Competitive Swimming in Black Public High Schools of Texas

If you don't set goals for yourself, you are doomed to work to achieve the goals of someone else.

~Brian Tracy~

With the organization of the Colored Teachers Association in 1920 came the formation of the Texas Interscholastic League of Colored Schools, the governing body (league) of athletic and academic competition for Black high schools. The league was comprised of 40 schools. The Texas Interscholastic League of Colored Schools became known as the Negro League or Prairie View Interscholastic League (PVIL) from its inception.

Over the next twenty years the number of schools increased and the league in 1940 held state championship contests in various sports at Prairie View A & M.4 Prior to the merger of the PVIL and the University Interscholastic League (UIL) in 1967, the PVIL membership had grown to over 500 schools.

A historical account of competitive swimming programs in the Black high schools of Texas reveals that the number of Black high schools increased between 1940 and the beginning of the integration of schools in the late 1960s; only a few of these schools had swimming facilities. The lack of swimming facilities in Black high schools resulted in a shortage or the nonexistence of competitive swimming programs.

Prior to and including the 1940s the Black high schools offered a variety of sports programs. Their sports teams were highly competitive, and most competitors processed a myriad of fundamental skills. The sports programs included football, basketball, and track and field. The sports of volleyball and tennis were included some time later. Other minor sports like golf, baseball, softball and swimming were not offered until the mid-1950s. A lack of facilities was often the reason golf and swimming were not included in the Black high schools programs. Moreover, girls' sports activities were limited to one or two activities. In the public Black high schools of Houston only volleyball and limited tennis programs were offered for girls prior to and during the early 1950s. Therefore, offering competitive swimming for both boys and girls and golf for boys in 1955 was a real boost to the morale and delight of many students.

The initial PVIL competitive swimming and diving programs in Black high schools began in 1955. Teams competing during the first year were Lincoln High of Port Arthur, Texas; Central High of Galveston, Texas, and Jack Yates and Phillis Wheatley High Schools of Houston, Texas. The first district meet for both boys and girls was held at Central high school. The second district meet (1956) was held at Lincoln high school, and the third and fourth meets (1957-58) were held at Jack Yates high school. All district and city meets beginning in 1959 through 1967 were held at Kashmere Gardens High School in Houston. Prairie View A & M University sponsored the first state invitational meet in 1965. PV's second invitational meet was held in 1966 and the final meet in 1967.

Most of the information/meet results for the early competitive programs are unavailable as records and meet results were destroyed or misplaced as a result of integration of the PVIL into the UIL. However, information and accounts of programs and meets were taken from newspapers i.e. the Houston Informer and the Forward Times supplemented by anecdotal accounts by former participants. The first four years of competition are recollections by individual participants from Jack Yates high school.

Although Booker T. Washington High School (1893) was the oldest Black high school in Houston, located in the Fourth Ward community, it did not offer instructional or competitive swimming until 1959 due to a lack of swimming facilities. When the school moved into its new facility located in the Independence Heights community its students became involved in competitive swimming.

Although competitive swimming in Houston Black high schools did not begin until the mid-1950s, Black competitive swimming meets were a part of the Houston Parks and recreation programs during the summer months beginning back in the 1940s. An annual competition for both boys and girls was held each August at the Emancipation Park pool located in the Third Ward community. In an article entitled "Swimmers in Park Tank Meet Thursday" the parks department conveyed information concerning the upcoming meet scheduled August 18th. 7 (see appendix 2). Moreover, the article specified the events to be swum and the age divisions. It is assumed that these competitions began in the early 1940s and continued throughout the 1950s and 1960s. Historical records indicate the Emancipation Park swimming pool opened in 1939, and competitive swimming events followed soon after the opening. Beginning in 1949 other swimming facilities in the Black communities began to host competitive swimming meets during the summer months and were a part of the city's Houston Parks and Recreation, Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) Junior Olympics competitive swimming programs. Leon Richardson, a Yates high school swimmer (1962-64) and participant in the summer Jr. Olympics competitive swimming program, said, "I think if it were not for an AAU/Junior Olympics program in Houston, there would have been significantly fewer Black Americans who learned to swim and learned to swim competitively. Even when these swimmers were talented they often opted to participate in what was considered the high school sports of the period i.e. football, basketball, track and baseball."

All of the meets offered were segregated during this time period. Coaches of the park teams prior to 1957 included: Robert Tapscott, (Hester House), Leslie Minfield and Harry Torry, (Clinton Park), Wilbert Williams and Hebert Allen, (Independence Heights), Bennie Roy and Joe Harris Emancipation Park, Raymond Daniels and Bennie White, (South Central YMCA) and James Regan, Lloyd Powell, Marion Ford, and Bro's Henry, Finnegan Park, (Houston Informer Aug. 31, 1957).

Houston High Schools Competition Begins

During the spring semester of 1953 swim teams from Wheatley and Yates high schools began to compete against one another in dual meets. These meets were exhibition only as no official scores were kept.

Although Jack Yates High School opened in 1926, a natatorium and new gymnasium were completed and opened in the fall semester of 1952.

For the first dual meet between the Lions and Wildcats the new natatorium at Yates was filled with students and the atmosphere was electrifying. The sheer spectacle of it was amazing. The boys and girls teams from both schools were extremely competitive. It was obvious that they had received prior training in stroke techniques as they swam up and down the...