When Goodman Pool opened as Madison’s first public swimming pool in 2006, pool personnel quickly learned that many patrons didn’t know how to swim.

“We had a crazy number of people we had to save in the deep end,” said Laura Whitmore, community relations manager for the city of Madison. “They weren’t just little kids, they were young adults.”

Fast-forward to 2011. On a recent Friday morning in the South Side pool’s same deep end, kids swam confidently back and forth — multiple times in some cases. It was practice time for the Goodman Waves swim team, new this year.

“Every day there’s a kid that learns something,” said Jacob Johnson, a highly regarded Madison swim coach who has brought his expertise to the Waves. “You see a ton of improvement, almost length to length. A kid will say, ‘How do you do that somersault thing?’ ‘Oh, you mean a flip turn.’ And then he’ll learn it.”

The Waves team is competing in Madison’s All-City Swim League this season, including the 50th annual All-City Swim Meet, which begins Thursday and runs through Saturday at Parkcrest Pool.

The meet is one of the largest in the country, with more than 1,750 swimmers expected to compete. The Waves will field about 25 swimmers, Johnson said.

Other than Goodman, Madison’s 10 private pools in the All-City League operate with annual fees ranging from $500 to $700, and often additional fees to participate on swim teams. It costs $180 to join the Waves, but scholarships for low-income swimmers are available. Public pools from Middleton and Monona also compete in the All-City League.

The Waves team is building on the hundreds of swim lessons that have been offered at Goodman from the pool’s opening. The emphasis is on reaching minority and low-income kids, who traditionally haven’t had an opportunity to swim anywhere other than Madison’s lakes.

Having the Waves at Goodman, on Olin Avenue near the Alliant Energy Center, adds a more visible component to the effort to teach kids how to swim, said Madison parks superintendent Kevin Briski.

“When I’m out in the community lately, by far I hear about this more than anything else,” Briski said. “There are a lot of things we’re proud of. This most definitely is one of the coolest things we’ve done.”

All-City support

About half of Goodman’s 60 swimmers are racial minorities, said Johnson, who also coaches at Badger Aquatics Club, and the pool’s team is bringing new diversity to the sport.

“(Badger Aquatics Club) is like most of Wisconsin and most of USA Swimming in that it’s predominantly affluent and white,” he said. “Goodman is definitely more representative of our city’s population.”

Madison’s private pools have embraced the Waves, which hosted its first All-City swim meet at Goodman Pool earlier this month.

Anne Pankratz, marketing director for the Shelley Glover Sports Education Foundation, which helps fund the Waves, cited the foundation’s Kids Swimming for Kids program, in which swimmers at various pools in the All-City League seek pledge donations for laps they swim. Kids are excited to participate, Pankratz said, because they know the money they raise helps other kids have the opportunity to swim.

“They get how lucky they are to be able to go to a pool in the summer and take lessons and be on a swim team,” she said. “The kids really embrace the opportunity to help others.”

Since Kids Swimming for Kids started in 2004, it has raised more than $162,000 to help fund swim programs at Goodman Pool, now including the Waves. Last year, more than 500 kids at other pools participated, and six of the All-City League’s private pools are involved this summer, Pankratz said.

Beyond the fundraising, the support the Waves team has gotten at All-City meets has been exciting, Johnson said.

“We swim with kids from Hawks (Landing) and Nakoma,” Johnson said. “We’ve heard a lot, ‘Oh, it’s so great you guys have a team.’ ”

‘Love to swim’

April Sopkin, whose children Fritz Ringler, 11, and Archana Ringler, 9, swim for the Waves, has found the social side of team membership “very wonderful.” She lives with her children in the Village Cohousing Community, not far from the pool, and with five kids from there now on the swim team, it has become an extension of that community.

“It’s been such a cool thing because they’re all neighbors,” she said.

For Janaina Rodriguez, 17, the social side of the Waves is about family. Janaina, who will be a senior at Madison West High School this fall, is on the team with her sister, Ianae, 15, and brother Francisco, 8. They bike to the pool every day for practice.

“I really like it,” Janaina said of the Waves. “I like the diversity. That’s really important for me.”

Janaina swims for West High and will be a team captain this year. But this is her first opportunity to swim in the All-City League, which she finds a refreshing change of pace from the often-intense high school swim scene.

“These people love to swim so much,” she said during a break in practice. “Everybody wants to get better, but the atmosphere is fun.”

Bright future

Credit coach Johnson in large part for that. He runs practice with a booming voice and a demeanor that keeps kids working.

“He’s just phenomenal,” said Brad Weisinger, who manages the pool and the swim team. “He’s energetic. He’s serious when he has to be. He’s one of the best youth coaches out there.”

Getting Johnson to coach the Waves was somewhat of a coup, said Whitmore. He had coached in the All-City League before but not for several years, instead concentrating on coaching year-round at the Madison-area Badger Aquatics Club.

“I didn’t think I’d be back coaching All-City, but (to) this I couldn’t say no,” Johnson said.

For now, winning is secondary to teaching and creating a sense of community, Weisinger said. But organizers hope the team will be 100 strong next year and soon produce top swimmers.

“We had what were at best weak swimmers who are now good swimmers,” he said. “It will be a rolling cycle of building their successes. Somewhere in this, we’re going to find a champion, I know it.”

Reporter Jeff Glaze contributed to this report.