“I wanna do it again!” Those are the words repeated over and over as Clayton Dickerson, age 2, did the “Tigger Down” exercise during a recent swim lesson with Colleen Hammon at the Ron Levy Aquatic Center pool at Founders Park.
With the Tigger Down exercise, Hammon pushes him down until his feet touch the bottom. Then, like the famed storybook character, he hops back above the water’s surface, popping up in joy.
The student’s eagerness could be but one reason Hammon has been instructing babies to 6-year-olds, and sometimes older kids and adults, for the better part of four decades. She is now teaching the children of her former students.
“In 1984, I went to sign up my oldest son for lessons offered by the Red Cross, but there was no room for him or for other kids to learn how to swim,” said Hammon, a former classroom teacher. “I thought, I love teaching, the water and kids, so I said, ‘Train me.’ I still love it all.”
She has taught in pools from Key Largo through Islamorada over the decades, recording each year’s location on a looseleaf sheet of paper. It includes names of long-gone resorts such as Reefcomber, Ocean 80, Plantation Yacht Harbor, Howard Johnson’s, Key Largo Resort, Holiday Isle and Tropical Reef. Some resorts remain in name, if not look: Chesapeake, Cheeca Lodge and Sunset Inn.
Once the Village of Islamorada built the community pool at Founders Park in the early 2000s, Hammon approached the park staff about teaching there. It is here she remains, with occasional lessons offered at Jacobs Aquatic Center in Key Largo and in private pools.
As Annie Onsgard, assistant director of Founders Park, said, “She teaches generations.”
Clayton is one such generational student. His mom, Carolyn Barrow Dickerson, and her younger sister Brooke took lessons from Hammon.
“When it came time to put Clayton in lessons, I knew it would be Ms. Colleen,” said Dickerson. “I didn’t even give (husband) Collin other options.”
Another example is 5-year-old Charlie Muir. He started lessons just before he turned 2. Mom Erin Dunn Muir is a former student along with her brother Andrew. All of their kids have lessons with Hammon.
Charlie’s older sister Violet, now 9, started at 18 months and took lessons for six years. She has participated in the summer swim camps at Founders Park for the past two years.
“I feel Violet was well prepared by Colleen as Violet took part in the first summer swim camp,” Muir said during Charlie’s recent swim lesson. “She tailors her teaching style to the kid to some degree. I see that with my kids, whose personalities and learning styles are so different.”
Jana Viergutz, who was born and raised in the Upper Keys and watched Hammon teach over the years as a swimmer and later as a lifeguard at the pool, now has 4-year-old daughter Harleigh in lessons. Her dad, Andy Mazur, a long-time physical education teacher and coach at Coral Shores High School, was the one who first certified Hammon as a Red Cross water safety instructor.
“He passed on his knowledge of swimming and I am continuing it with my family,” she said. “With my experience swimming, I could teach Harleigh, but it is so much more impactful coming from Colleen. I already told Coach Jon that as soon as Harleigh turns 6, it is his turn to train her.”
Coach Jon is Jon Olsen, the 25-year swim and dive coach at Founders and four-time Olympic medalist.
“Ms. Colleen teaches the fundamentals and a love of the water,” Onsgard said. “She gets them ready to move on to the summer swim camps and swim teams with Coach Jon.”
“Ninety percent of the kids who I’ve coached have come from Colleen’s program,” Olsen said. “She is extremely good at what she does, very patient and structured. She teaches them water safety and all the skills needed to get them prepared for my groups. She is the backbone of competitive and high school programs. My successes are owed to her.”
Corley and Layne Smith, accomplished competitive swimmers and now collegiate athletes, got their starts in the pool with Hammon.
Corley, a senior at Scripps College in Claremont, Calif., was recently elected captain of her swim team, according to her dad Cale Smith. Layne begins her freshman year next month at Savannah College of Art & Design in Georgia and will compete with the swim team.
“I saw something different in both of them,” said Hammon. “Their demeanor was different, they had really strong kicks and they were always practicing. They put in the time needed to excel.”
“We are big fans of Ms. Colleen and owe her a huge debt of gratitude,” Smith said of his daughters’ time with Hammon. “The fact that my girls reached high levels is a testament to her and Coach Jon. It all started with Ms. Colleen.”
But it is not always children Hammon teaches. She remembers a couple who came to her when they were both 82 years old.
“They never learned to swim; they wanted to learn and I taught them,” she said.
Another student in her 60s came from England for a two week visit to the Keys.
“She was terrified of the water, afraid even to walk a few steps into the water,” Hammon said. “I assured her I could teach her, she trusted me and at the end of two weeks, she was swimming the length of the pool. Her fear of water was gone.”
With the sun as a daily workplace hazard, Hammon long ago established a signature look: swim tights; long-sleeve shirt; gloves covering to the fingers; a sun hat with a wide brim, back and side flaps; and sunglasses. A face shield was added in the pandemic and it continues to serve a purpose of protecting her face from sun, glare and splashes.
“I plan my lesson schedule around reapplying sunscreen every two hours,” she said.
Hammon raised four children with husband Tony Hammon in their Plantation Key home, where they still live today. In addition to teaching her own children to swim, she has taught an unknown number of kids and adults.
“I have no idea but Tony thinks it is in the tens of thousands with hundreds of thousands of individual lessons,” she said.
The high school sweethearts graduated from University of Miami, married and returned to Coral Shores School in 1972, before it was exclusively a high school, as intern teachers. The first son, Troy, arrived in 1975, Stephen in 1977, Kathy in 1979 and Trent in 1987. They have 11 grandchildren.
When she is not in a pool, she is focused on her other passion – collecting and creating items for Operation Christmas Child, an annual church and community effort to fill shoeboxes with toys and personal care items that are packed and shipped to children all over the world.
“It is a year-round effort. Each week I go to the MARC Thrift Store to collect a bag of donated T-shirts. I cut these into strips to be used to make jump ropes,” she said. “Last year, Melinda Hennessey and I were able to make 425 jump ropes. I do all the prep work and she does all the braiding. I also collect items throughout the year when specific items go on sale.”
She also serves as a greeter on Sundays at Island Community Church, where Tony was the long-time pastor. She previously volunteered teaching the 2- and 3-year-olds in Sunday school.
But the pool is where she can be found five to six days a week. Hammon keeps multiple tools at her disposal to help students learn.
“I have a bag full of sinking toys and one filled with squirt toys,” she said. “And one Barbie and one shark.”
Muir’s son Charlie appeared happy to be using the “Rocket,” a boomerang-shaped pool noodle with handles.
“It gets them horizontal and really helps with the kicking,” Hammon said. “And they can go further and faster.”
“We are very happy and proud to have Ms. Colleen teaching here at Founders,” said Maria Bagiotti, director of Founders Park. “She’s a true professional, so kind. We just love what she does. At the end of the day, she is saving lives.”
Hammon spent time working with swim student Layne Wagner, 3, and her mother Danielle Sutter during a morning swim lesson at Founders Park pool on Aug. 31. Sutter said Hammon taught her how to swim when she was a little girl, and that every kid is different and she knows what to do with each one.
“She’s the best,” said Sutter.
