By Reginald Akpata | “Go Big or Go Home!” was a motto associated with one of Long Beach’s favorite sons, the late Mark Bixby. A memorial wave installation to honor him was placed at the corner of the Belmont Plaza Pool. I needn’t wonder what his response to the decision to place a bulkhead across the soon-to-be-open Olympic 50-meter Belmont Plaza Pool, dividing it permanently into two 25-meter pools would be.
This beam is a “glass ceiling” to developing local swimming and water polo talent. By its very installation, we seem to be saying: “no home grown talent need stay here.”
At the start of this summer, my daughter–#11 in California in her age group in the 50 meters breast-stroke–attended a stroke clinic at Wilson High School organized by World Champion and Long Beach local Jessica Hardy.
Hardy narrated her experiences as a swimmer and laid out the road to her success. With regard to swimming, it ended very early in Long Beach, as the minute her talent developed she immediately joined a club in Orange County that she described driving to, where swimming long course (full lengths of the 50-meter pool) was standard training practice. She talked of coming home and dropping on the floor inside her front door and going to sleep. In the question-and-answer session, I pressed further to get a determination from a world champ regarding training: “Long course vs. Short Course”? Her response was definitely long course for stamina.
Hands down Long Beach, we can bring star athletes back to Long Beach so that–like Hardy–who narrated the enormous lift that seeing US champions in the pool with her gave her, we can give this opportunity to Long Beach hopefuls and offer it at home.
If we “Go Big” we can look forward to Olympic hopefuls training at the Belmont Plaza Pool in everything up to and including triathlons; stay swimming short course and nothing like this happens, the local clubs stay tiny and we remain in name-only the “Aquatic Capital of America.”
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Later in the summer, my kids went to the UK to swim for the City of Glasgow Swim Team (COGST) in Glasgow, Scotland. They competed in FINA sanctioned events in Scotland and in England. The difference between the kids training long course versus those swimming short course was embarrassing! The “short course kids” would literally fall off the edge after the first 25 meters.
The facilities deficit in the US was laid bare during that trip. Their pool time in Glasgow was in the Tollcross facility that will host the Commonwealth Games in 2014; UK internationals swam laps in the adjoining lanes and every municipal pool we went to from Leeds to Sunderland had “Omega FINA yellow touch pads” and a 50 meter pool, all long course, without any short course markings at all on the pool floor.
This inability to gain the stamina that long course swimming delivers versus short course swimming reflects on swimmers training for triathlons, swimming masters, water polo players and on down to the swimming clubs. The aforementioned Orange County Swim Club frequently fields 450 swimmers at tournaments–all having qualified for the tournament–to a combined equivalent of barely two score from the two South East Long Beach teams. We can’t keep tying the hands behind the backs of Long Beach swimmers and call ourselves the “Aquatic Capital of America” while we claim talent that is being fully developed elsewhere!
There are more than enough potential parent volunteers to put out and pull in lane lines, one way for long course/lap-swim–one way for open swim–with a non swimmers border, and the same for field dividers for water polo. This proposed bulkhead cannot be the dividing line for swimmers in Long Beach.
A statistic I came across in the UK was one that laid out the fact that the majority of drowning victims could actually swim. Many of those will have based the determination of their capabilities, on their performance in 25 meter pools.
We have a deplorable record in Long Beach with regards to participation rates in competitive swimming and water polo of many minority groups. My children are only two of a handful of African-American kids swimming “club” in Long Beach and same for water polo. When you go to Tollcross, there are “means testing” that have brought in children that wouldn’t have a chance of swimming and playing here; the same in Stirling @ Stirling Swimming home of the Scottish National Swimming Development Centre.
I remain confident that under Coach Dr. Teresa Pascuzzo, that “a rising tide will raise all ships” at Long Beach Aquatics offering the city a club able to support 300-400 performing swimming talents.
“Go Big or Go Home” Long Beach!
Reginald Akpata is a Long Beach parent of two dual-national International Swimmers.
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