The water park looked so fun, so exciting. All those rides and inner tubes. And the water. Look at all the water! Cullen Jones was 5 or 6 years old when he saw the aqua Disneyland at Dorney Park in Allentown, Pennsylvania. His mom, Debra, didn't like the idea. Cullen was too little. He was even small for his age. He didn't know how to swim. His dad, Ronald, was all for it, though. "He's strong enough," he said. Little Cullen got on the inner tube at the top of the slide and promised his dad he wouldn't let go. The inner tube flew down the slippery slope and Cullen laughed all the way. But at the bottom he flipped upside down. He still held onto the inner tube. And he passed out. He was given mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and CPR.
It is 18 years later, and Jones is a world champion, a world-record holder and stands a good shot at becoming the second Black American male to make a U.S. Olympic swim team.
"When I came to," he said, "the next thing I said was, 'What's the next ride I'm getting on?' “Within the week, his mother enrolled him in swim lessons. Taking the torch from his mom, Cullen Jones is teaching inner-city minorities how to save themselves. He has joined forces with the "Make a Splash" initiative to teach them how to swim. "Especially get more African-Americans and Latinos into the water," he said here at the U.S. Olympic Team Media Summit last month. Approximately six out of 10 Black American children are unable to swim, nearly twice as many as their White counterparts, according to a national survey released last week by USA Swimming. Similarly, 56 percent of Hispanic and Latino children are unable to swim.
Maybe if Jones makes a splash in the Olympics in Beijing this August, that could change. He will not be the first. Many casual fans don't know the first Black American male swimmer was Anthony Erwin, who won the gold medal in the 50-meter freestyle at the 2000 Games in Sydney, Australia. Few know because Erwin was only half Black, had a very light complexion and didn't enjoy discussing race. Jones does. Born in the Bronx, he grew to 6-feet-5 and laughs off the questions about which basketball team he plays for.
Jones blossomed on the world scene when he became first Black American swimmer to break a long-course world record. He won the world 50 freestyle title last summer in Melbourne, Australia, and helped the U.S. 400 freestyle relay team set a world record. Suddenly, everyone wanted to know what it's like being a Black swimmer.
It hasn't always been easy. His mother would hear other mothers complain, "I can't believe he beat my son so bad." His mother told him that they're upset because you're different. Sometimes different scares people. That pushed Jones to Olympic levels. So did a fan's blog on after he won the 2004 Atlantic Coast Conference title for North Carolina State and bombed at the Olympic trials. The blog read, "Cullen Jones is a choke artist. He doesn't swim at international swims and no one should pay attention to him. He is a nobody."
In his first international race, in Izmir, Turkey, he dropped half a second off his 50 time. Yet no matter what happens at the Olympic trials in Omaha in July, no matter if he medals in Beijing, to hundreds of minorities whom he helped learn to swim, Cullen Jones is still a winner.
He swims five to six hours per day, six days a week. He is also working with "Do Tell Productions" on a documentary about the Flaherty Dolphins, a swim team from Boston that is made up mostly of kids of color.
No comments:
Post a Comment