By CHICO C. NORWOOD

STAFF WRITER

Almost 90 children in Los Angeles County drown every year, the majority being minorities, according to the county’s Department of Health.

In an effort to help this trend, Olympic swimmer Cullen Jones has joined with the USA Swimming Foundation and Conoco Phillips in the foundation’s Make a Splash with Cullen Jones Program. 

The goal of the initiative is to promote water safety and raise awareness about swimming, especially among minority youth.

The program, which is on a six-city tour, made a stop Nov. 20 at Bethune Middle School in Los Angeles, the only middle school in the Los Angeles Unified School District to have a swimming pool.

Joining Jones at the school to promote swimming and water safety were Olympic medal winner Rowdy Gaines, who engaged the youngsters in a contest that yielded the winners $50 Conoco Phillips gas cards, and USC alum and 2000 Olympic gold medal winner Lenny Krayzelburg, who launched a swimming program at Bethune earlier this year.

In his address to the students, Jones emphasized the importance of learning to swim.

“In L.A. alone 85 kids drown every year; 90 percent of them are actually being watched. Under supervision people are still drowning,” Jones told the youngsters as he spoke about the story of his rise from the dangerous streets of Irvington, N.J., to the podium at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. “There is a way to actually reverse the problem of drowning and that’s swim lessons.”

Jones’ passion for swimming unintentionally began at age 5. After almost drowning at a local New Jersey water park, Jones’ mother enrolled him in swimming classes. The rest is history.

He has become one of America’s top swimmers. He is the first African American male to win a gold medal at the World University Games, his Web site states.

At the Beijing Olympics, as a member of the USA 4 x 100 freestyle relay team, he became the first African American to break a world record in swimming in an Olympic contest. He is the second African American to win an Olympic gold medal in swimming.

He also held the fastest time for an American in the 50-meter freestyle event in 2006. His prowess in the water has landed him a $2 million-plus contract with Nike, reportedly the richest endorsement deal ever for a short-distance swimmer.

“I never thought swimming would change my life. So many people came up to me telling me I was going to change the sport. I never understood how I was going to change the sport,” he told the students. “This is my way of changing the sport.”

Following his talk, which also included a short film clip on his work with the Make a Splash Program, Jones headed to the school’s pool where five youngsters received personal swim and swim safety lessons from him.

A survey by the DDB Needham Lifestyles revealed that almost three-fourths of African Americans have never participated in swimming and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention reports that “fatal unintentional drowning rates” of African Americans between the ages of five to 14 is three times higher than that of white children in the same age category.

“I think Cullen is just incredible in terms of a person being able to understand that he is in a very unique position to impact a lot of youth around this country, especially in the African American communities and the Latino communities,” said Krayzelburg, whose KF Foundation reportedly has trained about 500 youngsters in water safety. “Drowning is at such a high rate in these communities and to be able to talk about it, support it, and engage people and make a difference, it’s an amazing thing what he is doing.”

Jones said his program has made a big impact. This year, he said the program has gone from 77 local partners to 124.

“It’s amazing,” Jones said. “We’ve doubled the numbers of people this year that have come on board and kids that have learned how to swim. We’re at nearly 150,000 kids learning how to swim. I can see that although it takes so much out of me to do this, because I’m training all the time, I can see that it’s really helping.”  

Jones said being a part of the program is his way of giving back to the community.

“I’m really big on trying to help those that really might not understand how important it is to learn to swim,” he said. “I grew up in a place where every summer people … went to the pool and … sometimes we didn’t know about people drowning. It’s a serious problem.”