Pool Jumping

The President of California State University, Fresno has had a Holiday Open House every year where he hosts the students of the Smittcamp Family Honors College at his house for refreshments and a time for the students to get to know the President better and vice versa. The open house is held both inside (where the food is available as well as a few rooms with seating) and outside (where the refreshments are served as well as some pool side seating). The open houses are always held mid-December.

At one of these first open houses I went to, I had discussed with my good friend Tim about how awesome it would be to jump into the pool while at the party, especially if we were wearing suits. Of all the times I've been to the President's house, which is probably somewhere near 15, I've never seen anyone swim in the pool or use the hot tub.

Finally during our Senior year, Tim and I went to Goodwill and bought matching baby blue sport coats. We donned our khakis, white dress shirts, and blue sport coats and headed out to the President's Holiday Open House. For most of the party we just mingled with all the guests as usual, and throughout the evening we dropped hints about something exciting happening outside.

About half an hour before the event was scheduled to finish, we had some friends herd everyone outside as we proceeded to jump in the pool at the deep end and swim our way back to shallow end where the crowd of around 50 or so had gathered. While this is California, it was not warm that evening, and my guess is that it was only somewhere between 5-10 degrees C (40-50 degrees F).

I had my friend Darlyene take video of the historic event.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NH_8OWHuro

We found out a few months later at our Graduation Awards Dinner that we were the only ones to have "swam" in the pool at that house (other than the President and his wife) since they moved in about 15 years before. This awards dinner was also where the President made a point to use the pool jumping stunt as the premise for most of his jokes, including how he will have to make an example of us so this doesn't become a yearly tradition. This of course was not as funny for me as it was for everyone else because I was really hoping to graduate. (I did get my diploma though after all).