The drowning accidents of Crawford High School graduate Woodlain Zachee or Herbert Hoover High School football legend Todd Doxey in 2008 are a tragedy all too familiar to those who have lived within the City Heights community for a while. 

In fact, they serve as a constant reminder that inequities in pool access, even in a coastal community such as San Diego, persist. 

These are names that come up in conversations each year at Hoover High School, not necessarily to provide history, but to stress the importance of learning a skill such as swimming. 

In a coastal city such as San Diego, swimming is often assumed to be a basic skill. In communities such as City Heights, that assumption does not hold, as many youth and teens lack the accessibility to swim education and the safety that comes with it.

When introducing her free swimming unit, Vanessa Stahley, Hoover’s athletic director and physical education teacher, said she takes her class into the gymnasium, where Doxey’s large portrait hangs with the rest of the school’s notable alumni, and tells of his drowning accident in Lane County, Oregon. 

Sean Phongsavad, another physical education teacher at Hoover High, approaches the issue from a different angle, drawing on his own observations. 

“It is surprising that a lot of students in our community don’t know how to swim,” Phongsavad said. “Half of them don’t even go to the beach.” 

Like Stahley, Phongsavad shares with his classes the story of Zachee’s 2023 drowning incident that occurred at Mission Beach while attempting to save his friends. He emphasizes how recent this tragedy occurred, as well as how Zachee’s story could be anyone’s if the importance of this “life skill” is not taken seriously. 

These stories are just a few examples of why Hoover High School partnered with the Copley-Price YMCA and Price Philanthropies to provide freshmen with free swim lessons through the YMCA’s SwimAccess Grant.

Since this program began in 2018, the Copley-Price YMCA has assisted roughly 500 students a year in developing their water survival and swimming skills through organized lessons led by the program’s certified swim instructors.

Funded through Price Philanthropies, the Copley-Price YMCA carries out Sol Price’s vision, a pioneer of warehouse retail and founder of Price Club, by giving back to underserved communities, such as City Heights, where the school and branch are located. This program begins every February and runs through the remainder of the school year, meeting with different classes monthly as part of a four-week curriculum.

For Copley-Price YMCA Aquatics Director Louis LaRose, swim education remains a top priority given his branch’s location. 

“I think the location…being in San Diego County,” LaRose said, discussing the importance of providing access to swim lessons. “But also the community we serve — we sit on essentially the border between low-income and very affluent communities.” 

LaRose added: “Hoover High School being smack dab in the middle of City Heights…a lot of the students who attend come from low-income communities who don’t have the resources to get swim lessons.” 

It is difficult for many families to provide swimming lessons for their children, given the time, transportation and potential pool membership costs, as well as the cost of lessons. The SwimAccess Grant, along with the pool site being within walking distance from the campus, mitigates this problem and helps close the gap in swim access inequities within the community.  

However, providing these students with a free learning environment for swimming. Stahley believes swim access is important for Hoover High, specifically because this community has a history of water-related trauma. 

“A lot of our kids…they’ve had a lot of swimming accidents either with themselves or in their families,” Stahley said. “So we have a pretty high number of kids who refuse to get [back] in the water.” 

This is common among most classes at first. Stahley and Phongsavad love seeing the behavioral progression from the first day the kids get in the water to the last. 

“In the beginning, they all [say] ‘I hate this. I never want to come back,” Phongsavad said. “Then after it ends, all they ask is, ‘When can we go back to swim?’” 

Stahley uses an athletic director’s perspective, correlating the number of kids participating in the program with the potential rise in aquatic sports at Hoover, citing growth of at least 8 students each season on the swim team — a gradual and meaningful increase for a program still in its early stages.

Programs such as this have an impact far beyond mere competition. This four-week program helps most freshmen replace fear with confidence, especially those who lack swim experience. Situated in a city adjacent to an ocean, this program confirms that swimming is a life skill that could avert the next water calamity.