NIC ASKEW: Kinston Native Changing the Swimming World

Kinston has produced many stars throughout the years like Jerry Stackhouse, Brandon Ingram, Cedric Maxwell, Charles Shackleford, Que Coples, Reggie Bullock, and many more. However, the one guy that might have had the biggest impact on society is Howard former swimmer and swim coach Nic Askew. 

Askew is currently in his eight season as the Howard University swim coach and is also the Director of Operations of the program. Howard University is the only all-black swim team left in the nation. 

This year Askew has led the mens and womens to a winning a record for the first time in the programs 100th year history. His swim team has made waves publicly; it was recently featured in Sports Illustrated. 

Askew proclaimed himself as an official “water baby” of Emma Webb Park. Emma Webb park was a safe haven for Askew to learn to swim, meet friends, and turn into a competitive swimmer. Askew loved the small community atmosphere and recalls many people helping him along the way.

“Growing up, when people recognized you were on the right path, everybody supported you,” Askew said. “Everybody made sure you didn’t turn towards something that would be detrimental to your trajectory. I am super appreciative of that because when you're young there are a lot of things out there. If you don't have people keeping you in line, keeping you on the right path, things could go wrong.”

One of those people Askew turned to was his very first coach Mary Respess. Askew met  Respess at the age of five years old. She coached him in a motherly way whether it was teaching him the swimming basics or yelling at him to redirect him. He started his first year of competitive swimming at seven years old with the Kinston Killer Whales, a club team of Emma Webb.

Even though Askew is living in Washington, DC, he still keeps up with the community news and events. One of the most recent announcements was disturbing news to the “water baby” of Emma Webb Park. The destruction of his childhood safehaven Emma Webb pool to recreate another park area for the community. 

“I am really disappointed they are tearing down the pool and not actually rebuilding it,” said Askew.“It just breaks my heart. If there was no pool there, there would be no Nic Askew. That place was a safe haven. It was a comfortable place where I went to preschool there, learned to swim there, and got my first job there.”

Growing up in Kinston, Askew still recalls hitting Bill Faye Park to work on his tennis game with his friends, then swinging by Captain Corner to grab a couple of hot dogs on the way home. Kinston was the birth spot for many memories, like making lifelong friends with current Lenoir County Superintendent Nic Harvey aka “Big Nic”. Still to this day, “Big Nic” claims to be undefeated against “Lil Nic” in the 25m.

As much of Emma Webb Park was a safe haven, the same couldn’t be said about all his swimming experiences elsewhere. The Kinston native remembers fans cheering against him because they didn’t want the black swimmer to win or receiving snare remarks about his mini afro.” Askew recalls going to a swim meet around the age of nine years old, entering the facility through the competitor's  entrance, but was not allowed enter because he didn’t “look” like a swimmer. 

“I was so upset,” Askew said. “It was because of the color of my skin. That was tough because when you're young you don’t recognize it. I think I probably had the worst meet ever because I was so thrown off.”

Askew is the youngest of three brothers, the son of Dr. Joseph Askew Sr. and Sidonie Askew. The family support was intact since he could remember. His mother was an avid swimmer and his dad grew up swimming at Holloway park and was a part of the original Holloway Sharks swim team. 

“I think my parents did a really good job of making sure I knew who Ii was,” Askew explains how his parents prepared him for the unfair society. “I knew that I was going to face adversity and that adversity should be used to work harder. I think having that guidance really helped me get through those painful moments, where I was even questioning myself should I even continue to swim.”

Askew dream goals were to swim in the olympics and to be a professional tennis player. In high school, he took both sports seriously. After a successful high school career he piled on accomplishments like two-time swim team MVP, three-time tennis MVP, and high school athlete of the year. His accomplishments eventually earned him a scholarship for the Howard University swim team.

Once Askew reached Howard University, his drive multiplied when he was surrounded by great swimmers, where he wasn't the best swimmer on the team automatically. In the sport where physicality and strenuous mental aspect get overlooked, Askew had teammates to hold him accountable to steer him to be the best of the best.

“Coming to Howard made me that much more driven,” Askew said. “The members of the team were the best of where they came from. They brought that to the table. So now I was like I gotta see if I can separate myself from the top again. The beautiful thing about it, it wasn’t adversarial. Everybody wanted everybody to get better, it was an iron sharpens iron environment.”

The Kinston native became a swimming sensation at Howard. Askew earned Freshman of the Year his first year, was named team MVP his sophomore, junior, and senior seasons. To take it a step further, Askew walked on to the tennis team at Howard. He was named MVP of tennis his senior year becoming the only athlete in over a 100 years of Howard sports to be named MVP in two different sports in the same year.

Dominating the lanes wasn’t the only thing the three-time MVP wanted to attack. Askew recognized his whole life there was a myth “black people don't swim '' and he took that personally. The Howard swimmer knew he had to carry the load, not only for himself, but for all the black people in the world labeled with the stigma. He also recognized growing up in the pre-streaming era, there were never any black national figures debunking the myth or at least it wasn’t publicly displayed.

“For me in high school and undergrad, the passion was to be the representation,” Askew said.
“Even in the small spaces I was in, I needed to be the representative of people who you don't see on a normal basis in that space. I knew we had to whole the standard and be that representation.” 

After being a collegiate swimmer Askew made the transition to coaching. The sport in the Historical Black Colleges was becoming less popular and almost extinct with Howard being the only all-black swim team left. New coaches were coming in and out of the program and it became difficult to build a legit program. When Askew was finally named the head coach in 2016 he came in with a plan. 

Askew and his staff worked hard to recreate Burr Gymnasium and bring Howard’s dungeon-like swimming facility back to life. The coach gave the entire facility a makeover by painting everything the school's colors, blue and white, including the bleachers and walls. 

“There are three things we had to do to make this environment exciting, more of a spectator environment that people will enjoy,” said Askew of his plan to create a change. 

To help connect the culture to swimming Askew brilliantly started implementing a live DJ at the swim meets to help the environment become entertaining and sustain the energy throughout the meet. 

“What we found was the more energy the stands had the better the swimmers would swim and the better the divers would dive.,” said Askew. “When we swim better, the crowd gets more involved because swimming is a pure sport of who touches the wall first. We started to win more, the crowd would get even more energized. It became a beautiful synergy between the two.” 

The next step was to make sure the crowd stayed in the stands. Howard started including food at the swim meets like popcorn, pretzels and drinks. Every sporting event in the nation has concessions. Askew went as far as to have food runners for the crowd to ensure the crowd and energy stay intact.

The third change in the plan didn’t happen overnight but was crucial. Howard had to get better at swimming. The program had to put out a product that people wanted to come watch. Askew and his staff worked diligently on coaching their own swimmers but also started recruiting with a wider range to ensure their program is maximizing every recruiting possibility. Howard started snagging recruits from Canada, the Carribans and all across the nation. 

The plan worked. The atmosphere at an Howard University swim meet is better than any other program in the country. The attendance soared from an empty facility to up to 1200 in attendance. It didn’t happen overnight but Askew believed in the plan. Now walking into a Howard Bison swim meet you get a show with a live DJ, a lit crowd hitting the swag-surf, school dancers, hot food, and most importantly a winning product in the water.

This week is the conference championship. The Howard Bison’s are looking to capture their first conference championship since the late 1980’s. Askew has been on a journey his whole life to represent people like himself to the swimming spotlight for the next future swimmers of the world. 

In the 1990's Askew had no public figures like himself to mold his career after but now Askew  has created a hotbed of black swimmers. Change is important especially in a flawed society, Nic Askew has changed swimming not only for just black people but for the world.