By Phillip Whitten<\/p>\n
SAN DIEGO, April 18. SEVERAL members of the US National Swim Team, here in San Diego for a USA Swimming training camp, will pay a visit tomorrow to the San Diego Children's Hospital.<\/p>\n
Tentatively scheduled to make the visit are 2000 Olympians Tom Wilkens and Stacianna Stitts, and multi- record-setter, Natalie Coughlin. Also possibly joining the group are 2000 Olympic champion Megan Quann and 2002 NCAA champion Shelly Ripple.<\/p>\n
The idea is the initiative of Bryan Jones, a member of USA Swimming's Athletes Executive Committee, and 1996 Olympic gold medalist Mark Henderson, also a member of the Athletes Executive Committee and USA Swimming's athlete rep to the US Olympic Committee. <\/p>\n
Jones, a former national champion in the 100m fly, told SwimInfo.com<\/b>: "The idea behind getting USA Swimming involved with a charity is one about which both Mark and I feel very strongly, and the Athletes Executive Committee is firmly behind. <\/p>\n
"After last September, Mark was able to have a huge role in developing an event for the victims of September 11th involving elite athletes from several sports to be held this summer in New York." <\/p>\n
In November, the two athlete reps decided that perhaps the National Team camp in San Diego would be a great place for the USA Swimming National Team athletes to show that they have the desire, when given a chance, to give back to the community. <\/p>\n
Henderson secured goodies from Speedo, TYR, Oakley, the USOC and USA Swimming. He has also done a fantastic job in making this trip as much fun as possible for the athletes — including having the athletes take a limo to the hospital. <\/p>\n
"The goal of this visit," said Jones, "is really to inspire the National Team athletes to press USA Swimming for more opportunities to make a difference in the community. We would like to see this become an event any time National Team athletes are together. <\/p>\n
"We have had some great support from [Executive Director] Chuck [Wielgus] and the rest of USA Swimming in this endeavor, and look forward to this becoming not just an event, but part of the culture of the national team.<\/p>\n
SwimInfo.com<\/b> will be reporting on the hospital visit tomorrow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Phillip Whitten SAN DIEGO, April 18. SEVERAL members of the US National Swim Team, here in San Diego for a USA Swimming training camp, will pay a visit tomorrow<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3694","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-zzzzzzzzz"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\r\n