[00:00:00] What's up y'all! Welcome back to another episode of Black in Aquatics: Freedom Through Swimming. Today I am here with Coach Kalvin. Coach Kalvin, can you go ahead and introduce yourself? Yeah. So hello everybody. My name is coach Kalvin. I am from Houston, Texas. Shout out Houston. That's, I mean, born and raised.

I've been in aquatics since I was six years old. Learn how to swim at six. From there I swam with the YMCA. So about two years. And then from there I moved on up to a neighborhood swimming. Just a little bit more competitive. And then from there I started swimming club in 2013 and then from there.

I just knew I wanted to keep going, so I ended up working towards getting a scholarship. Ended up getting a scholarship to go to school in West Virginia. Oh, nice. Davis and Elkins College. Oh, that's awesome. D2 school in Elkins, West Virginia. Swam breaststroke there. Okay. Have experience in lifeguarding.

Been teaching lessons for going [00:01:00] on eight years now. I teach lessons of all ages, so I start at six months going. I've been up to about 75. Okay. It's oldest lesson. NIce. That's awesome. So I wanna circle back on the college swimming. Yeah. You don't see a lot of us in college or collegiate swimming.

And you said you went to a D 2. School, yeah. Right. So how was that experience, just as a whole? Thank you for asking because that is one of the things that I love to talk about. Because it brings light to the reality of the world. And so that experience was eye opening. It was very eye opening.

Okay. To say the least, in the 21st century, we are still having problems with race. You know, I had a professor use the N word in my class. Oh, wow. Walking in the swim meets, it was stares, of course. Yeah. You know, questions like, I mean, questions that make you kind of, Like, really, like, I had a question they was, like, do you really swim?

What? You know? So, it was eye opening. Very eye opening. Yeah. I had a passive encounter with KKK. Yeah, they came on campus. Yeah, it was crazy. That is, but any recommendations I would definitely recommend people [00:02:00] to go off to college because you usually experience things, you know, that, that, that are in the real world.

Do you recommend, like, obviously, like, I'm a big proponent of education, recommend college. It's good to stay in your. Your own city in the city that you grew up, would you, would you recommend just going off to other places? Like if you can't, especially if you have the opportunity, say like with the scholarship.

Absolutely. I would. And because I learned so much more about myself and about the real world than I truly did in college come from coming from an educational standpoint. Yes, I learned what I was supposed to learn. You know, I studied fitness, nutrition. Went to school to originally be a physical therapist, you know, but the outside factors, you know, understanding your strengths, your weaknesses, you know, having to do things on your own because you still have access if you're in the same city.

And this is just what I learned from going off to school. You know, I was just going off to swim, but within that, I learned so much more. Cause your social setting, I'm pretty sure it was a lot different from Houston. You know what I'm saying? So we had to adapt, you know, and like I said, it was predominantly white, 3 percent black, so the adaptation was huge.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. [00:03:00] And then back to the present day, what do you currently do? Are you coaching? Are you lifeguarding? Are you doing a little bit of both? Are you in other water based sports? So actually I just finished coaching at the Houstonian. So we come up for undefeated season with our second in the championship.

So still heavily actively coaching and teaching swim lessons as well. My end goal, or shall I say the current goal, not end goal, but the current goal is to Continue traveling with teaching

lessons and hope to go international. Okay. I will go international. Nice. And have you incorporated already or is this something you do on the side or something you do for fun?

Do you have a business? So this is actually something i'm doing full time. Okay, but aside from that I do have a clothing line Clothing line is called K-N9NE Fitness. So it stands for transform the renewal of your mind through fitness and nutrition So it's just basically heavily centered around the mindset and being able to, to be in the gym and stuff like that allowed me to be myself.

Mm hmm. Helped me with my mental health, and I'm a big advocate for mental health, so. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like that's something that we definitely have to speak on more about in this space. I try and speak up as much as I can about mental health awareness and stuff [00:04:00] like that. Especially as someone who, You know, struggles with that.

So, that's good. And then who would you say being in the gym and doing your nutrition that helps you out in the pool with? Absolutely. Absolutely. So direct correlation, you know, so what you're eating definitely affects just how you feel. And it's not even in the pool. It's just in general, you know, but the pool was my avenue to being able to actually learn how to eat right.

You know? Yeah. So. That's what it was for me. The first reality check was when I took my first nutrition class And that's when I learned that correlation definitely, you know Okay, and I think that's pretty much all I have do you have any questions for me or if there's anything else you want to Put out there and let the people know I would say in conclusion, just to continue to stay in line with your goals, you know, a lot of people, especially when you're in alignment to a lot of people are going to come and they're going to try to deter you, you know, and that may not be in the worst form.

It may be of just offering you a job opportunity. That's aside from what you're doing. Yeah, you need a phenomenal opportunity. Stick to what you're doing. Yeah, stay focused, you know, and your goals and don't be so result driven. [00:05:00] Because it can outwork the, the, the goals that you had for yourself, you know, with the results will be bigger, you know?

So in conclusion, again, just don't limit yourself. That's all. Awesome. Thank you, coach. No problem. Appreciate it.