Bill Earley

On 4 July during the Annual Coronado Rough Water Swim, Bill Earley died due to an apparent heart attack. Bill was 65 years old and quite active in masters swimming. Following is an article from the San Diego Union-Tribune. QUOTE Ex-SEAL, masters swimmer dies in Coronado rough-water event Friend says he saw victim struggling By Jen Brown July 5, 2002 Retired Navy SEAL Bill Earley was no stranger to the Coronado Rough Water Swim. The masters swimmer had competed in the Fourth of July event many times, but yesterday's was his last. A Coronado Beach lifeguard pulled Earley's body from the water at the three-quarter-mile mark at 10:34 a.m. A team of lifeguards, firefighters and paramedics treated Earley for 28 minutes before he was taken to Sharp Coronado Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 11:28 a.m. He was 65. "We are treating this right now as a possible drowning," said investigator Michael Ellano of the San Diego County Medical Examiner's Office. "During the autopsy, if they don't find anything in his lungs, then it will probably be a cardiac event." Longtime friend Don Baker said, "There's no way Bill Earley drowned." Baker said he swam past Earley at the quarter-mile buoy of the one-mile event and saw him struggling. "He was swimming backstroke, which is unusual because he's a good swimmer," Baker said. "His face was red and he said he was feeling really terrible." But Earley refused to let Baker go for help and insisted he swim on, Baker said. Earley was an established member of the masters swimming community, and at the time of his death he was vice president of the Coronado Masters Swimming Association. His swimming roots go back to his participation on the Yale University swim team, for which he specialized in backstroke events. After graduating with a degree in architecture from the Navy ROTC program at Yale in 1958, Earley continued his passion for swimming at the masters level. He has held at least three masters age-group world records in the men's 200-meter freestyle relay and the mixed 200-meter freestyle and 200-meter medley relays. In 1973, Earley helped found the Coronado Masters Swimming Association and served as its first president. He also served as chairman of the legislative committee of the U.S. Masters national convention and was a delegate for 20 years. "There's going to be a huge hole in the San Diego swimming community," Baker said. "He was very loyal, very generous, very warm, very patriotic." Earley served three tours of duty in Vietnam as a Navy SEAL and retired as a commander after 27 years of service, his friends said. He continued to be active in organizations such as Veterans of Foreign Wars, the Military Order of World Wars and the Navy League. He was the head lifeguard at the Naval Amphibious Base in Coronado and volunteered once a week at the ARCO Olympic Training Center in Chula Vista as a tour guide. "He was very proud to be a part of that operation," friend David Lamott said. "He never missed a Tuesday afternoon. It was like a religion for him." Lamott was shaken by his friend's death but took comfort in the fact that Earley died doing something he loved. "Swimming was his life," Lamott said. "There's no other way for him to go than . . . the way he went." Earley is survived by a son, Morgan, of Escondido.