Swimming' Jim

Jim Robinson slipped a pair of neon goggles over his eyes as he prepared to step on the starting platform positioned at the edge of his lane. 

The 76-year-old Trussville resident already had swum three events in the past day. Including this forthcoming one, he had three more to go. 

Robinson placed his hands on knees as he stood atop the poolside pedestal, then settled into the ready position for his looming race: the 100-yard individual medley. 

He dove into the pool at the sound of the buzzer. Age, seemingly, was no matter to him and other swimmers in the 2017 National Senior Games. 

The two-week event came to Birmingham at the beginning of June, and Robinson was one local participant who partook in the action. He competed in six swimming events and threw horseshoes alongside other men ages 75 to 79. 

“This is just one way I can stay active,” said Robinson, water dripping from his 6-foot-2 frame after one of his aquatic events.  

June marked Robinson’s fifth time participating in the Games, which are held every two years in varying host cities around the country. He qualified in 14 different events across three sports — swimming, horseshoes and track and field — but rules governing participation limited him to two sports. He chose his favorites and didn’t look back. 

Robinson, who grew up in Trussville and has twice served on City Council, learned to swim in the Cahaba River when he was 6 years old. Back then, the city had yet to construct its first public pool. 

He then swam competitively in junior high and high school before joining a synchronized swimming club at Howard College, now Samford University, where he also played on the varsity basketball team. 

Once he left college, Robinson didn’t pick up swimming again until 2006, soon after he and his wife, Charmaine, retired. Jim Robinson had been diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes the year before and sought to improve his physical fitness. Swimming proved part of the solution.

The sport helped him shed 60 pounds, while curbing many of the effects of diabetes. 

“I just have to keep after it,” he said. 

And he has for the past 11 years. 

Robinson generally trains five to six days a week at the Trussville YMCA, which has replaced the Cahaba as his preferred swimming facility. In addition to logging 600 to 1,000 yards per day in the pool, he also walks 3 to 4 miles and lifts weights. 

In 2011, he was named the Male Athlete of the Year at the Alabama State Games for his performances in the water and on the track. 

Charmaine Robinson called her husband of 49 years an inspiration, a paragon of character and perseverance. 

She sat in the top row of bleachers inside the Birmingham CrossPlex aquatics building as she watched him swim the individual medley. 

She yelled, softly, at the man cruising through the water in a pair of red and black jammers.

“Come on Jim!” she urged from above. 

Jim Robinson touched the wall in third place and then directed his gaze toward the scoreboard. He bobbed in the water as he waited for his time to appear. 

The clock read 1 minute, 52.79 seconds. It was his fourth personal best in four races. 

“You just give all you can give,” he said. “It’s just a lot of fun.”