By Healthy Knight News reporters | Akida Neely became a champion competitive swimmer and has accomplishments to prove it.

She learned to swim when she was 4 years old at the Marcus Foster pool in the Nicetown section of Philadelphia. The lessons were free.

When she was 6, she joined the highly regarded Philadelphia Department of Recreation swim team, known as PDR. Her coach was Jim Ellis, who founded the team in the early 1970s. It was the first Black swim team in the United States, according to USA Swimming. Mr. Ellis has received many honors, including being inducted into the International Swim Coaches Hall of Fame in 2019.

“Swimming was my first love,” said Mrs. Neely, who has one child attending Russell Byers and also serves on the school’s board of trustees. “I loved being in the water and found immense joy in competing. I always wanted to win.”

Mr. Ellis taught her that “you gotta believe,” she said. “There is nothing in life that you can’t achieve, but it all starts with having the confidence to believe it can be done.”

As a child, Mrs. Neely spent countless hours training. She practiced six days a week. When she was in fifth grade, she practiced twice a day on three days: at 5 a.m. and again later in the day at 4:30 p.m.

“I trained like an Olympian,” she said.

Mrs. Neely said her favorite event was the 100-yard freestyle. The event involves swimming four laps of a 25-yard pool.

She includes among her greatest accomplishments qualifying for the USA Swimming Junior Nationals and earning a full four-year swimming scholarship to the University of Connecticut. She was the first Black swimmer on the team, she said.

Today, Mrs. Neely volunteers as a coach with PDR’s youth swimmers, ages 6 to 13. “I coach to give back to the program that developed me,” she said.

Illustration by Suhlayah, fourth grade, Russell Byers, 2023–24.