DARYL UNDERSTANDS “East Coast Swimming Philosophy”

Daryl, the African American Pool Manager at the City of Delray Beach understands the problem just fine. “Coach,” he says, “the black kids around here just don’t see swimming as an option. They know that football and basketball and baseball are options. They’ve seen Brendon Flowers come home to Delray after a season with the Kansas City Chiefs. They know UF, USC, UCLA and a hundred other abbreviations need talented ball players from south Florida for their teams. They have no idea all the same stuff is available to someone who can swim fast. You need to show them that.”

For four years that’s exactly what we worked seven days every week to do. It’s what I missed my daughter’s wedding and my mother’s funeral trying to do.  We produced some of America’s fastest freestyle swimmers. We produced a Florida High School Champion. We had a Masters World Record holder and three Master’s National Champions. We sent a swimmer to USC. We won relay at Florida’s biggest swim meet of the year. We had role models for everyone, and especially we had role models for Daryl’s “black kids around here.”

Someone once wrote to Swimwatch and accused us of “selling a dream”. It was a dream they said that was unfair and unachievable. We were frauds. And, in part, they were right. Our program is based on selling a dream. But it is not unfair or unachievable. Our record shows it is both fair and achievable. We have done it before. Certainly our dream is as legitimate as playing for Kansas City must have seemed to Brendon Flowers, when he was ten, practicing football out behind the Pompey Park Pool.

Just look down the road at Coral Springs. Their program has successfully sold the prospect of Olympic selection. They have built a huge program of young swimmers wanting to take their shot at that dream. The world’s best middle distance track coach, Arthur Lydiard, said, “There are Olympic Champions walking the streets of every town in the country. They just need good coaching.”

There are Olympic champions at Pompey Park and at Aqua Crest. It is our task to make sure they have the chance to realize their potential. It is our job to give them good coaching. But it is hard. In the early stages the team may even lose members. In my first book, “Swim to the Top”, I addressed this likelihood. I said, “It could even lose you business as a coach. But it all becomes worthwhile when the results at the events that really matter are excellent – and this brings me back to your basic motive for being a swim coach. Mine is to see that all swimmers are given every opportunity to swim at the highest level their talent will allow.”

This philosophy has worked at Coral Springs. It has worked in New Zealand where our team provided for five international swimmers and 5000 swim lessons every week. Quality becomes the team’s point of difference. Eventually the community identifies that and numbers begin to grow. It does take time. It took four years to achieve our first competitive success in Palm Beach County; to create our team’s first role models. It will not be quick or easy, but we will do it again.

Last week, eight thousand miles away in New Zealand, John Walker, the first runner to break 3.50 for a mile was talking about the influence of his coach Arch Jelley. “It was Jelley,” Walker says, “who gave me the belief to achieve greatness. He said I would break 3min 50sec for the mile, but I hadn’t even broken anything by that time. He said that one day I would emulate Peter Snell’s records and win the Olympic gold medal. They’re pretty bold statements when you’re a young kid. Today the baton has been passed, and now I run my “Field of Dreams” program encouraging young Aucklanders into athletics.”  

Aqua Crest and Pompey Park are our “Pool of Dreams”. The “Adopt a Swimmer” program is aimed at making sure money does not deny anyone the chance to excel. For all this to work; to build a program; to sell the dream we need help. We need independence. We need money. We need understanding. We need pool space at both pools. We need a Board, County staff, pool staff, politicians and readers to be part of the dream.  With that it is possible to have a big program of swimmers of all ages. It is possible to win the Olympic Games. As Daryl said, we can show them that.

Kia Kaha
David Wright
East Coast Swimming
(561)703-2858