don’t want to miss this opportunity!

Register for the event at www.memphistigerswimming.com or by calling Carla Mabie at 901-763-1709. Cost is $30 per swimmer.

I’m so dedicated to my readers and my swim blog that I went back to the pool just in time for my top 20 countdown to wrap up. Don’t you feel special?

But seriously, it was about that time, so I took myself to the pool this morning. It started off slow and sluggish, and I thought my IM time would be much slower than last time. But I was wrong! I actually shaved 5 + seconds off my last time, coming in at 2.46.39.

Pleased with myself I decided to force myself to swim more freestyle, and I ended up swimming more free than any other stroke. I swam 1000 yards total.

Now it’s time to talk swimsuits. I must say that I LOVE my suit. I’ve had it for 5 years, and it is still in great shape. I don’t know if that’s because I’ve spent many of my lap-swimming hours in maternity suits, and there was a brief stint in a speedo, which has completely disintegrated on the sides. But my Ocean suit is a keeper.

I bought it back in 2005 when I started swimming seriously. It was my second real racing suit, bought on the cheap because I was still buying racing suits for my daughter every time I turned around. I decided to buy my suit for around $20, and spend a bit more on a ‘real’ suit for my daughter. She went through her suit and mine was still in great shape. I bought her an ocean suit. The suit outlasted her swim career. (She quit swimming in 2006, and the suit looked good until 2008).

The suit is good because it keeps its shape; it doesn’t get all baggy or thin, like the nylon/spandex suits. The suit I have is 91% polyester/9 % spandex, with a 100% polyester lining.

I can’t find the exact suit online. I notice that the prices are higher than what I paid, but I would go here if I had to replace my suit. That 100% polyester unitard is kind of interesting looking.

Do you have a favorite swim suit that has held together for the hard workouts?

Morehouse College

The Morehouse Tigersharks, (as opposed to the Tigers, the Colleges real mascot), was Morehouse’s powerhouse swim team. From 1958-1976 the swim team had 255 wins and 25 losses, making it the winningest sports team in Morehouse history. During these glory years, the Morehouse swim team beat Emory and Georgia Tech in dual swim meets. Morehouse is being considered as honorary inductees into the International Swimming Hall of Fame in Fort Lauderdale, FL.

The team was disestablished in 1976 to build a School of Medicine. That’s an interesting way to deal with a winning team, I guess. Maybe they didn’t want to be famous for swimming.

Drumroll, please.

And the 20th Black History Swim First is: The first black swimmer to hold a world record.

That would be Cullen Jones, who was part of the world record setting US 4×100 relay team in 2006.

Here’s a little swimtv for you to relive that moment:

After tomorrow, I’ll have to return to scrounging for what to post. Let me savor this series while I can.

Tonight’s firsts are about water polo. There were two black swimmers to first make the US Olympic Water Polo team: Genai Kerr, a goalkeeper from San Diego and UC Irvine, and Omar Amr, an attacker from Irvine and UC Irvine were both members of the 2004 team that competed in Athens.

Genai Kerr is a 6’8″ goalie who started playing water polo by accident. He followed the whistles to what he thought was a basketball game. .. to the pool.

In addition to his Olympic appearance, Kerr has played in several Pan Pacific games and FINA World Championships since 2001. The 2000 UC Irvine graduate keeps playing water polo in hopes of getting a gold medal.

I can’t find much about Omar Anr, except that he played on the US Water Polo team (2001)while attending Harvard Medical School and recovering from a serious knee injury. He is 5’11″ and plays driver, which is like a point guard in basketball, as well as center defender.

I hope to see both of these men on team USA in 2012.

Can I already be on #18? How can it be? And I’m sensing a theme here. It’s our third Maritza Correia ‘first.’ Can you even have a third first? That seems so counter-intuitive. Maritza managed to pull it off, though. Her third first is that she was the first black female swimmer to make the US Olympic team.

The year was 2004, and Maritza was part of the 400 free relay team. They won a silver medal. Correia retired from swimming in 2008 before her father died. She was able to spend time with him and nurse a sore shoulder. Now Maritza keeps busy with many speaking engagements and efforts to increase minority swimming literacy.