February 2010 - Parks & Recreation - 40

" We were given this license to dream.
Nobody knew much about swimming,
and the coaches didn't have much
experience. But they did tell us that if
you worked hard you could achieve
anything. That was our guiding light. "
-Sabir Muhammad
Allowing that he always had potential, " Muhammad
adds, " Luckily, we were all able to progress-everybody
on the team. I wasn't even the best one on the team. "
Eventually, the Dolphins acquired a coach, Tommy
Jackson (still the coach today) who, says Muhammad,
" put down a real program. " In turn, Jackson, who began
coaching the Dolphins in 1986, says, " Sabir always knew
what he wanted to do. He told me when he just a kid that
he wanted to be in the Olympics. "
Things then got " serious, " with practice every day-
still at the public pool, Muhammad says. All of the team's
funding came out of the parks and recreation department, helping the program to grow to multiple sites. " We
were like the movie Pride [a 1973 film about a similar

38 Parks & Recreation

February 2010

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situation in Philadelphia],
" just a rag tag bunch of
kids, " Muhammad recalls.
" We would go out to nice
suburbs and compete
mostly against white
kids. "
The Dolphins presented an avenue for
kids with little money
to compete. A private
swimming club can cost up
to $100 a month; fees to participate in a
municipal program are nominal.
And Muhammad continued to swim with the Dolphins-never competing in school at all. And it was right
out of the Dolphins that he was recruited by Stanford..
It wasn't all smooth waters for Muhammad. He suffered through what he calls " horrible " Olympic trials in
1996. But he was soon inspired by the Olympics in his
hometown of Atlanta, with the torch lit by family friend
Muhammad Ali. As Sabir Muhammad wrote at the time,
" Ali uses sport as a vehicle to influence and genuinely
affect society. That makes it easier for me each time I
prepare to train or compete. "
Today, Muhammad recalls his early development.
" We were given this license to dream. Nobody knew
much about swimming, and the coaches didn't have
much experience. But they did tell us that if you worked
hard you could achieve anything. That was our guiding
light. You have to provide the environment for kids to
realize their dreams; when you do have kids who stick
out-or parents who want them to compete, you have to
offer a pipeline they can follow. "
In time, the team gained a following and earned crucial support from the likes of Atlanta Mayor Andrew
Young, who was a swimmer in college.
Janet Davis, recreational administrator for Atlanta,
who oversees the aquatics program including the Dolphins, says the team's 100 registered swimmers emerge
from the city's learn-to-swim program. If they can develop their stamina and swim 25 yards, they move into the
developmental league, which, Davis says, " is like a preDolphin team. " Then, if they can keep progressing, they
compete with the Dolphins.
A significant number of Dolphins have gone on to win
spots on national teams, Davis says. And an uncountable number of scholarships have been won by Dolphin

Goggles: Grzegorz Szlowieniec / iStockphoto

While parks and recreation
programs focus on exercise,
safety, and instilling discipline,
many also provide a climate for
spotting talented swimmers who
can move on to win college scholarships and compete at the highest-even Olympian - levels.
Throughout his pre-college career, Muhammad's swimming revolved around public pools as his
highly informal team grew from a couple of families into the City of Atlanta
Dolphins, now 100 strong with a developmental league behind them. In a sport
where minorities have been dramatically under-represented and still represent a small percentage of competitors, the still heavily African-American Dolphins have
shattered not just records, but myths about the abilities
of minority swimmers.
Muhammad himself was the first competitive swimmer in his family. In fact, his mother didn't swim, although his father had grown up swimming in Louisiana
and famously rescued 3-year-old Muhammad from a river at a family reunion.
Speaking of the early Dolphins period, Muhammad
recalls, " It was as basic as could be. It was, 'alright, let's
form a swim team' and we did that through the recreation department. "

February 2010 - Parks & Recreation

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