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People On The Move - Bill Mack
06/29/2009 - By by Teja Anderson
SENIOR LIFEGUARD AND WATER SAFETY GURU
In his 50 plus years of lifeguarding, Bill Mack (just Mack to his friends) has never had anyone drown on his watch. His motto? “Watch the water.” He applies this to life as well…“Keep your eyes on what is moving around you,” Mack advises. “If you are aware of your surroundings and keep your eyes open to things, as they change you will be prepared for whatever life throws at you.” Even though he never took a formal swimming lesson, for more than five decades Mack has been watching the waters of the Jersey Shore from Belmar to Sea Bright, and has trained hundreds of shore teens in water safety and rescue techniques.
When he was just 10 years old, his family split up and Mack moved from East Orange down to Belmar to stay with relatives, and immediately fell in love with the ocean. Forming a friendship with one of the guys who worked at S. & S. Umbrellas and Chairs, he was able to go out on one of their rubber rafts for free, and soon became a self-styled water rat and body surfer, spending more time in the water than out. “Back then there were no rescue boards, no surf boards, no boogie boards; just these rubber rafts that you could go out and ride the waves with in all kinds of conditions.”
Although he was shuffled back and forth between homes for a time, Mack eventually graduated from the Belmar Grammar School and then from Manasquan High School. It was while he was still in grammar school that Howard Rowland, the chief lifeguard in Belmar and the water safety chairman for the Red Cross of Monmouth County (and a legend at the Jersey Shore), first made an impact on Mack. “He was a walrus in the ocean. Everybody admired him,” remembers Mack. “He would show up with his body all greased, covered in Vaseline®, and jump in the water and tell you to come rescue him; of course, it was impossible.” Well, impossible for almost everyone except for 12-year-old Mack who took his challenge at the saltwater Natatorium in Asbury Park one night. “I dove down to the bottom of the pool and I grabbed hold of his armpit hair (it was the only thing I could get a hold of). I yanked on it and up he came, screaming at me that I wasn’t using the ‘cross-chest carry.’ But I looked at him and said, ‘I got you up, didn’t I?’ Pretty soon after that I started junior lifeguarding in Bradley Beach, thanks to this guy “Bam” Seyler and, of course, Howard.”
Although Mack had a whole other career outside of lifeguarding – attending Adelphi University on a swimming scholarship, getting a job at Marlboro Psychiatric Hospital first as a psychiatric aid and then working his way up to become a much-respected administrator – the ocean and beach were never far from his thoughts. “When I was in charge of the troubled adolescents there at the hospital I would take them on a 25-mile bike trip to Belmar Beach; we would spend the day there and then bike back. I never had one problem from those kids. If you keep kids busy they stay out of trouble,” Mack says.
Not surprisingly, Mack thinks cell phones are the biggest hazard to water safety today. Although he lets his guards keep them with them on the stands, as it is often a more reliable way to communicate than their walkie-talkies, he finds that when they are texting they aren’t watching the water. Another problem is the recruitment of new lifeguards; most kids today don’t need summer jobs – money just isn’t an incentive for them. However, the prestige and admiration associated with being an athletic person who saves lives is often enough to keep them coming back summer after summer once they’ve joined. Hormones help, too, and Mack now has as many female guards as male.
Mack has three beautiful, grown daughters – Laurie, Cheryl, and Kathy – and while his summers are committed to the Jersey Shore beaches, he and his wife Kerry enjoy biking and skiing as well. They also relish the house they built together in Vermont.
STATS
FAVORITE RESTAURANT
Ichabod’s, Sea Bright
FAVORITE MUSICIAN
Bruce Springsteen
FAVORITE MOVIES
westerns or anything with Paul Newman
PET PEEVE
people who text or talk on the phone while you are waiting for them
THREE PEOPLE YOU WOULD LIKE TO HAVE DINNER WITH
David Letterman, Terry McGovern, and my wife…I never go anywhere without her!
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