Swimming for Hope

Why I swim for Charity – Swimming For Hope

I have been swimming for as long as I can remember, and I plan on swimming for as long as I can. Good health is something I have learned not to take for granted. My father was a juvenile diabetic and my daughter has epilepsy. Because of their conditions, I decided to take one of the things I love to do and do it to help the people I love by raising money for research.

I was fortunate to have parents who cared enough for my brothers and me to help car pool us to practices upwards of 4 times a week plus meets on Saturdays and Sundays. It was their commitment to what made us happy that allowed me to become a national class athlete.

I remember going to my first meet and swimming in a race when I was 5 years old. Once I did that, I earned the right to wear the Stamford Dolphins Swimming patch on my suit. For me it was a big day.

At the age of 50, I swam the English Channel . Two of my three daughters accompanied me, cheering me from on board the support boat and reminding me, each time I glimpsed at them between strokes, why I had set this challenge for myself. When I landed at the Dragon’s Teeth near Cape Griz Nez, France, I felt the same pride that I had when I became a Stamford Dolphin. But now, I had the added satisfaction of knowing that my efforts, thanks to the sponsors who pledged their support, would help fund research to help people suffering from epilepsy.

In the 1960s I was one of the best swimmers in the state of Connecticut . During those years I was first introduced to a form of open water swimming called cable swimming. A straight, 440-yard course, delineated by a metal cable, was set up. Each swimmer swims around the course a total of 8 times for a distance of 4 miles. In my four cable competitions I placed no worse than 13^th, my first meet, and twice in the top 6 out of approximately 50 to 100 swimmers each meet.

In prep school I earned honorary All-America status. In college I earned All-Ivy Dual Meet swimmer status and competed in all the middle and long distance events of the 500, 1650 Freestyles, the 400 Individual Medley and a member of the 800 Freestyle Relay at the NCAA Division I Championships. I also competed once and qualified another time for the National AAU Championships.

After marrying my wonderful and long-suffering wife, Trina, who has had to put up with my swimming and me, and the adoption of our three wonderful children: Jen, Brooke and Kate, I started swimming in earnest again at age 35. At the age of 40 I went to the World Masters Swimming Championships. I did extremely well by bettering all of my goal times while taking two seventh and one eighth place finish.

Knowing that I probably would not get any faster, that I had few worlds to conquer, or so I thought, I had to come up with another plan and use for my swimming. Two summers later, at the age of 42, I decided to try to use my swimming to raise money for charity. My first charity event was in a pool where I swam, kicked and pulled a marathon of 26 miles, 365 yards. The next year I did a half marathon in a pool and completed a 113-mile bike around Fairfield , Westchester and Putnam counties in Connecticut and New York . Since then all of my swims have been in open water. Each year, since my first charitable event, I have attempted to do unique swims in order to raise funds for research either for Juvenile Diabetes or Epilepsy. My swims in the tri-state region have made me one of the few, if not the only swimmer to swim under all the major bridges connecting New York , New Jersey and the boroughs of New York .

Listed elsewhere on the site are all of my athletic endeavors for charity.

I am often asked: “What’s next?”

What is next after this year’s swim will be another one that is both interesting and challenging for a 50 year old plus athlete. Some day, perhaps, when going even 50 meters in a pool seems too long, I will stop raising money and awareness for charity. But, until then, for as long as I have the strength and the capabilities, I plan on swimming for charity – Swimming for Hope!