By: Marc Morial
President and CEO
National Urban League
One of the most thrilling moments of the 2008 Summer Olympic games in Beijing was the Gold Medal performance by swimming phenom Michael Phelps and his teammates, Jason Lezak, Garrett Weber-Gale and Cullen Jones in the 4 x 100 freestyle relay. While most of the adulation has rightfully focused on Phelps and Lezak, whose record setting come-frombehind surge earned the team a split-second victory, there was another notable member of that team who deserves recognition not only for his part in bringing home the gold, but also for his commitment to ensuring that more African-American boys and girls make it home safely from the pool or the beach.
Twenty-four-year-old, Bronx-native, Cullen Jones is only the second African American to ever win Olympic gold in swimming. According to Courtland Milloy of the Washington Post, Jones began swimming at age 5 after he nearly drowned at an amusement park in Pennsylvania. Jones subsequently developed a love for the sport. He was a star member of the North Carolina State swim team and since 2006 has been a standout amateur and professional competitor.
While he is a fierce competitor, Jones does not just swim for personal glory. He wants to make sure that more African-American youth learn to swim. He's doing it to not only bring more of them into the sport, but also to save lives. "Let's say two kids are walking beside a pool and one decides it would be funny to push the other one in," said Jones. "If the one who gets pushed can swim, maybe it's funny. If he can't, you've got a real problem." Statistics show that Black children, ages 10-19, are three times more likely to drown as Whites and 58 percent of them don't know how to swim, compared to 31 percent of White children. Clearly, more African Americans need to know how to survive in the water and Cullen Jones is on a mission to see that they do. One way he plans to deal with that problem is through the Cullen Jones Diversity Tour, a Bank of America backed effort that will include swim meets and clinics for minority youth throughout the country. Jones adds his golden touch to efforts by such pioneers as Jim Ellis, the legendary founder of the Philadelphia Department of Recreation Swim Club, whose commitment to turning out world-class Black swimmers was chronicled in the 2007 movie, "Pride," starring Terrence Howard. And this year, the National Black Heritage Championship Swim Meet attracted more than 500 African-American swimmers to its annual event in Orlando.
As the summer winds down, we are reminded that every day, nine African American children drown and that number is rising. Cullen Jones' Olympic win gives us a golden opportunity to teach our children that learning to swim is not only fun, it can save lives too.
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