By Sharon Robb, Special Splash Correspondent, January-February 2002

Mya Gabriel Davis was born June 20, 2001 in Los Angeles, Calif., with some incredible genes. The son of beach volleyball star Annett and 12-time NCAA All-American swimmer Byron Davis has the world at his tiny feet.

Mya, also the first name of his talented father, means "quiet strength," which has been the biggest quality in the life of  Byron Davis. Not only was he one of the nation's top swimmers who just missed making the 1996 Olympic team, but he remains a role model for thousands of young student-athletes across the country.

"If there's one word that I had to use to describe myself, I would have to say persistent,” Davis said. “Swimming has taught me that success is definitely a choice and failure is never, ever final if you use it as fertilizer for future success."

In 1996, the former American record-holder was three-tenths of a second shy of becoming the first African-American to make the Olympic team. He finished fourth in the 100m butterfly. He gave it another shot in 2000, before joining the working world at Metropolitan West Financial, a diversified financial holding company with ownership interests in the financial industry. Eventually, the 30-year-old would like to buy and build businesses and run his own holding company.

He and his family live in Tarzana, Calif., 15 minutes outside of Los Angeles where he works. "I work on New York hours. Swimming prepared me to wake up at 4:45 every morning," Davis said with a laugh.

Though he no longer swims competitively and is more into sailing and scuba diving, Davis uses his life's experiences in swimming to motivate, challenge and change the lives of young athletes of all races and economic background.

"I have learned that one of the greatest advantages an athlete has in his or her pursuit of greatness, is the advantage to assess setbacks," Davis said. "By learning to use every experience to your advantage, success and breakthroughs become almost inevitable. The key is just staying in the game long enough to see your persistence pay off.

"It wasn't tough for me to hang up my trunks," Davis said. "I accomplished all I wanted to in the sport."

Davis has always set lofty goals for himself. He has been a role model for African-American athletes – not just swimmers – since he burst onto the high school and college swim scene. His race brought more attention at the 1996 Olympic Trials. For Davis, his race was irrelevant to what he was trying to accomplish.

"It comes with the territory, and I knew [my race] came with the territory, and accepted it," Davis said. "It is a sad commentary where society was [when I was swimming] –and still is in many ways –  that my race is still making news. I was an African-American in a predominantly white sport. I never allowed myself to think that I had the weight of an entire community on my shoulders…that if I failed, I failed a whole race of people. It wouldn't have been fair or appropriate to take on that kind of pressure.

"I recognized I was a role model, and I enjoyed being a role model. I think I embrace that more than anything. There is nothing wrong with being a role model as long as people understand all humans make mistakes. I think my passion, hope and prayer for life in general came through. Martin Luther King once said that he wanted people to judge him not by the color of his skin but the content of his character."

Davis' mom, whom he calls a “visionary" got him involved with swimming at an early age. She never wanted her kids, nephews and nieces to be "closed-minded about anything," said Davis, who was also exposed to art museums, symphonies, opera and several sports. He went to sign up for bowling, but when the classes were full he turned to swimming.

He joined a program in Cleveland called the Gray Y, designed to get black and white children together on the same field of sports. "It was a cool program, and I really loved swimming," Davis said. "The playground was a discovery for me. It's how I learned. I picked things up intuitively. I stayed with the sport, and as the saying goes, the rest was history.

"It's all been part of life's journey for me. If I had to do it all over again I think I would have bet on my God-given ability earlier in my career. I would have taken bigger risks. Who knows what might have happened?"

At the 2000 Olympic Trials in Indianapolis, Davis was among a half-dozen or so athletes who had a shot at breaking the race barrier at the Sydney Games. Michael Norment, Maritza Correia, Sabir Muhammad, Keiko Price and Alison Terry were all flirting with history.

It was sprinter Anthony Ervin of Valencia, Calif. who became the first swimmer of African-American heritage to make the U.S. Olympic team in 2000. Ervin set a short-course world record of 21.21 to win the 50 free at the 2000 NCAAs.

Ervin tied Gary Hall for gold in the 50m free and added a silver medal in the  400m free relay at the 2000 Sydney Games. Ervin's father, Jack, is 75% black and 25% American Indian. His mother, Sherry, is white. "I'm proud of my heritage," he said at the Trials. "This means a great deal to me."

Swimming is one of the last athletic frontiers for the African-American athlete. African-Americans have not been much of a force on the U.S. swimming scene. None had even qualified for the Trials before 1964.

To see an African-American standing on the medal stand at the Olympic Games would go a long way toward attracting more minority swimmers, most coaches and athletes agree.

This is still important in America, even though other swimmers of color from around the world have been successful on the sport's grandest stage.

Surinam's Anthony Nesty, a University of Florida grad, owns the distinction of being the first swimmer of color to win an Olympic gold medal. He defeated American superstar Matt Biondi at the 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul, South Korea. Cuba's Neisser Bent won the Olympic bronze medal in the men's 100m backstroke in 1996. And Leah Martindale of Barbados placed fifth in the women's 50m freestyle in Atlanta.

"I would have been proud to be the first African-American swimmer to make the Olympic team," said Norment, a University of Georgia graduate. "But I didn’t limit myself by focusing on that because I wanted to be remembered for swimming fast." Norment made history in 1997 when he became the first black swimmer to make a U.S. national team.

Terry, 26, a lifeguard from San Diego, also had lofty goals. In the women's 100m freestyle, Terry, who was coming off a five-month layoff, finished 86th at the Trials.

A few African-Americans in the colorless world of swimming admit to feeling extra pressure.

"I would have loved to be the first African-American swimmer to make the 2000 team," Terry said. "Tennis has the Williams sisters (Venus and Serena). And it had Arthur Ashe. Golf has Tiger Woods. Swimming needs an African-American medalist, too."

Muhammad, of Atlanta, finished ninth in the semifinals of the 50m free and did not advance to the finals. He finished eighth in the 100m free final. During his career, Muhammad set the American short-course record in the 100m butterfly.

"Yeah, I felt the pressure [of being a black role model], but it's something that I didn't try to think about when I was swimming," Muhammad said. "I just swam and stayed focused."

Correia joined the Brandon Blue Wave Swim Club in 1990. The only other black swimmer she saw at practice and at many competitions was her older brother, Justin.

As she worked her way to state high school championships at Tampa Bay Tech and into the elite swimming ranks, minority competitors remained scarce. Correia was born in Puerto Rico. Her parents are from Guyana.

"Probably about one percent of the U.S. swimmers are black, so it gives you an incentive to go out there and show them that we can do it, too," Correia said.

Race has never been a big issue in Correia's life. The only reason she thinks about it is that people keep asking about it.

"We've never had a racial problem," said Correia's mother, Anne, a registered nurse. "She's never been any different than anyone else, and it's not an issue at home."

"I've always been around a lot of ethnicity," said Correia, who graduated from Tampa Bay Tech, which has one of the highest enrollments of African-American students in Hillsborough County. "Race is not important. Everybody's the same."

Ten years after Correia began swimming with the Brandon program, minority participation still remains low. 

Many coaches believe the reason more African-Americans don't join swimming programs is a social one, rather than financial or other barriers. There's not a lot of black athletes involved in the successful side of swimming.

There isn't somebody they can relate to.

Louis Harrison, a professor at Louisiana State University who studies minority sports participation, backs that theory. He wrote in 1995: "There are few, if any, African-American models, and because there are low expectations for participation in these activities, the student does not see him or herself participating in such activities."

Price is one of the lucky ones. She had the perfect role model with Davis working out alongside her in the UCLA pool.

"I never saw myself as different when I was younger, but now that I am an African-American studies major and I've become more aware of race relations, I'm proud to be one of the few African-Americans in swimming," Price said. "I hope I inspire younger minorities to reach for their goals.

"Black swimmers deal with the stereotype that blacks can't swim," she added.

"It has to do with opportunity. Swimming is expensive, and it's not really stressed. I think I would inspire more African-Americans to swim, since there aren't very many of them that do. I'm very proud to be representing African-Americans."

Keiko Price was also enthusiastic about having Davis working out with the team.

"It was great having Byron there. He is such a great person to be around as someone to race against and in terms of personality. He's an inspirational person. He has the greatest attitude toward life and swimming. I think that the team really appreciated his presence and the impact he made on the team. He has made an impact on the sport."

Now Davis has a chance to make an impact on the business world while watching his son grow up."The sky is the limit for Mya," Davis said. "After the 2000 Olympics we knew it was time to start a family. We both realize Mya will be exposed to many different opportunities. Anything he seems to favor and love, we will support. We're not going to put any pressure on him. He can take ownership of his own talent and skills. I will always remain his coach."