Reply to s/o What's with all of the swim teams around here?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I'm actually kind of amazed at how un-diverse swimming is. Only sport I've seen this so far.[/quote]

I don't have swim team experience yet (son will try out next year), but [b]95% of our local pool swim team is Asian.[/b] I just figured it was a reflection of where you live. [/quote]

Where do YOU live?[/quote]

Still no answer/follow-up. Can I call BS now?[/quote]

I'm not the PP, but our MCSL team swam against a team last summer that was probably 95% Asian.  It was somewhere near the Soccerplex if I'm remembering correctly, and there was also a public indoor pool nearby, so many of the kids were year-round swimmers.  I figured that the neighborhood had many Asian families.  Anyway, it was a very strong team and they did a great job of hosting the meet.  (They might also have hosted our divisional championship meet.)

Overall, though, I would agree that swimming is not as diverse as some other sports.  In fact, this is a public health issue in terms of the relatively low number of African-Americans and Latinos who can swim.  There are groups out there trying to change this, however; one is Nadar Por Vida, which has made a big impact in Arlington.  PP, you might want to look into that if this is an issue you care about.       [/quote]

Many public pools weren't integrated until the 50s or 60s and AAs and Hispanics weren't allowed to use them or their use was restricted to one day a week. That means that a lot of AA grandparents didn't learn to swim and didn't teach their kids to swim and those kids didn't teach their kids to swim.  When public pools integrated, lots of white families stopped using them and opened private swim clubs to keep AA people out. Those clubs often had teams, and the public pools didn't.  That kept swimming pretty white as a sport for a long time.

USA Swimming is doing outreach to change that. They have organized "learn to swim" programs and had Cullen Jones do a lot PR work. [/quote]

Thank you for the history lesson. Makes sense but feel ashamed I didn't realize this. [/quote]

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