Tupelo man notches another million yards in the pool
Jan. 21—Not much stops Cliff Wilson in the pool, but he was taken aback in a local restaurant a few summers ago.
The lunch date was supposed to be with friends who were relocating to North Alabama. Eventually it would be.
But when Wilson walked inside he wasn't expecting a celebrity welcome from two tables of women.
"Hey Cliff," they said. It wasn't a whisper.
Wilson paused a bit, long enough for one of the ladies to say, "He doesn't recognize us with our clothes on."
It's true. People don't usually swim fully clothed, and the ladies were part of a water aerobics class, a group that became accustomed to seeing Wilson, now 88 years old, stretch out for stride after stride, lap after lap with machine-like precision to complete his daily swimming routine.
Emmalyn Wilson bubbles with laughter as she recalls the lunch story.
"There were women all over. One of them said, 'Cliff, is that your wife?'" she said.
Wilson recently completed one million miles of swimming at The Tupelo Aquatics Center. It's a fraction of his total, which is more than seven million miles swum.
Wilson has kept meticulous records since committing himself to improved health while in his 40s.
The Wilsons relocated to Tupelo in 2013 from Lake Jackson, Texas where Cliff worked with Dow Chemical.
As a younger man, Cliff Wilson, a former cross country runner at Georgia Tech and an Air Force veteran, awakened one day with a wife and four children and discovered his fitness wasn't what it once was.
He started running. He competed in local races.
His next discovery was that the needs of Emmalyn and four children made it difficult to find time in the day to run.
So he started his days earlier, and soon he was biking, swimming and training for triathlons.
Early morning training can be hazardous.
"I was taking Lisa, our oldest, to leave for a band trip early one morning. It was dark. Cliff was already out, but I hadn't thought about that," Emmalyn said. "We were still in our neighborhood, and I saw this light on a bicycle coming down the road, and I said, 'What kind of idiot would be out riding a bike this time of day?' Lisa, said, 'Momma, that's Daddy.'"
Returning to what Wilson considered good shape wasn't easy.
"Well, it took me some time because initially I wasn't running all that far. I gradually increased the amount. It took a while to build my mileage up to where I could do longer distances," he said.
Now Wilson's records show he's run 51,425 miles or the equivalent of 69 trips from Tupelo to Lake Jackson.
It might be nice to attract the attention of ladies in public, but Wilson's real motivation to run, bike and swim began by watching his father.
Wilson's father lived to be 87 but wasn't very mobile in later years.
"For the last three or four years he was in a wheelchair. I didn't want to be in that shape," Wilson said. "I try and keep up some exercise routines. If I didn't, I wouldn't be doing much of anything. The swimming is a pretty good exercise. If you can keep that up you can stay in shape where everybody else has kind of fallen by and gone to the easy chair."
Wilson mentioned to Aquatics Center staff that he was about to reach a million yards in their pool.
The staff and his water friends celebrated with him, and a plaque was hung to commemorate another impressive milestone.
Through the years there have been some injuries and some concessions to age. Running has become walking, and biking is done on a stationary cycle.
Wilson can usually be found at the Aquatics Center in the early mornings not long after he and Emmalyn have walked around their retirement community neighborhood.
Doctors marvel at Cliff Wilson and his swimming.
"I've never had one of them tell me to cut back. I had one of them tell me 'You're an anomaly. We don't find people at your age in your shape,'" he said.
Wilson's current routine includes almost 30 laps in the pool.
The commitment Cliff Wilson made in his 40s remains strong.
"It's getting harder to do it, no doubt," he said. "It seems like after you reach 83, it's all downhill."
PARRISH ALFORD is the college sports editor and columnist for the Daily Journal. Contact him at parrish.alford@journalinc.com.
