As part of the U.S. men’s swim team’s phenomenal, world record setting victory in the 4 x 100m freestyle relay at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Cullen Jones made history as the second African-American swimmer to win a gold medal.
Swimmer Cullen Jones is still reeling from winning Olympic gold in a relay that is already being called one of the most exciting races in sports history. And now he is just starting to digest the longer-reaching impact his victory could have on a sport that is lacking in diversity.
(L-R) U.S. Men’s swim team Gold medal winners of the 4 x 100 Freestyle relay; Cullen Jones, Michael Phelps, Jason Lezak, Garrett Weber-Gale
“I was told, ‘You could change the face of swimming by getting more African-Americans into swimming,’ ” Jones, 24, said. “At first I was like, ‘Really, me?’ I never got into it thinking I could do something like that, you never do. I just liked to swim.”
But years of training have led Jones to the top of the Olympic podium — and he is ready to use his new position in the public spotlight to spread his love for swimming to minority youths when he returns home to the States.
Source: Swimmer hopes historic win will change sport
U.S. Olympic gold medal swimmer Cullen Jones with his mother, Debra Jones, at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, August 2008
Today Show interview with Cullen Jones, August 11, 2008
AP video – Cullen Jones, August 11, 2008
Click here to watch NBC Sports Video – U.S. Men’s 4×100 meter freestyle relay victory
Cullen Jones has already begin the quest to be an advocate and ambassador for the sport, in the neighborhood where he grew up.
The John F. Kennedy Pool and Recreation Center in Newark, N.J., straddles nearly an entire block in a city neighborhood where it is common 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.
It was here that Cullen Jones learned to swim competitively and first professed his Olympic ambitions. And it was here yesterday 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.
Cullen Jones at the U.S. Olympic Swim Team Media Day at Stanford University on July 12, 2008 in Palo Alto, California.
“He was one of the good ones who came out of here,” said Moustapha Kamara, a swimming instructor and supervisor at the Kennedy center. “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 currently lives in Raleigh, N.C., 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.
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Cullen Jones, August 3, 2008, practicing before the start of the 2008 Olympics (
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.
Glenn Cassidy, who coached Jones at St. Benedict’s Prep in Newark, said the Americans’ relay victory had him “jumping up and down, screaming and crying at the same time.”
“It’s about breaking stereotypes,” Cassidy said. “For people to see someone of color who can stand out in a nontraditional area in a role that is positive, is tremendous.”
Source: Jones makes waves in Newark
Top Photo: Cullen Jones, August 11, 2008, Gold medalist
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