its not just masters swimming.........

We lost a fellow masters swimmer this past weekend at the Empire State Games. Joel Schwartz, a 72-year-old Masters swimmer from Nyack, died Friday after he suffered a heart attack during a 1,500-meter race at Owego Free Academy. I have heard only praise (from swimmers present) for those who responded and tried to revive Mr. Schwartz. Inevitably, speculation followed that more should be done to make our sport safer. I am happy to post the words of Adirondack Masters swimmer, Patrick Quinn that touch the subject as I am sure you will be moved (as I was) by them. Dear All, For younger members of our community such events may come as a dramatic shock. None of us is immune to either the shock or the obvious possibility that it could happen to even the healthiest of us. But perhaps we older members can help put things in perspective. I suspect that any negative comment may have come out of the combination of shock, anger, sadness, guilt, loss etc., that such a tragedy evokes. One sometimes feels the urge to strike out at someone or something, to look for someone to blame in the frustration of trying to come to grips with the shock of it all. Almost every year now I lose a friend, or a colleague or a fellow competitor. That is the way it goes as I enjoy my eighth decade, my third as an Adirondack swimmer. It is a fact of life. I have been greatly impressed over the past five years by how magnificently fellow swimmers and lifeguards have responded calmly and efficiently, yet urgently to help a swimmer in distress. One friend who had placed second in the World's 200 IM, a killer race, suffered a stroke during an=2 0early morning workout six months after his great race. Swimming beside him were two doctors whose rapid actions literally saved his life. The following year he swam again at World's and I saw him express disappointment at getting only a bronze. He did not begrudge the winner, but just felt he could have been a little more efficient... ..the risk of a repeat "stroke" never phased him! He just cared about taking too many before the finish. That is a choice all mature swimmers make. You do all you can to ensure that you are in good shape and then you do your best in the race and you try not to be unintelligent about it. The great Olympic shot putter, Parry O'Brien, who had become a fine Masters swimmer, died of a heart attack last year, halfway through a five hundred. He signalled his wife who reached him just as his life ended. Yet I think of Parry, not in tragedy but in triumph. A kind-hearted giant who did not rest on his Olympic laurels but moved on to enjoying a sport in which he was not nearly so good. There is an element of humility there....submission to several realities including facing much better opponents with delight, and of course facing the risk of overtaxing one's heart and soul. I have been swimming on borrowed time, as many of us have. 29 years ago in August I had a triple coronary bypass and I took up competitive swimming as the only means to stop smoking permanently and also as a way to stretch what I honestly expected to be another five or ten years. I used to be scared every time I pushed myself in a thousand or fifteen hundred. Yet eventually I found out how to recognize and handle my limits. I get slower every year and my muscles do not feel good at being asked to push harder. Sometimes, like this year I have let my system get so much out of shape that I have to decide discretion is the better part of valour and so I regretfully skipped the ESG. In a race I may utterly forget my cardiac condition but before and after there is always lurking the tiny prompting voice of inner reality saying " hey chum, you have had extra innings so far and you are still not out, so be thankful". Two years ago, while swimming in the World's open water 3K in the rough San Francisco Bay I came face to face with the reality that if my system gave out while battling waves, wind and tide there was slim chance of my being pulled out of twenty fathom deep water in time. In any case I sometimes could not even see anything other than two and three foot waves around me. I was too busy trying to stay on course and trying to find other swimmers all of whom seemed to have disappeared from my vicinity. But the sun was shining and I decided to remember Terry Laughlin's tenet..."swim like a fish". I relaxed a bit. All of a sudden I felt "this must be what it feels like to be swimming alone in the middle of the pacific" and I felt an elation and joy in the water that I had never felt before. It was a glorious few moments before I was rudely brought back to awareness by crashing into a buoy with another swimmer crashing on top of me. I finished and felt very wobbly trying to walk out of the water amid cheers of quite a crowd lining the exit. I joined a fellow competitor from Australia at the top of the ramp and he grinned "Well,, we made it again mate". "little do they know" I responded, laughing back at the crowd and thanking God for the joy of such an experience. I am by no means a fatalist. Quite the opposite, in fact a strong optimist. I know that every masters swimmer strives mightily and most of us happily. But tragedy can strike, any time. This year a silly young motorist making an illegal turn knocked me and my car broadside across the double yellow line....as I was on my way to the pool, four days before the YMCA Nationals. I was furious at having to spend most of the time recovering with chiropractors, massage therapists, and I was in pain, unnecessary pain that really angered me. After all I had won a couple of golds the year before. I managed to make it to Fort Lauderdale and finished last, last, last, last, last and fifth. That fifth place award is now my most treasured because it was made by one hundredth of a second, ten days a after the accident. My body felt like it had been mashed but the mind took over and paced it slowly, daily, back to some semblance of control. I have not competed since then but I will be back, soon, even before I get fully rid of the pain in my hip and my back because I know that swimming will help restore the body. So if, one day my old ticker conks out in the middle of a fifty *** or a fifteen hundred freestyle, and if the ones who try fail to revive me, please don't make negative comments about anyone or any organization concerned. Be thankful that I made it so far and say a prayer for my soul. Be thankful that Joel was doing something he loved, that friends tried hard to save his life, and pray, as I do for his eternal spirit and for his friends and family. And don't complain about your workouts or your results either. Just keep swimming and celebrating the lives and successes of your friends. Patrick Quinn