Lifeguard racing part of South Jersey culture, but it’s also time to adapt and advance

Posted: August 19th 2025

By DAVID WEINBERG

For CapeAtlanticLive.com

Lifeguard races have been part of the area’s sports scene for over a century.

Last Monday’s exciting South Jersey Lifeguard Championships were the 104th edition of the event. As noted by author and former Sea Isle City Beach Patrol chief Tom McCann in his new book, “The Guards,” the first one was held in 1919, when Atlantic City Beach Patrol chief Charles Bossert staged a doubles race involving crews from Cape May, Wildwood and Atlantic City.

To gain better insight as to the history, consider the South Jersey’s started the same year Babe Ruth was playing for the Boston Red Sox – he was sold to the New York Yankees a few months later for $100,000.

Ironically, legend has it Red Sox owner Harry Frazee used the money to fund the Broadway musical “No No Nanette,” which was about three couples who find themselves at a cottage in Atlantic City.

Locally, Margaret Gorman wouldn’t be crowned the First Miss America in Atlantic City for another two years.

Nucky Johnson was riding around his “Boardwalk Empire” in a powder-blue limousine.

Eventual Baseball Hall of Famer Pop Lloyd was playing for the Bacharach Giants of Atlantic City.

Atlantic City’s Fred Estergren and Owen Kertland won the race, thus starting a tradition that continued last Monday with Brigantine brothers Joe and Brendan Savell taking the doubles title.

Lifeguard races hold their own, special place in local sports, for it takes special qualities to excel in the various events.

There are no black lane lines painted on the bottom of the ocean. Swimmers must become proficient at navigating the tricky, swirling currents that can sweep them hundreds of yards off course.

Two weeks before he won the first of three straight South Jersey titles in 2018, former Longport swimmer Joey Tepper competed in the Dutch Hoffman’s in Wildwood for the first time and wound up closer to Stone Harbor.

A doubles boat has no coxswain to monitor its stroke rate and give directions. Being in a high school or college crew program can help, but there’s an art to ocean rowing that sets it apart from racing in a river or lake.

Avalon’s Gary Nagle and Dave Giulian have developed into one of the area’s top doubles crews in recent years. Neither rowed in high school or college. Giulian was a standout football player and wrestler at Middle Township High School and now plays football for The College of New Jersey. Nagle wrestled for Middle and for Ursinus College.

Experience is even more vital in the singles row, especially in choppy conditions. In both the Margate Memorials and South Jersey’s this summer, Poseidon spit boats back toward the beach at the start of the race like sunflower seeds.

The journey back toward shore for the end of the race presents another set of challenges. Instead of climbing over the swells like at the start of the race, singles rowers must ride the waves like surfers, hopping to the stern and using the oar like a rudder at the risk of getting turned sideways or capsizing. 

In last month’s Cape May County Championships, Wildwood’s Jake Klecko was in third place as the boats rowed toward shore, but the former rugby player at West Chester University caught a hopped on a huge wave and rocketed past two other rowers to win.

What separates events such as the Cape May County Championships and Dutch Hoffman’s from others like the Margate Memorials and South Jersey’s, however, is their willingness to adapt and expand to keep pace with the ever-changing demographics of the region.

Both the Cape May County and Dutch Hoffman races include paddleboard/rescue board races, vessels that have supplanted boats in some cases as a preferred method of performing rescues.

The Margate Memorials had a paddleboard race once in its 79-year history, when Brigantine’s Sven Peltonen won the race in 2004, but never went back to it.

The South Jerseys have been even more resistant to expansion.

The doubles row was the only event from 1919 until it added a swim in 1938. The singles row didn’t become a permanent fixture until 1973.

The most glaring oversight, however, concerns female lifeguard competitors.

In the 92 years since Longport’s Margaret Spitz became South Jersey’s first female lifeguard, women have become an integral part of every beach patrol. In Avalon, for instance, women comprise approximately 30 percent of its beach patrol workforce. Some beach patrols feature even higher percentages of female lifeguards among their ranks.

To be sure, there are several outstanding women-only competitions on the schedule, including the Longport Women’s Invitational, Cape May Point Women’s Lifeguard Challenge, and the Bill Howarth Women’s Lifeguard Invitation in Ventnor, which this year was designated as the South Jersey Women’s Championship.

But in order to accurately determine a true South Jersey Champion, women’s events need to be included in the main event.

There’s no reason to exclude outstanding competitors like Avalon’s Becca Cubbler, Longport’s Jordyn Ricciotti, Ocean City’s Brynn Gallagher, Wildwood Crest’s Maddie Priest and others from helping their respective patrols win a South Jersey Championship.

Stop saying, “No, No, Nanette” and add a women’s swim, paddleboard race and perhaps a coed surf dash to the main event.

It’s time.