At the City of Charlotte Council Meeting on Monday, May 23rd the SwimMac Elite squad was recognized for their successes in representing the city of Charlotte in competitions around the world.
The full video of the meeting can be found here.
Mayor Jennifer W. Roberts first introduces them at around 3:40 of the video, and then council member Kenny Smith makes a proclamation around 4:45, announcing May 23rd, 2016 as SwimMac Elite Day.
Smith goes over the superlatives of the group, including 13 Olympians, 26 Olympic medals, and the team having the highest number of Olympic medals of any team in the world. Smith even brings out a Zimbabwe flag he bought in order to be able to cheer on SwimMac’s Kirsty Coventry.
SwimMac Head Coach David Marsh begins speaking around 7:20. Among other things he mentions the team has the first ever African-American swimmer to win an Olympic medal (Anthony Ervin) and the second ever (Cullen Jones).
Marsh introduces his swimmers who attended, which included: Matthew Josa, Mark Weber, Cammile Adams, Tim Phillips, Katie Meili, and Coventry. Marsh stresses that all of the American swimmers still have to qualify for the upcoming Olympics at the Trials in Omaha.
Coventry receives an extra special introduction, as Marsh cites she is tied for the winningest female Olympic swimmer in history (individually) with seven Olympic medals.
Marsh wraps up at around 11:55, and the mayor has some closing comments and they get a picture with the group before they finish up at about 14:00.
Marsh commented on the partnership the team has with the city:
“Charlotte has been a city that welcomes our Team Elite athletes. New mayor Jennifer Roberts was a high level athlete herself and has been a friend of SwimMAC for many years and was for a time a “swim parent”.Kirsty is neighbors with one of the council members – he was the instigator to get us an invite – he read the proclamation (Kenny Smith).(In reality we’re hoping to recruit more engagement with the city)Lots of talk about building a new major pool at some point.”
Love SwimMac, and love Mayor Roberts!
Last I checked, Anthony Ervin was not an African American.
I stand corrected. I didn’t look much into it until now, I was only basing my assumption on skin color (which I shouldn’t have done). My apologies Anthony.
lol
His bio says born in california? Im a little confused myself