Sports
Swimming has a diversity problem. Can this generation of Olympians change that?
When Maritza Correia McClendon started swimming in Puerto Rico, she stood out because of her talent, not the color of her skin.
“There’s a lot of diversity in Puerto Rico,” said McClendon, who is Black and Latino, as are one in five people on the island.
Then her Guyanese-born parents moved to Florida when she was 8. Though she had become even faster in the pool, that was no longer the first thing people noticed about her.
“I remember a parent telling me, ‘What are you doing here? You should go do track or you should go on a basketball court,’” she said. “They were almost shaming me for being that outcast on that pool deck.
“That is definitely traumatizing. It’s still hard for me. I do definitely still struggle with that confidence factor.”
McClendon overcame that to become the first Puerto Rican of African descent to make the U.S. Olympic swimming team, the first Black female to win an Olympic medal for the U.S. and the first Black American swimmer to hold a world record.
2024 Paris Summer Olympic Games
In an effort to get others to follow her lead, McClendon is now among a growing number of former swimmers, coaches, officials and administrators working to make the sport more accessible and welcoming for people of color, from the grassroots level, where she was once shunned, to the Olympic team, where she shined.
The Paris Games has the opportunity to provide a big boost in those efforts when the swimming competition begins Saturday. Although only two of the 46 pool swimmers who will compete for the U.S. in Paris are Black — and none are Latino — those two, Shaine Casas, a three-time world champion, and Simone Manuel, a two-time Olympic champion and five-time Olympic medalist, have a chance to inspire a generation.
“If you’re not seeing somebody that you can relate to as a swimmer, then who’s going to be your role model?” said Steve Roush, executive director of Southern California Swimming, the grassroots affiliate of USA Swimming and the largest of the nation’s 59 local swim committees. “When you’ve seen over the last few years people like Simone Manuel, interests in the Black population say, ‘Hey, I guess we can swim. I guess there are spots for us.’ If they’ve never seen a Black on an Olympic or national team, then it’s really hard for them to think, ‘That’s what I want to do.’”
USA Swimming says less than 5% of the athletes registered with the federation are Black or Latino. Those groups account for 31% of the U.S. population. The level of representation on the Olympic team is no better. The reason for that has little to do with talent.
Simone Manuel will be competing in the women’s 50-meter freestyle at the Paris Games.
(Jack Spitzer / Associated Press)
“It’s not an athletic thing,” said Nic Askew, coach of the swim team at Howard University, the only HBCU to compete in the sport. “Anyone of any race and culture can be an amazing athlete in anything. But when you look at the history and the neglect, it absolutely is more social and socioeconomic.”
Until the last half of the 20th century, Black people and Latinos were commonly prohibited from using public pools and beaches. When those bans were lifted, the lack of swim facilities in inner-city neighborhoods became a new impediment to the sport.
“It’s very, very expensive,” McClendon said. “Not only for the person to learn how to swim, but also for the community to keep a pool open. The cost of the water, the chemicals, lifeguards. Every part of it tends to be very expensive.
“That’s a big hurdle. Another one is generational trauma. When our parents were growing up in segregation, they weren’t even allowed to go to the pool. So there became a fear of going to the water.”
That lack of access has had consequences that stretch beyond making an Olympic team. According to a 2021 study conducted by the USA Swimming Foundation and the University of Memphis, more than two-thirds of Black children do not know how to swim. The number is 45% for Latino children. As a result, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found the rate of drowning deaths among Black children aged 10-14 is 7.6% higher than whites of the same age while the rate for Latinos rose 25% between 2019 and 2022.
“Swimming,” McClendon said, “is the only sport that is also a life-saving skill.”
Yet as long as children of color don’t see themselves represented there, they will continue to believe swimming is not for them. That makes the Olympics — and especially the presence of athletes such as Casas, Manuel and Cullen Jones, the first Black American swimmer to break a world record — so important.
Casas, 24, a former world champion in the backstroke, will swim the 200 individual medley in Paris. That event begins Aug. 1. Manuel, who turns 28 next week, will swim the 4×100 freestyle relay Saturday and the individual 50 freestyle next week. She won gold medals in the 100 freestyle and the relay in Rio de Janeiro in 2016 and won a relay bronze in Tokyo three years ago.
Shaine Casas swims during the men’s 200 individual medley preliminaries at the U.S. Olympic swimming trials in June.
(Michael Conroy / Associated Press)
If both can repeat their success in France, it could provide a big boost to make swimming more diverse in the U.S.
Progress is being made on other fronts as well. In Paris another barrier will fall — and another example will be created — when Anthony Nesty, a former gold medalist for Suriname and the coach at the University of Florida, becomes the first Black head coach of a U.S. Olympic men’s swim team. At the grassroots level, Roush said nearly a fifth of Southern California Swimming’s 20,000 athletes are Latino, a record for the region.
“The participation’s there,” he said. “I think we are reflective of the diverse ethnicity within Southern California. But these numbers aren’t reflective of what’s out there on the national scene.”
Making those numbers reflective of the population at large is important for a number of reasons, said Richard Lapchick, president of the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport at the University of Central Florida.
Tennis, for example, shed its country club image when Serena and Venus Williams began to dominate the sport. That has not only brought more fans and more revenue to the sport, it has brought more and diverse participants as well, with the number of people playing the sport in the U.S. increasing by 33% between 2020 and 2023.
Not surprisingly that growth was most dramatic among people of color with the number of Latino players growing by 90% over that three-year period while Black participation increased by 46%.
“In any area, if you’re not raising a population that is representative of the entire country, you’re excluding [many] that could have been [great],” Lapchick said.
“Part of the reason why it would be helpful if [swimming] was more diverse, there are people who won’t pay attention to swimming because they look at it as a sport that’s exclusive rather than inclusive.”
Without the Williams sisters, we might never have gotten Coco Gauff. And without Black Olympic gymnastics champion Gabby Douglas, we might never have gotten Simone Biles. Over the next nine days, Casas and Manuel have a chance to do the same for Black and Latino swimmers. That opportunity is a fleeting one that only comes around once every four years.
“The one time historically that swimming is at the top of the media or a topic of conversation is during the Olympics,” Askew said. “But the Olympic cycle is every four years. So to be able to see athletes like Shaine and Simone now, it’s phenomenal.
“This is a space that a Black person can be at this elite level.”
Sports
Olympic legend Kaillie Humphries signs with activist sportswear brand XX-XY Athletics amid political rise
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The most accomplished Olympic women’s bobsledder in history is now an official brand ambassador in the movement to “save women’s sports”.
Olympic bobsled legend Kaillie Humphries has signed with the activist sportswear company XX-XY Athletics, becoming the latest medal-winning Olympian to represent the brand.
“Being able to partner with a brand that believes in the same things I do, that’s willing to stand up and actively work on protecting the women’s space and women’s sports is huge,” Humphries told Fox News Digital.
Humphries first spoke out about her support for protecting women’s sports from biological male trans athletes in a Fox News Interview that went viral after the Milan-Cortina Olympics in February.
Humphries had just returned after winning bronze in women’s bobsled, marking her sixth career Olympic medal. She later revealed that she received backlash for coming out as a Republican with other conservative stances in that interview, but didn’t back down.
Humphries went on to be honored at a White House Women’s History Month event by President Donald Trump in March, and gave her Order of Ikkos medal to Trump, citing his actions to protect women’s sports.
“Being able to come back to the USA after the Olympics and then be able to make connections and meet some people, I was able to, when I went to the White House, I was able to meet people that were connected obviously in working with XX-XY and that’s how the conversation started,” Humphries said.
Humphries, who is originally from Canada and competed in her first three Olympics for Canada, moved to the U.S. in 2016 and then competed for Team USA at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.
FEMALE ATHLETES ANXIOUSLY AWAIT SUPREME COURT DECISION TO TAKE UP TRANSGENDER PARTICIPATION IN WOMEN’S SPORTS
Kaillie Humphries, U.S. Olympic bronze medalist bobsled athlete, presents the Order of Ikkos to President Donald Trump during a Women’s History Month event in the East Room of the White House in Washington, D.C., on March 12, 2026. (Al Drago/Bloomberg)
Just months after that, America was rocked by the news that male transgender swimmer Lia Thomas was winning championships for UPenn’s women’s swim team.
Humphries, who was following the story in the news, found it startling.
Now, as a California resident and the mother of a newborn son, she is energized to help combat the wave of trans athletes in girls’ sports in the state, as California has become the nation’s biggest hotbed for the issue.
XX-XY Athletics co-founder and former U.S. gymnast Jennifer previously told Fox News Digital one of her biggest goals for the brand was to land high-profile superstar women’s athletes as brand ambassadors, especially Olympic medalists.
Now, with Humphries, the brand has a three-time Olympic gold medalist and six-time Olympic podium finisher across her stints for Canada and the U.S.
Humphries joins Olympic silver medalist gymnast MyKayla Skinner and gold medal swimmer Nancy Hogshead on XX-XY Athletics’ growing roster of Olympians.
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USA’s Kaillie Humphries holds a USA flag after winning bronze in the bobsleigh women’s monobob heat 4 at Cortina Sliding Centre during the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic Games in Cortina d’Ampezzo on Feb. 16, 2026. (Marco Bertorello/AFP)
“Kaillie is the GOAT of her sport. She is the only Olympian to win gold for two different countries. She is an elite athlete and a courageous, fierce woman who has fought for female athletes to have equal opportunities in sport.” Sey told Fox News Digital.
“The women’s monobob event exists because of Kaillie’s leadership, and she has gold-medal proof that women have the skill, strength, and speed to compete at the highest level. She has driven meaningful change and expanded opportunities for women at the Olympic level — more female athletes represent Team USA because of Kaillie. And that’s exactly why we’re leading with her as we grow in how we support female athletes.”
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Sports
Cancer left him blind. When his son was diagnosed, ex-USC long snapper found Trojans had his back again
Former USC long snapper Jake Olson made college football history at the Coliseum in September 2017 as the first completely blind player to compete in a Division I college football game.
Eight years later, his not-quite-8-month-old son was having the time of his life crawling around on the same field.
The significance of the moment was not lost on Olson.
Rowan Olson plays with a football Sept. 5 on the field at the Coliseum.
(Courtesy of the Olson family)
“Watching Rowan crawl around out there on that grass, in that stadium that shaped so much of my story, was emotional in a way I didn’t expect,” Olson told The Times during a series of interviews over the phone and via email. “It felt like a full-circle blessing.”
It wasn’t the only blessing Olson, his wife, Audrey, and their son experienced during that trip to Los Angeles in September.
“We were actually out there for Rowan’s first checkup after finishing his last round of systemic chemo,” Olson said, “so the whole trip already carried this sense of celebration and relief.”
Rowan was born Jan. 17, 2025, with bilateral retinoblastoma, the same rare childhood cancer that had caused his father to lose both of his eyes by age 12. Since his diagnosis at 6 days old, Rowan has made monthly trips with his parents from their home in Jacksonville, Fla., to Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, the same place his father had been treated decades earlier while growing up in Huntington Beach.
During those hospital visits, Rowan underwent systemic and intravitreal chemotherapy and laser treatments designed to shrink the cancerous tumors in each of his eyes, stop the cancer from spreading and preserve his vision.
After six months of treatment, the tumors had become small enough that the systemic chemotherapy could stop. And now, according to Dr. Jesse Berry, chief of ophthalmology and director of the retinoblastoma program at CHLA, the laser treatment and injections into Rowan’s eyes are no longer needed as well.
“I think right now he is cancer-free,” Berry said. “We have no evidence that he has active cancer anywhere in his body, but he’s a kiddo that we will always watch closely.”
Rowan celebrates his first birthday in January. His doctor says he has “excellent vision” after months of chemotherapy.
(Courtesy of the Olson family)
The monthly visits to CHLA will eventually be spaced out, but Rowan will have to be monitored the rest of his life in case the cancer returns.
“There’s always a chance that small tumors pop up here and there over the next couple of years, which is normal for retinoblastoma. That’s why constant monitoring is so important,” Olson said. “As long as we stay on top of it, any tiny spot that appears can be lasered immediately and taken care of.”
Unlike Rowan, Olson was not diagnosed until he was 8 months old. His left eye was removed two months later, while the remaining cancer was treated with systemic chemotherapy. Olson was 12 when doctors decided his right eye needed to be removed.
“Retinoblastoma is very treatable — you know, you catch it early, it’s very treatable,” Olson said.
“I just don’t want [Rowan] to have a 12-year battle with this. Dr. Berry made that very clear up front that his situation is a lot different than mine, that we’re going to knock these things out, and he’s going to grow up with sight in both eyes and really never probably remember a lot of it.”
According to Berry, Rowan has “excellent vision.”
Olson’s ophthalmologist at CHLA was the late Dr. A. Linn Murphree, a pioneer in ocular oncology who later served as Berry’s mentor.
After Rowan was diagnosed, the Olsons didn’t hesitate in choosing a hospital more than 2,400 miles from home for their son’s treatment, both because of its reputation as a leading retinoblastoma center and because of the special care Olson received there throughout his childhood.
Dr. Jesse Berry holds Rowan Olson while standing between the newborn’s parents, Audrey and Jake, in early 2025.
(Courtesy of the Olson family)
“I texted [Berry] — at what was 6:30 in the morning her time — and she responded within two minutes, encouraging us and confidently telling us that she will take the best care of Rowan,” Olson said. “That’s just a glimpse into who she is and the culture Dr. Murphree built.”
At the time, Berry was dealing with hardship of her own. She and her family had just lost their Altadena home in the Eaton fire and were considering leaving the Los Angeles area to rebuild their lives. She said a call from Olson about his newborn son helped her decide to stay.
“Jake called and said, ‘I just had a baby, and I’m sitting in a doctor’s office and they think he has RB, and I want to come see you.’ And that was the same week as the fire,” Berry said. “And so I said, ‘OK, we’ll see you next week.’ He and his family were a real anchor to keeping us set in L.A. and really focused on the greater mission.”
Once back at CHLA, Olson experienced an intense feeling of deja vu.
“We walked into the same waiting room I used to sit in, the same exam rooms, hearing the same vocabulary I hadn’t heard in years. It was like being thrown straight into the deep end of my past,” Olson said.
“The hardest moment was going to the part of the hospital where my last surgery — the one that took my eyesight — took place. Even though I couldn’t see it, my body remembered. I had to fight back panic I didn’t even know I was capable of feeling. But I had to stay steady for Audrey and for Rowan. That was probably the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.”
But the location of the monthly treatments came with an extra benefit.
“When we found out that [Rowan] had this tumor, we immediately flew out to California and were surrounded by Jake’s family, who had gone through this and had the experience, the wisdom and knowledge around the disease,” Audrey Olson said.
Audrey, Jake and Rowan Olson take a family selfie after a long travel day from Florida to Children’s Hospital Los Angeles in May.
(Courtesy of the Olson family)
“So I really leaned on the support of the family we were surrounded by. And then I also just leaned on Jake, who I know lived a major life after losing his sight and battling his cancer. We definitely leaned on each other a ton and could not have done it without each other.”
USC football has been a major part of Olson’s life since childhood. Upon learning he would be losing his eyesight, Olson became determined to watch as much of the Trojans as he could before his surgery. Then-coach Pete Carroll heard about Olson and allowed him to hang out with the team in meetings, in the locker room and on the sideline. His last day with sight was spent at a USC practice.
It wouldn’t be Olson’s last time in that environment. Not even close. After years of learning the techniques of a long snapper, Olson earned a first-string spot at the position for Orange Lutheran and joined the Trojans in 2015 as a walk-on player.
Two years later, on Sept. 2, 2017, then-coach Clay Helton called on the 20-year-old long snapper for an extra-point attempt following a USC touchdown against Western Michigan. Olson’s snap, as described by The Times’ Bill Plaschke at the time, was “perfect” and the kick was good, sealing a 49-31 Trojans victory.
USC long snapper Jake Olson conducts the marching band after the Trojans’ 49-31 win over Western Michigan on Sept. 2, 2017, at the Coliseum.
(Mark J. Terrill / Associated Press)
“You just never know what’s going to come from adversity and from situations, like the miracles that can come from what we think are tragedies. And that miracle for me was playing football at SC,” said Olson, who played in a total of three games during his time with the Trojans. “Honestly, I don’t know if I ever would have done that if I kept my eyesight or never had cancer. So for me, being able to play at that school was a pinnacle of everything I’d gone through that had led me there.
“I don’t know what Rowan’s pinnacle is going to be, but there’s going to be miracles that come from this. … There’s a level of excitement to that, just hope and knowing there’s going to be something special that comes from this. For me, it was playing at USC, and I think that’s just indisputable evidence of that. And we’ll see what that is for Rowan.”
As news broke about Rowan’s recovery in recent weeks, Olson said he received a text from current USC coach Lincoln Riley.
“He sent a really, really special message that just let us know he’s praying for us,” Olson said. “Trojan football has helped me get through so much in life. It did last year, is going to this year and for every year to come. And if, Lord willing, Rowan will one day wear that helmet too.”
Former USC long snapper Jake Olson holds son Rowan on the football field at the Coliseum on Sept. 5, 2025.
(Courtesy of the Olson family)
During his family’s visit to the Coliseum last fall, Olson introduced his wife and son to Helton, now the head coach at Georgia Southern, whose team was practicing ahead of its game against the Trojans the next day.
“That alone felt special,” Olson said of meeting up with the coach who had helped change his life. “But then, we were able to walk out onto the exact yard line where I snapped from.
“Standing there with my wife and son, on the very spot where I had shown so much resilience myself, felt like seeing the fruits of ‘Fight On’ in real time. It acted as a reminder and encouragement for why I was still fighting on now through this new cancer journey. It was surreal and sacred at the same time.
“If it weren’t for the Coliseum and USC football, I genuinely don’t know if Audrey or Rowan would be in my life. And if it weren’t for me learning how to fight on through all that it took in order to get to that 3-yard line, I don’t know how I would be fighting on as a father or a husband now. So to have both of them there, on that field, taking it all in for the first time, it meant the world.”
The Cleveland Browns, rumored to be willing to trade down from their No. 6 overall selection in the 2026 NFL draft, did just that Thursday evening when the traded the pick to the Kansas City Chiefs.
Cleveland traded the sixth overall pick in the first round of the 2026 NFL Draft to the Chiefs, in exchange for the ninth overall pick, as well as pick No. 74 in the third round and No. 148 in the fifth round.
The Browns now hold the No. 9 and No. 24 picks in the first round of the draft. They have a total of 11 picks in the 2026 NFL Draft.
Quarterbacks Shedeur Sanders and Deshaun Watson of the Cleveland Browns watch from the sidelines during a game against the Cincinnati Bengals at Huntington Bank Field in Cleveland, Ohio, on Sept. 7, 2025. (Jason Miller/Getty Images)
So the Chiefs gave up three picks in making the first trade of the first round.
BROWNS EXECS RAISE EYEBROWS WITH REACTIONS AFTER DRAFTING SHEDEUR SANDERS FOLLOWING HISTORIC SLIDE
And we know what the fan bases of both clubs were thinking prior to the selection:
Chiefs fans were thinking we know something they don’t. And then the Chiefs selected cornerback Mansoor Delane from LSU — a move no doubt forced by the club’s trade of Pro Bowl cornerback Trent McDuffie to the Los Angeles Rams earlier in the offseason.
So, the Chiefs fill a major need, assuming Delane is indeed the quality corner they believe.
LSU Tigers CB Mansoor Delane celebrates a defensive stop against the Clemson Tigers at Memorial Stadium in South Carolina. (Ken Ruinard/USA TODAY Network)
GREG OLSEN’S ADVICE FOR NFL DRAFT FIRST-ROUND PICKS ON HANDLING HIGH EXPECTATIONS
ESPN’s Mel Kiper didn’t like the pick, by the way. He had Delane as the 14th best player in the draft.
“It was a necessity,” ESPN analyst Louis Riddick, a former NFL defensive back, responded.
Browns fans weren’t thinking that way.
BROWNS MAKE STUNNING KENNY PICKETT TRADE TO RAIDERS AS BACKUP QUARTERBACK ROLE REMAINS WIDE OPEN
They were probably thinking something akin to “We screwed up.”
This is understandable because they’re Browns fans and this could have been the Browns Browning.
Well, the Browns, moving down three slots, gave up a shot to draft linebacker Sonny Styles of Ohio State to the Washington Commanders, receiver Jordyn Tyson to the New Orleans Saints and then the Browns got their chance with the newly acquired No. 9 pick:
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Offensive tackle Spencer Fano of Utah.
Cleveland Browns general manager Andrew Berry speaks at the NFL Scouting Combine at the Indiana Convention Center in Indianapolis, Ind., on Feb. 24, 2026. (Kirby Lee/Imagn Images)
Fano is good. And he makes the Browns offensive line instantly better because he’s going to likely start at left tackle for them.
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So what will Browns fans think of this pick?
They’ll probably wonder why the Browns didn’t pick Miami’s Francis Mauigoa, who went with the No. 10 pick to the New York Giants and promised “to die for” Jaxson Dart if necessary. They’ll wonder this because Browns fans expect the worst.
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