Outside Contributer

Ironically, I sat around a table of friends this past week and prayed for a few of the people in my life that have impacted my Y career. Little did I know that soon one of those men, Bob Rule, would pass.

Bob Rule was a giant of a man. And that is not just hyperbole. He impacted thousands in his lengthy YMCA career. His loss is not just a loss for the High Point Y, but for the entire YMCA movement.

Although the last Republican debate before the primaries did not feature that party’s frontrunner, it did include something that may have gone unnoticed. One commercial break included a public service announcement for the YMCA, just now embarking on its first national advertising campaign with its message:

“The Y. For a better us.”

As a 10-year-old growing up in a rough section of South Philadelphia, Kevin Washington was invited to join the local YMCA, and not long thereafter — still a non-swimmer — found himself standing above the deep end of the pool.

"Jump," the instructor yelled, and Washington obliged, though the water was well over his head.

"I jumped in and hit the bottom," Washington recalled. "I remember that feeling of accomplishment when you come back up."

Washington made it safely out of the pool, but he's been immersed in the YMCA ever since. He stayed active in the Christian Street Y through high school and was hired straight out of Temple University as its youth director in 1978, the start of a career-long journey up the management ladder.

After stints running Y associations in Hartford, Connecticut, and in Boston, he was installed in February as the president and CEO of the YMCA of the USA — the first time in the organization's 164-year history that its national office has been led by an African-American.

BY KRIQUETTE.DAVIS · FEBRUARY 5, 2014 ·
CRIME, DOMESTIC VIOLENCE, EDUCATION, GUEST WRITER, SEX OFFENDERS, STATE ·

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