I knock on wood every time I think about how clubs have influenced my life. I grew up in Detroit in its heyday, the 1950s and 60s, when people flocked to the Motor City for jobs either in or relating to the auto industry. In the early 1940s, my father joined the Detroit Athletic Club, the grand old dame on Madison Avenue in downtown Detroit, and the seven Sullivan children grew up there, learning how to swim, to box, and to play handball and squash.
In 1957, my father joined the Detroit Golf Club (DGC), where he picked up the game of golf and four of the Sullivan kids joined the swim team, which became the focus of our summers. We lived less than a mile from the club, and to get to morning swim practice we hopped the fence behind our house, crossed two streets, and then crawled under the ten-foot fence that surrounded the golf course. The DGC was a member of the Michigan Inter-Club Swimming Association, and we loved the excitement of competing in two meets a week in June and July.
I swam for the University of Michigan, and I coached one summer at the Racquet Club of Ann Arbor, enjoying every minute of my college experience, but life was about to change for me. When I graduated in 1970, I was drafted into the U.S. Army. After basic training and intelligence school, I was assigned to Washington, D.C. My father told me that I should think about joining the University Club of Washington. I laughed his advice off—I was a buck private, I was broke, and I figured I would be heading back to Michigan as soon as I got out of the Army in July 1973.
Eight years later I was still in Washington, practicing law. One of the lawyers in our building suggested that I join the University Club of Washington, and three months later I was a member. I soon found myself meeting a lot of characters as I went into the pool to swim my laps. Over the years, I swam alongside the likes of Chief Justice William Rehnquist, Justice Byron “Whizzer” White and Fr. Robert Henle, the Jesuit president of Georgetown University, who would finish his 20 lengths and run into the locker room to smoke a cigarette. (Nope, you can’t do that now.) None of those gentlemen, all of whom are gone now, would ever have recognized me fully clothed, but they were my pals on the pool deck.
In 1980, I had the great fortune of being admitted into Congressional Country Club. While golf is the first thing that comes to mind when “Congressional” is mentioned, as a young father with a busy law practice, I did not have the time to play regularly. My wife and I loved taking our children to the pool. Before too long we became active swim parents, and I found myself back in summer swimming. I have lost count of the number of swim meets I officiated in the 20 years we were active in the program, but I loved having the chance to pay back the sport that has been so important in my life. I chaired Congressional’s Swimming & Diving Committee for ten years, and I served two years as president of the Country Club Swimming & Diving Association. I cherish the friendships that we developed along the way, and that is not just with the parents. I get a huge kick out of running into the young men and women we have met through swimming, and following their careers has confirmed my love for this sport and its impact on lives. None of this would have been possible without the wonderful clubs that have graced my life.