Good morning Pragmatic Obots!
Today’s Olympian is Lia Neal.
(William C. Rhoden, Olympic Swimmer Nia Neal Built Her Dream in Brooklyn, NYT, July 16, 2012)
Rome Neal walked up to the microphone last week at the Paris Blues in Harlem and was just about to sing “I Worry About You” when he decided to share some great news with his audience. In his 12 years of performing a one-man show about Thelonious Monk, Neal had come to appreciate the importance of exquisite timing.
“My daughter’s name is Lia Neal and she just made it to become an Olympic swimmer, and she’ll be swimming in the Olympics in 2012 in London, England, the 4×100 relay,” Neal said.
The audience applauded and cheered enthusiastically. “Lia is 17 years old,” he said, “the second African-American female swimmer to make it to the Olympics.”
More applause, and for a story Rome Neal could finally tell.
Lia Neal qualified for the Olympics earlier this month by finishing fourth in the 100-meter freestyle, putting her on the relay team. In the weeks and months leading to the Olympic swimming trials, her mother, Siu Neal, had admonished her husband of 38 years not to put the cart before the horse, to rein in his flair for the dramatic and generally be cool.
Now Rome was free to spread the word and the joy: his baby girl was an Olympian.
“In the beginning, my wife was saying: ‘Keep it down, keep it down, we don’t want to jinx this thing. Don’t be talking so much about it to people,’ ” he said. “Now I can talk because the whole world is talking.”
A few days before the trials in Omaha, Rome recalled how he had spent the day in New York with Lia. They had gone to the health spa where, as a 5-year-old, she had exhibited the first inkling of interest in swimming. He put her on his back and floated along the surface.
“She couldn’t swim at the time,” Rome Neal said. “She’d be on my back in the water and she would be trying to swim, and I couldn’t swim that well, but the water’s not that deep so I’m making her look like she’s swimming on top of my back.”
For Rome, that moment seems even sweeter today given his daughter’s remarkable journey. (more)
