Our Water Family: Mentoring "comes full circle"

Blog Post
sepia-toned picture of young man preparing to swim
Dwight Lawrence, Customer Account Specialist, recalls his love of swimming and passion for mentoring youth.
Published
sepia-toned picture of young man preparing to swim
Dwight Lawrence as a young swimmer.

As a fifteen-year-old, Dwight Lawrence found his sanctuary inside an eight-foot-wide swimming lane. “It was freedom for me to do swimming,” said Lawrence, a Customer Account Specialist. “It was my way of escaping the violence of being in gangs. That’s what helped me get through high school without being shot at. Swimming was a means for me to escape what was going on in the streets of Detroit.”

Detroit was in the midst of decades-long under-investment in Black neighborhoods, like the one Lawrence grew up in. Job prospects after high school looked bleak. Lawrence knew there was a future out there for him somewhere, but he didn’t know the breaststroke would be his ticket out. “Honestly, I didn’t know there were scholarships for it,” Lawrence said. “I thought the money was just for basketball, football, and track.”

Lawrence’s swimming excellence would take him far, literally. At seventeen, he earned a scholarship to swim for South Carolina State University. He credits a coach’s confidence with getting him to that point. “The coach said ‘stick with me, stay out of trouble. I’ll get you a swimming scholarship, you’ll get into college,’ ” Lawrence said. “Now it’s come full circle. I didn’t realize it until saying it just now, but it’s come full circle.”

Fast-forward a few decades and Lawrence has been mentoring Portland teenagers for years. “We’d teach them how to balance their checkbook or how to set up utilities. How to interact with police. Things they don’t teach in school, but stuff you really need to know. Life lessons.” That success led Big Brothers, Big Sisters Columbia Northwest to seek Lawrence out. The organization wanted to connect him to a Little Brother named Jensen, a fellow underexperienced Black swimmer who showed potential to thrive in the White-dominated sport.

Lawrence didn’t have any formal training as a coach, but years as a community mentor plus a keen eye to diagnose swimming strokes helped turn Jensen into a collegiate swimmer. “I got Jensen in the pool and he looked pretty good, but I was able to teach him a few things,” Lawrence said. “Within fifteen minutes his mom comes up to me saying ‘he’s never swam this strong before, he looks more efficient.’ ” There’s a chuckle in Lawrence’s voice as he remembers that anecdote from four years ago.

Bureau employee with young man holding plaques outside
           Dwight and his mentee, Jensen. 

A lot has changed since then. Jensen put in countless hours going back and forth through the chlorine waters. This spring he graduated from Roosevelt High School, morphing from a lanky teen to a young man. One who’s ready to take on his opponents in the other lanes and the world. “I told Jensen if you can make the times, I can guarantee you you will go to college on a swimming scholarship,” Lawrence said.

Jensen was interested in Howard University. The historic Black college in Washington D.C. was also on Lawrence’s shortlist when he was choosing colleges. Big Brother and Little Brother were a lot alike. Jensen’s best stroke? The breaststroke, same as Lawrence. Making great strides in swimming would soon be another commonality. But Portland isn’t a hotbed of swimming talent for scouts to mine through. Getting Jensen noticed would take work.

Lawrence went through his mental rolodex, sending videos of Jensen competing to friends who were college swim coaches. That generated initial interest at various school across the country. Jensen maintained good grades and improved in the pool. Lawrence did his part by connecting Jensen with high school friends from back in Detroit, who were Howard alums.

Soon enough, Howard went from dream to reality: Jensen was accepted for the class of 2024. “I feel very proud that I was able to help a young man get to college, Lawrence said, just one-on-one, not as a coach-coach but as one-on-one being able to mentor him like someone did for me.”