Olympian makes a splash

Published Thursday, August 14, 2008
by David Parker, The Associated Press


NEWARK, N.J. – The John F. Kennedy Pool and Recreation Center straddles nearly an entire block in a city neighborhood where it is not uncommon to find new housing stock standing cheek by jowl with abandoned buildings and empty lots strewn with debris.
In the standard American sports narrative, this is not where Olympic swimming champions are nurtured – at least, until now.


ASSOCIATED PRESS/BOB BUKATY
Cullen Jones, left, changes to teammate Nathan Adrian in a men’s 4x100 meter freesyle relay heat in the National Aquatic Center at the Beijing Olympics Aug. 9. Jones, who trains and lives in Charlotte, is the second African American to earn an Olympic gold medal in swimming.

It was here that Cullen Jones learned to swim competitively and first professed his Olympic ambitions. And it was here on Monday that friends and former teammates celebrated his gold medal-winning performance on the U.S. men's 400 meter relay team.
The victory, in a pulsating race that was in doubt until U.S. anchor Jason Lezak touched the wall a whisker in front of France's Alain Bernard, made Jones only the second African-American swimmer to win an Olympic gold medal, after Anthony Ervin in 2000.


“He was one of the good ones who came out of here,'' Moustapha Kamara, a swimming instructor and supervisor at the Kennedy center, said Monday. “It's a very proud feeling knowing that someone from here is coming home with the gold. It was overwhelming to actually see it.''


Jones, 24, who lives in Charlotte and was a star swimmer at N.C. State University, was born in the Bronx and grew up next door to Newark in Irvington, a city with a reputation for crime and violence that tends to overshadow most other news. He gravitated to the Kennedy center as a youth and competed on the local swim team there, impressing teammates with his work ethic.


Brennon Smith grew up across the street from the pool at a time when, he said, few people used it even though it was one of the only public recreation facilities in the area. Jones was a fixture there, and eventually his enthusiasm rubbed off on Smith.


“Even if no else was there, he'd be in there practicing,'' Smith said. “Watching how passionate he was about it got me into swimming. He was a great role model, always trying to help someone out.''


Jones returned to Newark last fall to promote a water safety program for urban children, an initiative spurred by a study by the Centers for Disease Control that showed the rate of drowning deaths for blacks between ages 10 and 19 was nearly three times that of whites.


The issue has personal relevance for Jones, who often tells the story of how he nearly drowned at age 5 when the inner tube he was riding at an amusement park flipped over and trapped him underwater.


The experience couldn't keep Jones away from the water, and he arrived at Newark's St. Benedict's Prep last fall already on a mission.


“He was already talking about making the Olympics when he got here,'' St. Benedict's coach Glenn Cassidy recalled Monday. “We could tell he had a lot of talent, and that he had the drive to do it.''


Cassidy remembers Jones as a personable but quiet youth who eventually matured both in and out of the pool and earned a leadership position that gave him the responsibility of overseeing 25 or 30 other students each day.


For Cassidy, who said the U.S. team's victory had him “jumping up and down, screaming and crying at the same time,'' Jones' accomplishment should not be underestimated.


“It's about breaking stereotypes,'' he said. “For people to see someone of color who can stand out in a nontraditional area in a role that is positive, is tremendous.''