Former OCBP Guard on a Mission in Masters Swim

The only obstacles Drew Daniele will face in Saturday's will be the aches, pains and missing gears of middle age, but the 46-year-old former Ocean City Beach Patrol member will be swimming for athletes who face much greater challenges.

Daniele is raising money for the Swim With Mike Physically Challenged Athletes Scholarship Fund, a national organization named for Mike Nyeholt, a former University of Southern California swimming All-American who was left paralyzed by a motorcycle accident.

Swim With Mike has raised $10,600,000 since its inception in 1981. The money helps disabled athletes like Nyeholt return to their sports.

Daniele is seeking sponsors as a representative of Swim With Mike in the Waikiki Roughwater Swim, a 2.4-mile open-water event in Hawaii in September. He's using the Masters Swim in Ocean City as a training swim.

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If you want to help, visit SwimWithMike.org and click on "I want to sponsor."
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Daniele lives in Pacific Palisades, CA, with his wife, Diana, and two children, Drew Jr., 11, and Dayna, 4. He grew up in Northeast Philadelphia, graduated La Salle High School in 1983 and visited Ocean City every summer before working the Ocean City Beach Patrol from 1981 to 1987.

Daniele is an insurance executive for Assurant Employee Benefits in Los Angeles. He sells products and programs that help disabled individuals get back to work—a career he says has been very generous to him.

So in April when he passed a billboard promoting a Swim With Mike event, Daniele saw an opportunity to both give back to the community and to revisit his passion for swimming.

Daniele has been getting up at 5:30 a.m. every day to train—recalling the days when he did the same for the Germantown Academy Aquatic Club and later for the College of William and Mary (Class of 1987).

Like a lot of other masters swimmers on Saturday trying to hang onto a little bit of glory, Daniele will be hearing voices from the past. He says his will be that of legendary Germantown coach Dick Shoulberg bellowing, "You gotta do the work!"

At least Daniele will be doing the work for a good cause.