Chappaqua Swim Coach Making Waves Raising Money for Cancer

Dan Levy doesn’t miss many opportunities to get into a pool and start swimming his laps.

As a longtime competitive swimmer and coach at Chappaqua Swim & Tennis Club, it’s what he has loved to do for many years for fun and to stay in good shape.

But starting in 2008, he has taken his devotion to a new level. That was the year Levy’s sister, Karen, was diagnosed with colon cancer. He participated in his first Swim Across America, a series of swims from early July to early August each summer, for the Long Island Sound chapter. The chapter also includes Westchester County.

Since 2015, he has participated in all eight Westchester swims within that month time frame, including the open water swim in Long Island Sound, which is coming up again this Saturday.

“It’s because it’s such a horrible disease and there are so many people affected by it, and being that there’s something that I can do, even if it’s just diving into a pool and swimming laps, it gets the word out there as to how many people are affected by this,” Levy said.

What’s impressive is that as of last week, the team of swimmers that have joined the 58-year-old Levy for the Swim Across America events, including many of the children he has coached, has raised close to $750,000 for cancer research. Of that sum, Levy estimated that the sponsors for his swims alone have contributed about $75,000.

But that is tempered by the fact that in these last 16 years, the number of people that Levy has known who have been stricken with cancer continues to swell. In addition to his sister, who eventually succumbed to the disease, there was David Simon, the husband of a Chappaqua Swim & Tennis board president, and one of the children that he coached, Scarlett Chwatko, who also passed away.

Their battle formed the acronym that make up his Swim Across America team’s name – Team KIDS – in recognition of Karen, David and Scarlett, Levy said.

The past two weekends, Levy has been busy at the first four swims for this year’s series. He started off at the New York Athletic Club’s swim on the evening of July 12 followed by the next morning at the Westchester Country Club.

Last weekend, Orienta Beach Club in Mamaroneck held its swim on Saturday and Chappaqua Swim & Tennis, his home pool, hosted on Sunday.

Each swim is one mile for the adult participants. For those younger than high school age, the recommended distance is a half-mile, Levy said. Getting tired isn’t an option, even when he’s in the second half of swims on back-to-back days.

“There are random times where I am getting a little bit tired,” Levy said. “All five people that I know that I’m swimming for, as well as everybody else, that just goes through my mind and that honestly makes it very easy to get to the end because it’s a small thing that I’m doing to help keep happening what happened to all of them,” Levy said.

The same is true for many of the youngsters who have joined him over the years. In practice, they may not be able to do more than a handful of laps, but with encouragement and swimming with others, they are able to swim longer than they typically would.

“So it sort of builds upon itself, and the more people do it, the more they go,” Levy said. “It’s one of those feel-good events.”

Levy said he keeps in reasonable swimming shape throughout the year at Club Fit, where he’s a member, and in the summer at Chappaqua Swim & Tennis.

As of last week, Levy was undecided whether he will make it into the Long Island Sound on Saturday. Because of exertion asthma, the last time he tried the open water swim he couldn’t go more than a few hundred feet without having to stop, for some reason.

If it’s not in the cards to do the Sound, then Levy will be at the Larchmont Shore Club, where the open water swim concludes, doing the laps to get in his mile in that club’s pool.

For more information about Swim Across America’s Long Island Sound chapter and the remaining swims, visit www.swimacrossamerica.org/longislandsound.