Harlem's diverse senior Honeys and Bears just keep swimming

"It's really a combination of team and family," says coach Oliver Foote (Foo-tay). "Just like families, sometimes everybody feuds with one another, but at the end of the day, we all still love one another.

- By TONY PAIGE Special to the AmNews

Foote is not a pro coach though, for over 30 years, he has been at the helm of a very special team. He is the head coach of Harlem's Honeys and Bears Synchronized Senior Swim Team. The team has been sashaying in the water at their home base, the Hansborough Pool on W. 134th Street since 1979.

As that building is being refurbished until March, the Milbank Pool on W. 118th Street is their pool away from home. The president of the team is a youngster of 65. "I've been president for 10 months," states Carrie See Yuen.

"We have about 25 members with ages between 65 and 91." On this sunny October morning, the group, which works out Mondays and Wednesdays for two hours, loosens up in the water to a thumping Mary J. Blige track.

"I heard your energy when I was downstairs," states Coach Foote as the group laughs. It's time to work, but for a reason. "Every single time I jump in the pool, I feel like a kid again," reveals See Yuen. "It's just such a great exercise. I don't find anything else that just gives me so much lift. I enjoy just the purity of friendship, and it was just fun."