Why swimming lessons and water safety should matter in the Black community

The Hump Day Hot Topic!

Yesterday, I had the privilege to serve as a chaperone for my daughter and her friends in the Florida A&M University Forestry Camp during their trip to Apalachicola Bay where, for several hours, they learned the intricacies of net fishing and plant wildlife in the estuaries that spill into the Gulf of Mexico. 

On Florida’s Gulf Coast

Each summer, FAMU Professor Kim Davis (l) provides budding scientists with rich experiences to expand their minds…

As I watched the children enjoy fishing and swimming in the shallow water, I was not surprised to hear a few say that they preferred to stay closer to the shore because they were not very good swimmers. My lack of surprise stems from 50 years of having Black friends who will catch rays on the beach, or sit beside a pool, but will NOT go into the depths because they never learned how to swim!

In fact, one of the more macabre jokes from my childhood days at FAMU High School (K-12) was when some of my friends would jest that Black people don't like boats or swimming in the water because "that's how our ancestors got dragged across the Atlantic into slavery."

Point taken...

Nevertheless, the following statistics from the USA Swimming Foundation are no laughing matter:

• 64% of African American children do not know how to swim (compared to 40% of Caucasian children).

• 79% of children in families that earn less than $50,000 a year do not know how to swim.

• 76% of parents report that their children would be more interested in taking up swimming if they saw a talented swimmer that looked like them.

Even more points taken...

When I was a kid, I knew that neither of my parents had learned how to swim in their youth, and neither were all that into going to the beach or hanging out at pool parties thrown by their friends during their adulthoods. What I also remember is that while my father had a personal aversion to swimming, that he was adamant that I learn how, thus, my very first lessons at the Walker-Ford Community Center when our family moved to Florida in 1980. 

Three decades later, I was nearly 40-years-old when an old Army friend of my father’s named Capt. Charles Haywood reached out to me via e-mail after seeing me on CNN following a major case I handled back in 2012. Cpt. Haywood and I conversed at length about how he met Dad at Fort Benning during Ranger School in 1963, and how despite his physical prowess as a football player and razor sharp marksmanship, that my father was booted from the School because he did not pass the swimming examination. Now Dad, a very proud man who would still become a distinguished officer and Vietnam War veteran, never told me that story during our 28 years together; when Cpt. Haywood relayed the truth, I realized instantly why my old man took such a keen interest in my learning to swim!

A few years after I started swimming lessons at Walker-Ford, during the Summer of '84, a few of my best friends from FAMU High were learning some entry level lifeguard skills on FAMU's campus during the Jack and Jill of America “Kids Get Smart” program. One afternoon, I made the unwise decision to eat a leftover smothered cubed steak sandwich (one of my faves), Pringles chips, and an orange soda before we headed to the pool. Part of the assignment that afternoon included our instructor dropping a nice sized brick in between the 10 to 15 feet depths of the pool, afterwhich each of us was assigned to jump into the pool, tread water for several minutes, then submerge, pick up the brick, and push back up to place it on the side of the pool. 

Sure enough, young "greedy" Hobbs started cramping while treading water and when I submerged to get the brick, the stomach pains were giving me all sorts of trouble. I then looked up while under water to see one of my best friends and classmates, Brian Holiday, darting towards me as he helped lift me back up for air and to the side of the pool; I will remain in his debt forever.

My friend Brian Holiday (l) with me at FAMU's 2018 Homecoming football game

Years later during my college days, cognizant that Black swimming rates were abysmal, Morehouse College, whose “Tiger Sharks” were once considered the dominant swimming program in HBCU sports, offered swimming to its students under the tutelage of Physical Education Coach Gary Wyatt.

Under the leadership of legendary Coach James “Pinky” Haines (Nupe), The Morehouse Tiger Sharks were 255-25 from 1958 to 1976; during this stretch, the team once went 115 meets without a loss! The Tiger Sharks won 14 SIAC championships and is still considered the greatest sports program in school history.

Like several of my Morehouse friends, I procrastinated and put the course off until the very last semester of my senior year of college. Meaning, it was early January...in Atlanta...with daily temps reaching a high of 30°—if lucky. But since I needed the course to graduate that May, I had to suck it up and get to work. 

Well, I missed the first class session that January because I woke up, decided it was too cold to swim (even in our heated pool), and went back to sleep instead. Later that day, I ran into one of my friends, Eric "Special Ed" Brown, and he told me that the coach made everyone who was an experienced swimmer lap the pool for what seemed like an eternity while showing all of the different crawls that he commanded. Ed continued, "dude, when you come next week, tell him you don't know how to swim so that you can chill in the shallow end with the beginners who are learning to breathe underwater with the intern." And so I did, as I spent the entire semester trying desperately to act like I couldn't swim—when I most certainly could. 

Special Ed, now known as Eric Brown, M.D. (back with dark sweater), with Hobbs and friends from “The Durty South” at Morehouse Homecoming 2013…

That semester, I often spent time in the shallow end helping some of my classmates master techniques that the intern was teaching. By semester's end in late April, I was right back to where I was during the summer of '84 with my boy Brian Holiday, as the final exam compelled us to dive into the deep end of the pool while fully clothed, after which we were to tread water while removing our pants underwater to make a personal flotation device; after floating for several minutes with the make-shift denim jeans flotation devices, we were then tasked with swimming the length of the pool doing the American crawl, and swim back to the deep end while doing the backwards crawl. 

Well, Hobbs being Hobbs, I used that final exam to show out; I dove in like an Olympic medalist and performed all of the tasks with ease. As I emerged from the water, coach had a smirk on his face and said, "Hobbs, I thought you told me at the beginning of the semester that you couldn't swim?" I grinned and replied, "I couldn't—but you were a great teacher, coach!" 

Ah, the spirit of youth!

Members of the North Carolina A&T women’s swimming team circa 2016; the team was later discontinued. This past December, USA Swimming, the sport’s governing board, announced a “10-year, $1 million initiative to develop learn-to-swim and competitive opportunities in communities served by Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs).”

While writing today's blog, I did so with fond remembrances of many spring, summer, and winter days gone by where I had fun (and got great exercise) in a pool, lake, or country creek while swimming. More crucially, I know that in the event of a mishap on water, that I still have the requisite skills to save my life and, if they are not struggling wildly, to save others. (Yes, all these years later, the "push them away and save yourself" instruction for water safety still strikes me as a tad odd, even if totally logical). Such is why I implore all of my readers who have yet to learn how to swim to take the plunge—literally—and add a regimen that works out every muscle in your body, while being easy on achy joints and bones!