Our buddy and colleague Randy Dickson is still recuperating from shoulder surgery. It's for an injury from his days on Gulf Breeze High School's football team.
When I see friends our age suffering lingering aches and pains from youthful sport-related injuries, I praise my parents for steering me to swimming, a sport I have enjoyed since age 5.
SWEET MEMORIES
When Randy fondly reminiscences of the friendships and bonds formed on his football team, I can identify. The swim team's bonds were no less strong and our memories of those days no less dear.
That the Warwick (N.Y.) Valley High School Wildcats swim team was virtually undefeated in my three years as a breaststroker, IM’er and 50-yard-freestyler makes those memories even sweeter.
Many friends our age who were on their school football teams no longer play the game. Their bodies just won’t hold up to its rigors.
However, I regularly swim at least a half-kilometer, if not more, from the end of April well into October.
Many of my swim team comrades likewise still do regular laps. We may not look as studly in our Speedos — ah, the fleeting beauty of youth — but it’s exercise we’ll do for many more years.
BENEFITS DENIED
Swimming is perfect low-impact, cardiovascular exercise. Unlike running — or being tackled — there’s no bodily stress. Different strokes exercise various muscle groups. You can perspire while swimming, but at least you don’t feel nasty.
Unfortunately, swimming’s benefits are denied to all but those few Crestview residents who have a private pool, lake or pond; a country club membership; or an apartment complex pool.
Crescent Springs pool— Purl Adams Sr.’s public oasis, which closed in the 1950s — is now an overgrown ruin, a reminder that Crestview has no public aquatics facility where residents can take swimming lessons, swim laps, or where seniors can strengthen aging muscles.
My high school pool served more than us Wildcats. A community swim team also swam there. The Red Cross taught lifesaving and water safety in it.
Passing the swimming component was a requirement to pass P.E. class. Kids who might never receive swimming lessons learned a sport they could enjoy and a skill that could save their lives — and did for several who fell out of boats or got in over their heads while wading or fishing in a lake.
So in a region blessed with rivers, streams, lakes and ponds, I was surprised to find no community pool when I moved here after Hurricane Katrina.
It’s Florida, for heaven’s sake!
COMMUNITY ASSET
A swimming pool pays for itself; that fact led Warwick High administrators and the Orange County school board to diligently mind its upkeep. (Community use of our high school pool actually contributed extra funds toward other school programs — valuable support in those days of an austerity budget that saw every other hallway light extinguished.)
And, of course, it's an amenity for municipalities that have one.
At the June 22 Crestview City Council meeting, a resident begged the city for a community pool. He wasn’t the first, and certainly won’t be the last.
Whether on city-owned property or at Crestview High School, a covered, all-weather pool could be a year-round community asset. One that enables us to strengthen our bodies; offers an alternative for kids and adults who shun contact sports; and teaches residents how to swim.
A public pool would make Crestview more attractive to businesses considering relocation and, through event rentals, pool memberships and community swim and water polo team fees, would pay for itself.
Let’s build one.
Email News Bulletin Staff Writer Brian Hughes at brianh@crestviewbulletin.com, follow him on Twitter @cnbBrian or call 850-682-6524.
This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: COMMENTARY: Crestview needs a public pool