That was back when I was schooling two children and having babies and what not.

I found out that I can’t legally teach everything, (hello, driver’s ed!), and I physically can’t teacher other things, not the least of which is swimming!

I can’t do much more than get the kids to the pool and have them practice what someone else taught them. So imagine my relief and joy when I was able to coach my 9 year old to dive yesterday at my brother and sister-in-law’s pool.

It was a lovely scene. I’m holding the 3 year old, who’s doing her usual flailing and trying to get away, but don’t you dare put me down mommy dance, and I’m watching the 7 year old who knows enough about swimming to scare me to death as he inches toward the deep water. Meanwhile, my 11 year old, who knows how to dive, but refuses, was doing something I no doubt considered slacking, because she wasn’t swimming laps and she wasn’t using the diving board. At least she wasn’t drowning, either.

The 7 year old is very driven and competitive, and she wanted to learn to dive. I have so many children that I could have sworn we’d been through this drill before–last year, actually. That was probably with the 11 year old…

Anyway, I’m barking out commands the whole time, rocking my old lady cap again. “tuck your chin,…” “I know,” she interrupts, and she demonstrates what to do with her arms. “Streamline!” I am a drill sergeant with this poor kid. I command the 11 year old to dive and show her sister how it’s done. Eleven year old is not thrilled to dive, even though she is a born teacher if I’ve ever seen one.

I am watching 7 year old, holding 3 year old, commanding 9 year old to squat and do a granny dive/baby dive, and telling her big sister to demonstrate. We are the only people in the pool at the time, but there are several adults having a barbecue behind us.

I am embarrassed by my loud forcefulness, but that’s me in the pool with the kids. All fun and games.

After a while, 9 year old gets the hang of the baby dives and is ready to stand and dive off the board. She does it! We are thrilled. She tries again, and it looks like a flop to me. “Was that a flop or a dive?” I ask her. She doesn’t know. “Does it hurt? If it hurts, it’s a flop. If it doesn’t, it’s a dive.” One of the adults at the barbecue laughs at my assessment. It hurt.

Unfased, 9 year old continues at it until she can consistently dive. Then she was ready for a canonball.

Which inspired 7 year old to do canonballs in the shallow end, and I’m thinking, is it time to go yet?

I had an unusual challenge at the aforementioned family reunion. We had a formal banquet on Saturday evening. That in and of itself was not unusual; I’m sure many families do the same. But after traveling 15 hours to get there, living out of a suitcase, and taking two young children who EXPECTED to use the pool?

I worried just a touch about that formal evening.

Just in case, I had packed all my hair products and tools, so if I had to wash my hair, I could. But I didn’t really want to add Memphis humidity to the mix of stress when it came to my hair on this already stressful trip.

So I wore my old lady swim cap.

This cap is tight, and I already had a headache, not to mention the fact that I’m usually ashamed to be seen in it. But I knew it would protect my hair from all the splashing involved with swimming with children. I also knew that I would have my hands full with my 3 year old who thinks she can swim, so I hold her as tightly as I can while simultaneously letting her kick and wiggle like a fish.

To my surprise, I got compliments for my cap! And I looked around and saw other women wearing clear shower caps, and I had to admit that my flower cap was actually pretty. And it went with my suit, so that was a bonus. I looked pulled together, in spite of myself.

I have also noted that this cap will keep the hair dry if you don’t swim on your back, so that’s a bonus too, if you’re looking to swim without getting your hair wet.

I know, swimming and dry hair do not go together, and it sounds ridiculous to even mention it, but it really comes in handy if you’re swimming laps in the 10 degree winter, or you go to a family reunion in Memphis and need to look good later that night.

She and my father were Peace Corps volunteers in the mid 60s. A swimming test was part of the entrance exam. My parents were a typical black couple–non-swimmers. My mother learned the back stroke for the Peace Corps. The only stroke she ever learned was the back stroke. She wore a nose plug when she swam, and she kicked dainty little splash free kicks.

My mother loved the water, the beach, and, especially, Esther Williams movies. When she got older, my mother took water aerobics.

I am sure my mother’s attitude towards the water contributed to my brother and my love of swimming.

You don’t have to become a swim star to instill a love of water in your children.

Although the idea of football players striking is not palatable or exciting, I just heard a good story to come out of the labor dispute.

The Kansas City Chief’s Leonard Pope saved a boy from drowning. Pope was in his home town, not at training camp, (see, 1 benefit!) and he was the sole adult swimmer at a pool party. Swimmers! Every pool party needs one!

When Pope heard his high school friend, mother of 6 year old Bryson Moore screaming bloody murder, the Kansas City tight end went into super hero mode, dove in the pool, and rescued the child.

This story was about such a close call! I don’t even want to go there thinking about all the non-swimmers attending a swimming party–except to say, they shouldn’t have!

But my mind keeps going to the hero here. How is it that Leonard Pope bucked the trend and learned to swim? Not only did he learn to swim, but he had enough skills to save someone’s life? I don’t think it’s that uncommon for a professional athlete to know how to swim. Have you noticed how many pro athletes are proficient in other sports? I wonder if there’s a correlation between the strength, courage and confidence to excel in a sport–to the professional level, and the courage and confidence it takes to swim well enough to save yourself (or someone else)?

I think about my brother, who was a semi-pro football player, proficient in swimming, tennis, golf, cycling–maybe it’s an interest in physically bettering yourself, or maybe it’s a certain physical awareness that all athletes have.

This is worth closer examination. I notice that on one of my favorite reality shows, The Biggest Loser, the staff on the show seeks to fight morbid obesity through turning fat people into elite athletes. If they start off not knowing how to swim, they don’t stay that way. Just sayin’.

But I do take issue with this article I just read from Essence.com. I don’t know why I expected more, but when this is the stuff that turns up in a google search on black swimming, you just want to throw your hands up and say, “really?”

Black women don’t swim because it makes their hair ugly, the article says. Then it goes onto say that ugly hair is more than just a cosmetic issue, and more victimization jargon, etc., etc.

I would have bought that argument back in the day, but have you ever seen what chlorine does to white hair? Turns it green, sometimes. Strips it, makes it stringy, you name it.

Chlorine does not discriminate.

So you take a few extra precautions with your hair and you move on. Do you let that put your life at risk? Is the trade-off worth it?

I don’t buy that argument for our lack of swim skills. It is superficial and weak. The real answer is more entrenched than even hair issues.

Generational fear is difficult to overcome. And it hides behind issues like hair and racism. You have to face it head on if you’re going to learn to swim and reverse the tragic drowning rate.

Are we willing to move the dialog towards courage and freedom? Or do we keep it on the level of stereotypes and superficiality?

There are more children at the Y during spring break, and my daughter ran into a non-swimmer. The young black girl jumped in the pool and didn’t know what to do when she found herself drifting away from the wall. She asked the lifeguard, (my daughter), for flotation devices. My daughter gave her some noodles, and soon discovered that the girl did not know how to use them.

The non-swimmer found herself stuck on the lane line with her feet flying out from underneath herself. She screamed bloody murder until my daughter jumped in and rescued her.

The poor girl gripping the lane line, clueless as to what to do–it reminded me of a hapless kitty suddenly finding themselves in the water.

The girl left the pool, embarrassed. I hope that’s not her last time in the water. A few swim lessons can de-catify the scariest pool visitors.

Some people are all-around athletes. Milt Campbell, 1956 gold medal decathlete, was one of those people.

Recently featured in the International Swimming Hall of Fame, (ISHOF),the Olympic champion told his story to Bruce Wigo, president of ISHOF.

It wouldn’t be surprising that a decathlete would be a strong swimmer, but, given Campbell’s race, it wasn’t obvious. His own teammates had to be convinced by his superior athletic skills that swimming was a good third sport for this dynamic athlete.

Good coaching didn’t hurt. His coach was hall of fame hero Victor Liske, who saw potential in young Campbell. Despite my great love for the sport, I’ve never joined a swim team, because I don’t think I swim well enough. Campbell didn’t suffer from that problem. He was confident in his proficiency as a swimmer, having learned as a child from his father. Did he start out a strong swimmer in High School? No. But Campbell flourished under coach Liske’s cultivation, becoming the team’s strongest sprinter by his sophomore year.

Since swimming was not his main sport, Campbell cut his swim career short in pursuit of his Olympic dreams. Many are convinced he could have been an aquatic Olympian, had he stuck with swimming.

His championing of Make a Splash is not news either, but his dedication to the program is impressive. In the Ebony/Jet article, Jones says his most important achievement is the success of his participation in Make a Splash.

In his second year of touring the country in support of Make a Splash, Cullen Jones visited the Shreveport Louisiana site of the most horrific drowning incident ever.

Jones’s empathy is palpable in this article. He is encouraging to beginning swimmers and swim team competitors alike, recalling how he didn’t get serious about swimming until his junior year in High School.

Who does that? Go from winning pink ribbons to gold medals in under 10 years?

You should read the whole article to get the full impact. Then head over to Bet.com and read how Cullen Jones makes swimming cool.

I recently read in a forum on Diversity in Aquatics how the black media didn’t take up the story about Sherry from the View learning to swim. Well, Cullen Jones has been in the National spotlight for at least three years now, and he’s been touring with Make a Splash for two years, and here are some black media outlets picking up on that.

Maybe by the time Sherry is competing in Masters Swimming (if she goes that route) the black media will pick it up.

Maybe Cullen will have accomplished his goal of waterproofing black kids by then.

From USASwimming.org:

In July 2009, USA Swimming initiated a collaborative partnership with four swim teams in the city of Detroit. The purpose of this two year project is to learn how USA Swimming can help impact swimming in an underserved urban environment by providing expertise in the form of clinics, site visits and coach mentoring. As a pilot program, the goal is to develop a working model of programming that is transferable to other similar environments. USA Swimming thanks the outstanding swimmers, coaches and parents of the Tigersharks Swim Team, Leroy Dues Swim Team, Razor Aquatics and the Detroit Recreation Swim Team for their enthusiastic participation and collaboration in this project.

And I am a swimmer.

It would be too much if I couldn’t swim. A new USA swimming study had the same findings. It was like another piece to the puzzle I’m fussing with here. I had read before that Black parents, out of fear, turn down free swim lessons. I had assumed that the fear they were talking about was personal fear, ie., ‘I can’t swim, so I stay away from the water. I can keep my children safe by keeping them away from the water.’

But this study shows it’s more a fear of watching your child drown while learning how to swim. This fear doesn’t go away once the children learn to swim, either. I can’t imagine anything more horrifying than watching helpless as my child drowned. That is the fear that paralyzes too many black parents.

So my conclusion is the same as it was last time. We as parents must learn to swim. It is key to saving our children from drowning.