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.

If you follow Cullen Jones, like I do, there’s no new news here; his near drowning as a boy is repeated, his Olympic gold is celebrated, etc.

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.

I remember putting my second born, as a fearless 3 year old in swim lessons for the first time. He stayed at the edge of the pull, threatening to fall in at any minute. His swim instructors were young girls who couldn’t even pronounce his name properly. As an observer from across the room, I was helpless to keep him safe. I wanted to scream, “WATCH MY BABY! CAN’T YOU SEE HE’S ABOUT TO FALL IN THE POOL ANY MINUTE?!!!”

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.

It’s been almost a month since a severe drowning tragedy in Louisiana. On August 3rd, 7 teens playing in the water at a Shreveport, LA park fell into a sinkhole. Each non-swimming teen tried to save another, all drowned but 1. Even more horrific: the children who drowned were siblings from 2 different families. And the most horrific? Their parents watched helpless, as the children screamed, “help me!”–because none of the adults could swim, either.

I don’t know what else it will take to get people in the water to learn how to save themselves; others! This makes me think of Wanda Butts. That poor woman lost her son, and then had the strength to start a foundation in his name, The Josh Project, so nobody else would have to lose their child to drowning. But children are drowning daily. What will it take to eradicate this plague? There is no small pox in America any more. This is doable. But we have to make it a priority. We have to act.

My daughter, a lifeguard, is competing in the Miss Michigan USA pageant next weekend. Her charity is the Make a Splash Foundation. She too was heartbroken when she heard this story. If she could learn to swim, with her issues about getting her face wet, extreme fear of the water, and lack of buoyancy, anyone can!

While I’m talking, I still have 2 non-swimming children. I took them down to the pool for lessons as soon as I could after hearing this story. Will you join me?

Here’s another story from our Lake Michigan trip. Of 5 little girls, 1 is a non-swimmer. The 7 year old had her first swim lesson this summer, but was afraid to get her face wet. Her mother had her do a few bobs in the lake, then she watched my 8 year old doing streamlines and kicking. She told her daughter to do that, and she got the hang of it! She started streamlining, and trying everything else the little fish girls were doing. She wanted to stay in the water, splashing and playing like she was born again. It is so exciting when swimming clicks for someone!