do you remember your first dive?
Unlike other sports, for many Diving has the unique relatability factor for everyday people who can remember the first time they curled their toes over the edge of a diving board at their neighborhood pool or even in their backyard.
Unfortunately, this is not the case for every community. America’s history of race and pools has a bleak legacy. When private swim clubs arose in majority-white suburbs throughout the 1960s, they shut out non-white members with high membership fees and exclusive membership requirements- some clubs banned people of color outright. This resulted in entire communities losing access to aquatic facilities and in turn generations of minoritized people losing their ability to learn to swim.
A 2006 study on Drowning in Inequalities, showed that white people are more likely to be swimmers—and that being Black reduces the odds of being a swimmer by 60 percent.
To this day, the US has never had a Black diver make their Olympic team, and in 2022 USA Diving finally had their first Black athletes represent their country and earn medals at a FINA World Cup. This is not because black people can't swim or dive, it's because they have not been given access and opportunity.
Black and Latino children and adults are less likely to learn to swim … and more likely to drown—than their white counterparts.
Diving can change and save lives. Aquatics sports are the only sports that also provide a life-saving skill. Diving instills confidence, focus, and discipline in its athletes which are carried with them off the pool deck and into the real world.
