Cullen Jones Works Toward Olympic Games, Teaches Minority Children to Swim – Yahoo! Sports

Cullen Jones is out there making his dreams come true.

Sure, he’s just the second African-American swimmer to earn a gold medal at the Olympic Games, and he’s the first to ever hold a world record.

But he’s also out there making sure inner city and minority children have the opportunity to learn swimming.

In 2007, I talked to Jones about his rising star power, his new contract, and his goals for the future. At that time, he told me that he wanted to be successful in the pool, of course, but that he also wanted to make sure that minority children have the skills to be sufficient and safe in the water.

“I really want to make a big effort … to reach out to African-American and Latin kids,” Jones told me in 2007. “I just think I have the time to go out and talk to kids and share my story.”

That story starts when Jones was five years old, traveling down a slide at a water park, he said. As he rode down the slide, he flipped upside down and hit the water headfirst.

“I ended up flipping upside down because I was light,” Jones told Dr. Sanjay Gupta of CNN. “My mom tried to down and save me, and she couldn’t swim, so the lifeguard had to come get me and my dad had to get my mom.”

Jones almost drowned that day. Soon after, he learned to swim, and before long, he joined a swim team.

His success wasn’t instant, though, and Jones had some problems along the way. His neighborhood wasn’t the most welcoming to swimmers, he said, and by the time he was 15, he noticed that there weren’t many other black swimmers in the pool.

“At 15-years-old, I’m like, ‘Dad, there’s no black people here,’” Jones told Gupta. “He’s like ‘Well, you know, (if you didn’t suck) at basketball, you wouldn’t have this problem.’ We laughed about it, but that was a big step for me.”

It was a step that, ultimately, led Jones to success on the international stage.

Since I talked to Jones in 2007, he’s made great strides in teaching minority children how to swim. He’s partnered with USA Swimming to host the “Make a Splash with Cullen Jones” tour each year, which allows Jones to travel the country and work with minority children nationwide.

Initially, a few media outlets criticized Jones efforts and said that he couldn’t make a difference in the lives of these children in such a short amount of time. The comments didn’t bother Jones too much, though, and he forged ahead with his plan.

“Someone wrote online not too long ago that it’s the ‘feel good’ message and that it’s not going to do much, because you can’t expect one kid from the African-American race to just go out and become this amazing swimmer,” Jones told me in 2007. “Well, they said that about Jackie Robinson, they said that about Tiger, and they said that about Jordan. You never know.”

Fast-forward five years, and Jones has done everything he can to discredit those critics. Jones has been successful on the international level, and he’s working to be on top of the podium again at the London Olympic Games.

No matter what happens, though, Jones is jus thrilled to be able to teach and inspire children, all while growing the sport.

“I feel like if my story goes out, and as long as there are four kids in the group of 40 that actually heat what I’m saying, and that that home and say ‘Mom, Dad, I want to swim, I want to do something different,’ then I feel like I’ve done my job. I feel like I’ve passed the torch,” Jones told me in 2007.

Listening to him talk to Gupta, it’s clear that his sentiments haven’t changed.

“This sport has given me a lot. I really want to make sure that I give back to it and make sure that I can shine the path to another kid—hopefully more than one,” Jones told Gupta. “We really want to see more and more kids in USA Swimming learning how to swim and just enriching the sport.”

In 2012, Jones plans continue with his two-pronged approach as he attempts to qualify for the 2012 Olympic team and continues working to teach children to swim.

Additional Sources:

For more information on Jones: Watch his full interview with Dr. Sanjay Gupta, and check out his column below the video, which tells the full story of his near-drowning and encourages parents to put their children in swimming lessons.

Sandra Johnson was a competitive swimmer for more than 15 years before she began coaching. She has covered Olympic sports for more than five years, and while working for the United States Olympic Committee in Colorado Springs, Colo., she had the opportunity to immerse herself in the Olympic Movement. Follow her on Twitter: @SandraJohnson46

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