Returning to the sport of one’s youth can be rewarding; getting to do it for an important cause is even more so. Such is the case for 46-year-old Palisadian Drew Daniele, a competitive swimmer earlier in his life who recently and serendipitously got back in the water on behalf of Swim With Mike, a national organization that raises support for the USC Physically Challenged Athletes Scholarship Fund with the goal to ‘help pave the way for individuals to overcome their tragedies and strive for a brighter future.’ In April, Daniele entered the Swim With Mike’s Masters’ Challenge at USC, where he completed 80 laps, raised $1,700 for the cause and qualified for a contest awarding a trip to Hawaii’which he won. Winning the trip came with a price: participation in the 42nd Annual Waikiki Roughwater Swim on September 5, a 2.38-mile course that Daniele will swim in order to continue raising support for Swim With Mike. After winning the Hawaiian trip, Daniele said, ‘I called my wife and said, ‘The good news is we’re going to Hawaii. The challenging news is I need to start swimming a lot.” Daniele has done just that this summer. He wakes up at 5:30 a.m. six days a week to train, splitting his time between the Maggie Gilbert Aquatic Center at nearby Palisades High (where he swims about 4,500 meters each outing) and the Pacific Ocean (swimming off Venice or Will Rogers for about 1.5 miles). Of late, he has been entering official swims, including the Dwight Crum Pier-to-Pier race (about two miles) between Hermosa and Manhattan Beach on July 20. Last Sunday, he completed the Optimist Swim Challenge between Venice and Santa Monica (the first time he swam the 2.38 miles he’ll swim in Waikiki) and hit his stated goal of breaking an hour, finishing in 59 minutes and five seconds. Just as impressive, he was the No. 2 overall finisher without a wetsuit, encouraging for his prospects when he swims without one in Waikiki. For each of Daniele’s swims, he has used a stamp to imprint the Swim for Mike logo on his chest and the Web site on his back. This has raised even more awareness for the cause, drawing inquiries from several people each time he races. Daniele has had a high regard for the organization for years, but never joined until recently. ’People always mentioned Swim With Mike to me,’ he said. ‘It’s really a great organization with an amazing history. But between raising kids and working, I always said, ‘I’ll get involved next year.’ I’d been in California for 20 years and never got involved.’ That changed with a well-placed billboard erected in April at Sepulveda and Lincoln, close to LAX and to Daniele’s office at Assurant Employee Benefits, where he works selling products and programs intended to help disabled individuals start working again. ’I’d drive home every day and see this giant billboard that said, ‘Dive In,” Daniele said of the Swim With Mike advertisement. ‘I started thinking about getting involved. After 20 years of being involved with claims and seeing the difficult things that can happen to people when they can’t work, those experiences were in the back of my head.’ Daniele’s return to swimming was indeed a long time coming. A Philadelphia native, he swam in high school for the Germantown Academy Aquatic Club and collegiately for the College of William & Mary (where he graduated in 1987). With a specialty in the breast stroke and individual medley, particularly 200- and 400-yard races, Daniele made the most of his swimming career, fancing himself the ‘Rudy Ruettiger of swimming,’ noting his ‘5-foot-nothing’ stature and referring to the walk-on defensive lineman at Notre Dame. For the record, he stands 5’11”. Today, though, most of Daniele’s focus is on open-ocean swimming in preparation for Waikiki, quite different from the experience of swimming in an enclosed pool. ’Nature can be unpredictable,’ he said. ‘You’re not pushing off walls, not confined. And between the temperature and the current, those are the biggest things I’m worried about. Swimming without a wetsuit, people sometimes have the tendency to panic because it’s so cold.’ In fact, he mentioned a race he competed at earlier this summer in Ocean City, New Jersey where at least six swimmers were pulled out with hypothermia’something that seems unlikely to happen at Waikiki. ’I don’t think (hypothermia) is going to be a problem there,’ Daniele said, laughing. Drew lives on Via de la Paz with his wife Diana (who has a public relations and marketing firm, Diana Daniele Communications) and their two children, Drew Jr., 11, and Dayna, 4. Both kids attend Calvary Christian, while the family attends Corpus Christi Chruch. The elder Drew notes that he has already spent numerous seasons coaching AYSO soccer, baseball and flag football. Those interested in supporting Daniele and the Swim With Mike cause can call (213) 740-4155 or visit the organization’s Web site: www.swimwithmike.org/
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