Meet Johnnie Means, Texas Swimming and Diving Corridor of Famer

Johnnie Means relaxes in a comfortable brown leather-based recliner, the TV turned silently to CNN, within the inviting Third Ward dwelling he bought together with his spouse, Lynn, when he was 23. He sports activities a black polo shirt embroidered with a cardinal, the College of the Incarnate Phrase mascot. The Texas Swimming and Diving Corridor of Famer owns a beneficiant assortment of shirts from faculties throughout the nation, presents from a number of the 1000’s of scholars he’s coached in swimming, diving, water security, and energy coaching since starting his profession with the American Crimson Cross in 1959.

“All people tells me, ‘Coach, you ought to write down a e book.’ And I simply haven’t had the time,” Means says. “I would do this in the future earlier than I’m going, if I’m lucky. However I’ve acquired a lot in my head that I’ve seen and finished.”

Means, 84, retired 4 years in the past, although he jokes that he desires “to return to work so [he] can get some relaxation.” He stays busy with caretaker duties and serving to out associates, neighbors, and college students after they want a hand. The “restful” years of his life embrace teaching Olympic silver medalist and former “world’s quickest swimmer” Ang Peng Siong, serving as the top coach of Texas Southern College (TSU)’s swim workforce for over 25 years, directing the Harris County Aquatics Program (HCAP), turning into the primary (and for 30 years, solely) Black swimmer within the Houston space who might certify swim coaches by means of the Crimson Cross, and desegregating aggressive swimming in Texas.

“[Means is] a bleeding coronary heart, however he’s a tricky soul. He instills in us plenty of ‘You’ve acquired to make it occur for your self,’” says Candess Tucker, cofounder and coach at Johnnie Means Aquatics. “We have been outcasts, however we went in there and we did what we needed to do, simply working onerous and being diligent.”

Tucker’s father swam below Means’s tutelage at TSU, and she or he started taking classes at HCAP as a toddler. Together with fellow swim coach and Means mentee Dominique Hamilton, she based Johnnie Means Aquatics (JMA) in 2022 after the HCAP program stopped providing aggressive swimming. The pair needed to proceed Means’s work in making free swimming, diving, lifeguard coaching, and water security classes out there to native youngsters and adults. Naming the varsity after their beloved teacher was a no brainer, and he nonetheless stops by generally to cheer on college students or give recommendation.

“Due to swimming, I used to be in a position to go to varsity and obtain a scholarship for it. The affect that it made on our group and the those that I grew up with, I knew {that a} huge gap would exist if we not had a program like [HCAP’s competitive swimming],” Hamilton says. “Not solely is [swimming] after-school program, however it’s a life-saving talent. Our youngsters, all youngsters, want this life security talent.”

Means discovered to swim from the GIs returning dwelling to Third Ward following World Warfare II, who picked up the talent on obligation and believed it crucial for neighbors to study, too. He went on to swim competitively at Yates Excessive Faculty and obtained a swim scholarship to attend Southern College in Baton Rouge. That’s the place he met Lynn.

“I used to be sitting on the diving board drying up,” Means remembers of their probability encounter on the pool. “Lynn requested her teacher if she might go in deep water. And she or he stated, ‘See that man down there sitting on the diving board? If he’s going to remain down there with you, you may go down there and swim.’ She got here down and requested me if I’d watch her and let her swim within the deep water for a short time.”

They’ve now been married for 63 years. The newlyweds moved again to Houston after commencement. Lynn took up nursing research. Means launched an Newbie Athletic Union (AAU) aggressive swimming program on the solely native YMCA on the time with a pool out there to the Black group.

In 1961, his workforce obtained an invite to take part in an AAU swim meet on the now-demolished Shamrock Hilton Lodge. They raised the cash for charges and transportation and practiced intensely, solely to have the invite rescinded when the group discovered it was a workforce of primarily Black kids. With the assistance of then–College of Houston swim coach Phil Hansel and a few TSU professors, Means drafted a request to the AAU asking that they rethink.

“We wrote the letter to them and advised them, ‘Nicely, we’re positive that you simply wouldn’t wish to maintain a bunch of youngsters out of a kids’s program…you’re conserving them out due to the colour of pores and skin,’” he says. “You[’ve] acquired all of those nice athletes who have been Black, who simply completed competing within the Olympic Video games in 1960. They did an ideal job in representing the nation.”

The AAU introduced Means’s arguments to the Shamrock, which responded by canceling the meet. Nonetheless, two weeks later, Hansel known as Means with some excellent news: The occasion was again on after the athletics group threatened to disallow them from internet hosting one other meet till everybody who met the factors to compete might use the amenities. Shamrock didn’t wish to lose out on the income, so Means’s workforce could be allowed to compete. Aggressive swimming in Texas had lastly been desegregated, with Houston as its epicenter.

“That was the primary group of Blacks that ever swam in a meet at the moment,” Means says.

The Civil Rights Act wouldn’t move till three years later. Means and his workforce traveled throughout the US and encountered the hazards of the Jim Crow legal guidelines within the Deep South. He recounts passing by means of Vicksburg, Mississippi, on the best way to a swim meet in a TSU-branded bus. A freeway patrol officer with a “huge previous pearl-handled pistol on, [and a] cowboy hat” and a number of other backup automobiles stopped them earlier than they reached the Vicksburg Bridge.

An exhausted Means was asleep at the back of the bus, with a pair of his college students from California and New York sitting on the entrance. The officer addressed them first. They have been unused to life within the Jim Crow South and answered truthfully: They have been swimmers. On the time, segregated swimming pools and seashores have been the websites of “wade-in” protests in cities like Biloxi and Sarasota. The officer began getting agitated.

Means knew he needed to intrude. He moved to the entrance and defined that the boys “have been from upstate” and “you know the way they speak” there. Considering on his ft, Means stated they have been really singers headed to a choral efficiency. That calmed the officer down; he admitted he initially seen them as “troublemakers coming down right here to march.” He left the workforce alone after that, although not earlier than sending them over the Vicksburg Bridge with a police escort.

This was hardly the one incident Means and his college students would encounter. A white heckler harassed one 10-year-old boy, Sammy, with slurs as he entered a meet. Not understanding what any of these phrases meant, he requested his trusted swimming coach, who defined to him that the person was a bigot. After they met him once more on the best way out, Sammy cheerfully known as him “Mr. Bigot.”

“I watched segregation at its worst as a boy, 70-some years in the past,” he says. “Individuals like myself who skilled these issues, we’ll be gone after some time. And if that’s not communicated to the younger folks—whether or not or not they’re Black, white, or whomever, for them to grasp the place they should go and what they should do to maintain from making that again step—then they’re going to be in worlds of hassle.”

Means’s accomplishments have stacked up past the pool. His life’s work facilities group—swimming is simply the conduit by means of which he builds it. To him, connecting with each other helps present worthwhile views, an training in native historical past, and experiences that college students received’t usually encounter in class.

At JMA, Tucker and Hamilton move the teachings they discovered from Means on to the subsequent technology of swimmers. In some ways, they function the torchbearers of Means’s legacy whereas constructing legacies of their very own. Since opening, they’ve welcomed round 350 college students complete.

“We now have households that journey from far to come back right here particularly due to the group. I don’t know essentially if that is one thing that Coach Means put into apply consciously, or if it’s one thing that simply, over time, created itself, however it’s one thing that we’re making an attempt to be very intentional about,” Hamilton says.

A mutual assist community has flourished among the many JMA household, who meet up on the rec middle on TSU’s campus. Mother and father usually ask each other the place they can assist, coordinate throughout emergencies, and collect sources to verify each baby will get fed at swim meets.

“We’d like group greater than ever to carry us up,” Hamilton says.

Means laments the lack of the organizations and group facilities that after provided alternatives for residents in predominantly Black neighborhoods to congregate for conferences, recreation, and socialization. Many of those closed because of finances cuts. Some stay, like Third Ward’s Form Neighborhood Heart. However the swim program that bears his title is filling within the gaps left behind, offering a house away from dwelling for Houston-area youngsters and oldsters in search of each a spot to study swimming and fulfill their want for companionship—Means’s two greatest joys. Other than Lynn and the household they’ve constructed collectively, in fact.

“I inform folks, I’ve labored for 100 years nearly and by no means had a job. It wasn’t a job to me. It was a ardour of mine, and I cherished what I used to be doing,” Means says.