Olympic Swimmer, and Gold Medalist, Cullen Jones Seeks to Help More African American Kids become Good Swimmers
"It's definitely not a burden; it's just a cause of mine."
(Beijing, China)—Sunday night's 400m relay inside Beijing's Olympic "Water Cube" was sure to be a competitive race, but it turned out to be a history-making swim in several ways. With the world record time completely smashed by the swimmers' performances, NBC described the race as the "most exciting, most record-breaking, most amazing, thrilling, unbelievable relay anyone could ever imagine." (Photo: USOC/NBC Olympics)
The victory made US relay swim team member Cullen Jones the second ever African American swimmer to win an Olympic gold medal, after Anthony Ervin in 2000.
Cullen may not have had that chance, however, if his father hadn't rescued him in a swimming accident when he was just a young boy. While at a water park with his family, he'd gone down a water slide with an inner tube, but ran into trouble where the slide ended.
"When I got to the bottom of the pool after the slide, I flipped upside down and I was holding onto the inner tube, upside down," explained Cullen. "I passed out, panicked. And my dad had to jump in and come save me."
An experience like that can make a person fear water for the rest of their life, but on Cullen it had the opposite effect. He became an avid swimmer, excelling in it in college at North Carolina State; and before long the self-proclaimed "water baby" qualified for his first Olympic competition—only the third African American to make a US Olympic swimming squad, according to an ABC News report.
But Cullen is not only going for the gold in this Olympic experience, he is also following after a vision he has to see the stigma erased that African Americans don't swim well. (Photo: USOC/NBC Olympics)
"I've talked to tons and tons of groups of African American kids and asked them, 'Who likes to get in the water?' and all hands go up. I ask, 'Who can swim?' All hands go up. And I'm like, 'Do you understand what that means to swim? You can't be in the shallow end. You have to be in the deep end.' Half the hands drop," says Jones.
Statistics seem to reinforce that illusion. A study done last year by USA Swimming and the University of Memphis, showed that some 60 percent of African American children don't know how to swim.
Cullen Jones is out to change that.
Spurred on by his near-death experience and his great love of the sport, Cullen works with USA Swimming Foundation's Make a Splash program helping children learn to swim.
"It's just a torch that was passed on to me by many other black swimmers that have been before me…," explained Cullen in the article. "It's definitely not a burden; it's just a cause of mine."
To read the full ABC News article, CLICK HERE.
