Swimming program inspired film; now its pool is closed

SINCE IT OPENED in 1980, Marcus Foster Pool in Nicetown has been home to greatness.

Swimmers who competed nationally and internationally refined their skills in the pool's blue waters. They learned strokes there that earned them college scholarships and even the attention of Hollywood. Last year's movie "Pride" celebrated the career of Jim Ellis, the aquatics coach who turned hundreds of city kids into competitive swimmers at Foster Pool.

But last week, the School District of Philadelphia quietly ordered the pool on Germantown Avenue near Staub Street indefinitely closed, citing concerns about its state of disrepair.

The move infuriated Ellis and other swimming enthusiasts, who complain that the district created the disrepair by failing to properly maintain the pool for years.

"I know swimming pools are expensive to maintain, but in a city the size of Philadelphia, you can't complain you need programs to get kids off the street and then ignore a program that for 30 years has been extremely successful in doing that," said Ellis, a Philadelphia Department of Recreation employee.

Although the district owns 11 pools, four, including Foster are closed due to maintenance needs; a fifth, at Shalcross School, is shuttered because the school closed, said Vincent Thompson, a district spokesman.

Thompson said Foster Pool - along with pools at University City High, William Penn High and Rhodes School - have closed because they need "millions of dollars" worth of repairs and improvements.

"It costs the district an average of $90,000 per year per pool on maintenance, and that's not even including the salary of somebody to staff it," Thompson said. "We don't want to deny anyone the opportunity to use any of our facilities for sports and recreation. But the School District of Philadelphia has precious [few] resources in our budget, and the core of our mission is to educate children."

The district has a $2.3 billion operating budget, the majority of which goes to wages and benefits, Thompson said. In addition, its capital budget for building needs for next fiscal year is $470 million, he said.

Administrators plan to discuss the problem with the Nutter administration with an eye on "shared resources," Thompson said.

Ellis said his competitive program, which once had about 300 kids enrolled, is down to just 20. As Foster Pool fell into disrepair, fewer kids wanted to swim there, he explained.

"You can't grow a program if you don't have access to facilities that work," Ellis said.

One school district employee familiar with the now-drained pool said the facility's roof is so dilapidated, rain drips through the ceiling into buckets set out below and streams into light fixtures.

Its old windows don't stay shut, its lockerrooms are rusty and outmoded, and its heating system can't keep out winter's chill, said the employee, who asked to remain anonymous, fearing reprisal from district administrators.

And although the district spent millions to build a new stadium and athletic fields adjacent to the pool house last year, it left Foster Pool's problems unaddressed, the employee said.

Since "Pride" came out, Ellis has toured the country as a motivational speaker. He describes how he crafted his program and he inspires those in the audience to create aquatic programs targeting at-risk kids.

He doesn't miss the irony that he now has no "home-base" for his own program.

But his dream goes far beyond reopening Foster Pool; he envisions Philadelphia building a world-class aquatics center open to all.

"We have to rethink, in education, how we service young people," said Ellis, whose competitive swimmers now practice at LaSalle University. "The city needs to get up off their butt and get some programming and these facilities in order for the kids. The kids need someone who's an advocate for them." *