Swim to the Top: A University Partnership Focused on Enhancing Swimming Competency in African American Youth

Abstract

Swimming is considered by many to be a significant form of physical activity with many health benefits. Few opportunities exist for African American youth to participate in programs focused on providing developmentally appropriate swim instruction, due in part to a lack of aquatic facilities and programs in urban schools and communities. In an effort to alleviate this problem, the Office of Community Affairs at a large public university in the southeast United States, in addition to several graduate students from the kinesiology department, decided to create a swimming program focused providing developmentally appropriate swim instruction to African American youth. Swim to the Top (S3T) was created with the primary objective of developing stronger swimming skills in African American children. The purpose of this article is to describe how the S3T program was created, share the challenges that were faced throughout its inception, and illuminate the experiences from the program with the hope that future programs will spawn from the current one.