At new V3 Center, swimming is life
Swim instructor Dajah Godbolt celebrated Ta-naya Nyle's first swim across the pool at the V3 Center on Saturday during a water safety festival. Photo by David Pierini
Story and photos by David Pierini, Editor
Two summers back, Nate and Wilbert Bettie were swinging on a rope into the deep end of a swimming pool when they collided. Both were dazed as they sunk to the pool’s bottom.
Neither could swim.
“We started drowning,” Wilbert, 16, recalled. “It was a desperate situation. You want to get out, but your body is not strong enough to surface up. So, you’re just fighting.”
A lifeguard rescued the brothers. Afterward, their mother insisted they learn to swim.
They eventually found their way to V3 Sports. Nate, 14, is now a swim instructor, and Wilbert has just completed a certification course to be a lifeguard.
The Northside brothers were in the new V3 Center pool on a recent Saturday, helping elementary school children become comfortable in the water.
The natatorium that cradles the 25-yard training pool at Plymouth and Lyndale avenues will be formally dedicated in June. Still, its presence in North Minneapolis is already stirring feelings of hope.
V3 and the pool offer opportunities for Black and Brown families to excise a fear and trauma related to swimming and public pools that dates back many generations.
Some 64 percent of African American children have no or low ability to swim, compared to 40 percent of white children, according to a study conducted by USA Swimming. African American children drown at three times the overall rate. The study attributes the disparities to racism and a lack of public pools and affordable swim lessons in Black and Brown communities.
“The history is so deep,” said Malik Rucker, executive director. “It goes back to the slave ships and people jumping into the ocean. It’s in our DNA.
“When the pools did integrate, there were not welcoming places if you were Black. These are lived experiences. If the parents don’t know how to swim, the kids only have a 19 percent chance of learning to swim. It continues down the generations.”
The V3 training pool has five lanes and goes from three to five feet.
The vision for V3
Erika Binger, a triathlete and philanthropist, was a volunteer swim coach on the Northside and started a youth triathlon team at North Commons Parks. She founded V3 Sports in 2007 and trained athletes for swimming where she could. They used Franklin Middle School and the Northside YMCA swimming pools, but neither were accessible year-round.
Binger envisioned a swim center that would make access to a pool and lessons easy and began dreaming of a multi-purpose center to serve North Minneapolis. She purchased the site in 2017 and launched a fundraising campaign two years later.
As part of the $97 million project, V3 purchased the 50-meter swimming pool used for the 2021 Olympic swim trials. It’s stored in pieces for now, but V3 is raising money to build a 1,000-seat natatorium to house the pool. Construction could begin some time next year.
“Think of how many kids will know how to swim by then,” Binger said.
Her ability to devise a plan, cultivate philanthropic sources and drive a capital campaign for a multi-million aquatics center may be unparalleled for the city.
The V3 Center will get a formal dedication in June.
For all of Binger’s involvement, she works quietly and shares leadership. She speaks at a podium when called upon but remains, at heart, a coach.
“Erika is a benefit and a blessing,” said V3 board chair Analyah Schlaeger dos Santos, who was 9 when she was on one of Binger’s early teams at North Commons Park. “We’re her community as well and I think that makes a difference. Some folks in her position wouldn’t be here; they wouldn’t show up and get in the pool.”
Swim to learn
V3 invited 20 Nellie Stone Johnson Elementary School students to the pool for what was dubbed a water safety festival. They received a brief swim lesson and life jackets, courtesy of the Timberwolves, and then returned to the pool for open swim time with their families.
The informal lesson was a glimpse into a unique trauma-informed curriculum designed by Dr. Ayanna Rakhu. As a graduate student in kinesiology at the University of Minnesota, she wrote her doctoral thesis on getting Black and Brown families in the water with more culturally competent instruction.
Dr. Ayanna Rakhu helped young swimmers to get the feel of the water. Rakhu designed a culture-informed swim curriculum to reduce fear as kids learn to swim.
On this day, the children spent most of the lesson poolside. V3 instructors guided small groups through arm and leg movements in the water to appreciate its feel. They showed kids how to bob their heads in the water and blow bubbles through their noses.
Near the end of the lesson, some of the kids were ready to paddle their way across the width of the pool.
“Our goal is how you feel the water, not what you can do in the water,” said Rakhu, who serves on V3’s board. “You are learning about yourself through water. At each level, we focus on a value, like courage, determination, or perseverance, and how you manifest that in yourself. Learning how to breathe through tough situations, how to manage panic… It’s amazing to see the overlap.
“A lot of times, I hear, ‘Oh, my grandmother saw this happen, so we don’t go around water.’ That trauma is literally passed down in birth. Water is actually one way to release trauma so being afraid of it takes away from our healing.”
Dorjett Graham sat near a corner of the pool during open swimming, watching instructor, and her grandkids swim and play.
Nellie Stone Johnson Elementary School students and their families ended V3’s Water Safety Festival with free time in the pool.
Graham said she grew up afraid of water but made sure her children learned to swim.
“I don’t mess with water,” she said. “It’s the one thing you have no control over. This generation is fearless; they want to know how to do everything. They’re out there. Let’s keep this going.”
Not just a pool
Rucker is passionate about V3 and the potential for teaching kids in the area how to swim. He said V3’s goal is to have every child in North Minneapolis swim by the third grade.
In an interview with North News, Rucker asked, “Is this just about water?” He was eager to discuss how V3 could catalyze more than champion swimmers; it could also revitalize neighborhoods.
V3 was built for Northsiders primarily by Northsiders.
About 70 percent of builders, from architects to contractors, are from North Minneapolis firms. Two local artists created a mural of Simone Manuel, the first African American female swimmer to win Olympic gold in an individual event.
The Northside interior design company responsible for the carpet and furniture asked local youth to select colors, shapes and patterns.
Aquatics may be the marquee feature, but Binger wants V3 to be a community hub with a variety of programs.
There is a drop-in daycare, a room for a teen tech center, and another for a boys' and girls' club. There’s a full gym. A walking/running track and basketball courts will be part of phase 2.
A sit-down restaurant serving breakfast, lunch and dinner is currently under construction and will be the first to open on Plymouth Avenue in decades.
Many who work at V3 are former athletes from Binger’s youth teams or, like Rucker, are from North Minneapolis.
“(North Minneapolis) has been underinvested in for so many years, so many generations,” Rucker said. “This has been a beautiful thing to see… community coming alongside us from building it to creating spaces. It is who we are,” Rucker said. “I’m excited to see it all come together. It’s really a whole ecosystem.”