7-time Olympic medalist opens swim school for children in Gig Harbor

Amanda Beard marched to her swim station with her teddy bear in her arms in 1996. Stepping on the block at age 14, she stood tiny in comparison to the other Olympians. It was her first Olympic games.

Since that day in Sydney, Australia, she went on to set a world record for the 200-meter breaststroke in the 2003 FINA World Championships, went to four Olympic games, and won seven Olympic medals.

Inspired by her early experience in drowning prevention and strengthened by having her own children, Beard’s now starting her own learn-to-swim facility for children as young as 6 months old — the age she was when she started swimming.

“It makes me totally go back to when I was little,” Beard, now 35, said. “Playing, loving the water, just having fun with it.”

Beard and her husband, Sacha Brown, have been researching and planning the school for more than six years. The couple started construction on the building in the retail complex off Point Fosdick in January, and opened July 19.

There were more than 1,000 children on her waitlist for the school’s opening.

“At the end of the day, you feel really good about yourself being able to teach all of these kids something that they will have for the rest of their lives,” she said.

Beard started swimming as a baby in mommy-and-me classes in Irvine, California. By 3 years old, she could swim the length of the pool. Too young to officially join the swim team, she became the unofficial mascot. By 4, she joined the Irvine summer leagues. By 14, she was trying out for her first Olympics.

She was also passionate about her community at a young age. As a high school sophomore in Southern California, Beard participated in a memorial event with a local hospital.

“It was a very emotional moment,” she said. “We released balloons for every child that lost their life in a water incident and from that moment it just kind of hit me. I love swimming. It brings me so much joy that I didn’t want this to continue.”

Beard then volunteered to teach lessons to kids in her school district while balancing her own school and training demands.

“So it just became kind of this mission of mine to bring the love and joy that I have for the pool to every other child,” she said.

Beard’s pace changed when she had her son Blaise, 7, and later daughter Doone, 3, in Tucson, Arizona. She often visited family in the Puget Sound region and was struck by its beauty every time. Beard and her husband decided to take a leap of faith and move to Gig Harbor.

Beard has held talks within the community about her struggles as an Olympic athlete, but now she’s doing something new. She said she was surprised by how few learn-to-swim facilities there were in her new community.

“It kind of blew my mind with how much water we have,” she said. “And I know the water is chillier up here but that doesn’t mean the risks of being around water aren’t still there.”

Danielle Gunns, head coach of the Tacoma Swim Club, works with Beard to schedule private lessons. She pointed out that different groups such as high school swim teams, water polo teams, and recreational teams compete for usage of the pools in the Gig Harbor and Tacoma areas so it’s sometimes hard to find space for lessons.

Beard’s main focus for her school is teaching kids how to swim for water safety, using some techniques from Infant Self Rescue. ISR primarily teaches babies how to swim short distances and float on their back until help arrives if they fall into water.

According to a study from JAMA pediatrics in 2009, for children 1 to 4 years old, formal swimming lessons were associated with an 88 percent reduction in drowning risk.

The Center for Disease Control says the average fatal unintentional drownings from 2005-2014 was 3,536 per year. This did not include boating accidents. Children 1 to 4 have the highest drowning rates.

Swimming can have other general motor skills benefits as well. According to a study from Child: Care, Health and Development journal regular swimming lessons for babies positively affects prehension, also known as hand-eye coordination, and balance compared to children who don’t participate.

“The more kids we can get to be water safe the better off I think we are as a community in helping one another,” Gunns said.

Gunns’ two sons, Lucas, 3, and Andrew, 8 months, are on the waitlist for lessons at Beard’s school.

“Allowing them to take the skills that they’ve learned and then carry them into their adult life I think is really invaluable,” Gunns said.

Beard organized an instructor training and her very first class in late April. The five-day class taught children from 6 months to 6 years how to swim.

“The kids did so amazing and it’s just fun to see the very first day they come into it having no idea how to swim or float or do anything, and by the last day they’re little fishes,” Beard said.

Not satisfied with the swim classes already offered in Gig Harbor, Tiffany Lannielli was searching for a better program for her children; one that would teach Infant Self Rescue techniques. She heard about Beard’s swim school from her friends who had enrolled their babies in the five-day training program.

Lannielli enrolled her son Krue, 5, and daughter Emerson, 4, for lessons in the five-day training. Her son and daughter are also on Beard’s waiting list.

“Within a week my son was swimming the pool, which I didn’t even know he had it in him,” Lannielli said. “My daughter knows how to float and she’s more comfortable in the water. In fact, they’re quite obsessed with it at this point. They practice floating in the bathtub every night.”

Beard said making children comfortable in the water is the first step toward teaching them to be independent swimmers.

“Even just putting your head under the water as a child can be really scary so I want to remind them how awesome it is that they are overcoming their fears and doing that,” Beard said. “I tell them, ‘Look at my eyes and we’ll go underwater together and we’ll look at each other underwater and I’ll make a goofy face. Tell me what goofy face I make.’”

While the school was still in planning, Beard used what spare time she had to teach private lessons at Tacoma Swim Club, helping children and teenagers from 10 to 17 years old refine their stroke technique, and most importantly to have fun, she said.

Shortly after officially opening its doors last week, Beard Swim Co. got another bit of good news.

The International Swimming Hall of Fame today announced a new designation called “More Than Water,” to recognize swim schools in a nationwide effort to educate and encourage parents to start swim lessons for their children as early as 6 months old.

Beard Swim Co. became the first swim school in the United States to earn the designation and be recognized for aligning with the core principles the designation is based on.

“The new guidelines are meant to bring attention to swimming as a life skill that not only makes kids healthier and happier, but also advances their development and opens the door to a big world of experiences,” Bruce Wigo ISHOF executive director said in a release. “We chose to recognize the Beard Swim Co. first since Amanda has always embraced this philosophy and now as a swim school operator, she has the opportunity to create programs that get more kids in the water sooner.”

Beard has plans to start a nonprofit program with her swim school so that every child can have swim lessons. Several companies have expressed interest in donating for a nonprofit program, she said, but it’s still in the planning phase.

This story was originally published July 26, 2017 at 9:57 AM with the headline "7-time Olympic medalist opens swim school for children in Gig Harbor."