SSC gets SUV

The Saipan Swim Club has received a number of accolades in recent months for developing the CNMI’s most highly trained athletes who came away from the 2005 South Pacific Mini Games in Palau with the lion’s share of medals over the summer.

The successful club received more than a few kind words and a pat on the back yesterday afternoon as Stan Good and wife Gemma donated their Toyota 4-Runner to the association that has had as much of an impact on their family as the community.

“My wife and I are very grateful that the Saipan Swim Club has accepted this vehicle and hope it can provide a few more years of service. This donation is one small way we can show our appreciation to the SSC for the benefits our family has received over the years. All three of our children have been SSC members. They have learned that hard work, perseverance, and dedication do pay off. SSC kept them focused on goals during their childhood on Saipan, during a time when few other sports were organized,” he said.

Good continued to say that the benefits of the SSC went far beyond trimming times and waistlines, as his kids learned valuable life lessons through their experiences in the pool that gave them the drive to succeed in the real world.

“Aside from developing strong work habits, self discipline and a strong body, the SSC allowed them to travel, thereby meeting and experiencing a wide variety of cultures throughout Asia. Both our sons are getting doctorate degrees and our daughter has plans to do the same. My sons have told me that the hours and hours of practice in the pool, early morning workouts, day in and day out, gave them the focusing skills necessary to pursue a higher education,” said Good.

Good said that he hopes that his donation is just the tip of the iceberg,

We hope this gift to the SSC will inspire others in the community to help keep the SSC alive, and encourage others to join this activity to be able to provide the same benefits to future generations of Saipan swimmers.”

Good’s sons, Stan and Jason, participated in the Marpi tank swims when Bill Sakovich paced the concrete deck. Thirty-two-year-old Stan is currently putting the finishing touches on his PhD in Computer Science at UC Berkeley, 30-year-old Jason is finishing his undergraduate degree in Physical Therapy at Arizona State University, and 16-year-old Natasha is midway through her junior year at the Marianas Baptist Academy and was one of the swimmers who represented the CNMI triathlon team at the Mini Games, and is striving to do so again in next summer’s Micronesian Games.

“I think it’s a testament to Stan’s generosity. He’s volunteered a bunch of hours to the program, has had two sons and a daughter come through the program, and he’s one of those people who just gives. That’s one of the things that the Saipan Swim Club has produced—people who just love to give to a program that does a lot of giving to a lot of kids,” said SSC coach Michael Stewart.

Stewart accepted the keys to the red machine yesterday, but said that the gift was a long time in the making. While he welcomed the vehicle to the organization with open arms, the coach said that his experience on Saipan has been marked with a number of kind gestures and a return to his roots.

“They had talked about this for a while. They said ‘Hey, we need to get you a better car,’ and ‘We need to give you this.’ Coming to Saipan I’ve learned that the island has given me more than just material things. It’s given me coaching again. I used to train kids that used to think that they were all that, and I thought material wealth was great, and I made a lot of money in the States, and this got me back to where my grass roots were—in coaching. I didn’t need any automobile or any nice home or anything else. What I got on Saipan was more valuable as opposed to what I had in the States,” he said.