Prattville swim league success fuels push for new city pool

Prattville’s public pool is already out of service, and the city’s swim program is now making the case that a replacement will not just be nice to have, but necessary.

Coach Joe Reynolds of the Prattville Swim League went before the Prattville City Council on May 5 to lay out how the program has grown and why the city’s current setup cannot carry the same load much longer. The city closed Pratt Pool for the entire 2026 season after a formal structural assessment by a licensed professional engineer. Officials said the pool, built in the 1970s, faces age-related infrastructure concerns, including the possibility of undetected voids beneath slabs and behind pool walls that could lead to sudden structural failure.

That closure sharpens the stakes for families who have long depended on the city’s summer swimming scene. The Prattville Swim League, sponsored by the Prattville Parks and Recreation Department and the Prattville YMCA, has become one of Alabama’s strongest programs in the Alabama Recreation and Parks Association system. The league, once known as the Prattville Flying Fish, has sent swimmers to collegiate and national competition and has remained among the top five teams in ARPA swimming.

The program’s history stretches back decades. Prattville’s competitive swim scene began in the 1980s with the Prattville YMCA’s Stars and Stripes Summer League team. In 1994, the Prattville Parks and Recreation Department launched the Prattville Flying Fish. By 2002, the Stars and Stripes had ended, and the Flying Fish roster had grown to more than 200 swimmers, making it the second-best summer league team in Alabama during the first decade of the 2000s.

That pipeline has continued to produce results. Since 2002, 26 Prattville swimmers have earned collegiate scholarships, including 17 since 2016. The league’s alumni list includes swimmers who reached Olympic Trials competition, a former University of Alabama team captain, a former Alabama swimming and diving assistant coach, and Olympic bronze medalist Chloe Sutton, who first learned to swim in Prattville.

Reynolds said the league is built around more than lap times, with dry land training, weights, running, stretching, nutrition, rest and character sessions all part of the program. District 7 Councilor Thea Langley said there is a real need not only in Prattville but across the River Region, and argued that a better facility could build on what the city already has.

The broader competitive calendar shows the level Prattville is trying to keep pace with. ARPA says its athletics program serves youth and adult competition across Alabama, and its 2026 state swim meet was scheduled for Opelika on July 24 and 25. For Prattville, the immediate question is whether city leaders turn a successful summer tradition into a long-term investment before the current gap becomes permanent.