From today's SF Chronicle:
Cal buddies at core of trans-Tahoe swim for brain-tumor foundation
Tom FitzGerald, Chronicle Staff Writer
Thursday, August 23, 2007
There must be easier ways of showing friendship and raising money for charity than this. Two three-man relay teams plan to swim diagonally across Lake Tahoe on Saturday. Then, to celebrate the feat, the teams will do it in reverse. It's 22 miles each way, so each swimmer will go about 15 miles in all.
They hope to raise $10,000 for the National Brain Tumor Foundation, and they hope their venture gets money flowing to the League to Save Lake Tahoe as well.
Two of the swimmers, Ken Wallace, 28, and Matt Evans, 30, are in the master's of business administration program at Cal, as is their friend, Steve Dugan, who was diagnosed this year with brain cancer.
Evans and his brother John, 27, took turns swimming the circumference of Tahoe a year ago, a 60-mile trip to benefit the Save Lake Tahoe group. With Wallace, the brothers hatched the idea of raising money for the brain tumor foundation.
"With Steve's illness, that became more pressing," Matt Evans said.
John Evans accomplished last year's journey without a wetsuit, quite a feat in Tahoe's numbingly cold waters. Matt tried it, too, for a couple of miles, but found himself on the verge of hypothermia. "I lost the ability to speak," he said.
John will be the only one of the six not to wear a wetsuit this weekend, said Matt, a former All-American breaststroker at Princeton.
The other swimmers are Marty Matthies, 22, a second-team All-American on Cal's 2006 national championship water-polo team; Ralph Fallant, 46, a triathlon enthusiast from Redwood City, and Earl Walton, 33, a triathlon coach from New York City.
"We're not long-distance swimmers," said Wallace, who has competed in three Ironman Triathlons in Hawaii. "We're just normal athletes who like a challenge and hope to inspire people to donate to causes that are meaningful to us."
When they learned in April that Dugan had a brain tumor, "We were kind of floored," Wallace said.
Wallace will join Walton and Matthies on one team, with the Evans brothers and Fallant on the other. Each team will have a two-man inflatable sea kayak, and another boat will carry support people.
The teams will begin at dawn Saturday from the northeast corner of the lake at Incline Village, Nev., and they plan to camp Saturday night at Emerald Bay on the southwest corner. At dawn Sunday, they'll head back to the starting point.
"In addition to the distance," Wallace said, "this is a very difficult lake to swim across." The thin air at 6,200 feet makes endurance events more difficult, and the afternoon winds are likely to cause "a rolling sea of whitecap waves."
Matt Evans pointed out another, less obvious challenge. "The water is so deep and so clear, there's nowhere to focus," he said. "It can affect your inner ear. The visibility is around 85 feet, although the recent fires may decrease the clarity. Some people can become nauseous."
For more information about the swim and how to make donations, visit swimanything.com. E-mail Tom FitzGerald at tfitzgerald@sfchronicle.com.
http://sfgate.com/.../08/23/SPJTRMP7T.DTL
This article appeared on page D - 8 of the San Francisco Chronicle
[/url] San Francisco Chronicle Sections DatebookCommentary96HoursBay AreaSportsNewsBusiness © 2007 Hearst Communications Inc. | Privacy Policy | Feedback | RSS Feeds | FAQ | Site Index | Contact
Cal buddies at core of trans-Tahoe swim for brain-tumor foundation Tom FitzGerald, Chronicle Staff Writer
Thursday, August 23, 2007
There must be easier ways of showing friendship and raising money for charity than this. Two three-man relay teams plan to swim diagonally across Lake Tahoe on Saturday. Then, to celebrate the feat, the teams will do it in reverse. It's 22 miles each way, so each swimmer will go about 15 miles in all.
They hope to raise $10,000 for the National Brain Tumor Foundation, and they hope their venture gets money flowing to the League to Save Lake Tahoe as well.
Two of the swimmers, Ken Wallace, 28, and Matt Evans, 30, are in the master's of business administration program at Cal, as is their friend, Steve Dugan, who was diagnosed this year with brain cancer.
Evans and his brother John, 27, took turns swimming the circumference of Tahoe a year ago, a 60-mile trip to benefit the Save Lake Tahoe group. With Wallace, the brothers hatched the idea of raising money for the brain tumor foundation.
"With Steve's illness, that became more pressing," Matt Evans said.
John Evans accomplished last year's journey without a wetsuit, quite a feat in Tahoe's numbingly cold waters. Matt tried it, too, for a couple of miles, but found himself on the verge of hypothermia. "I lost the ability to speak," he said.
John will be the only one of the six not to wear a wetsuit this weekend, said Matt, a former All-American breaststroker at Princeton.
The other swimmers are Marty Matthies, 22, a second-team All-American on Cal's 2006 national championship water-polo team; Ralph Fallant, 46, a triathlon enthusiast from Redwood City, and Earl Walton, 33, a triathlon coach from New York City.
"We're not long-distance swimmers," said Wallace, who has competed in three Ironman Triathlons in Hawaii. "We're just normal athletes who like a challenge and hope to inspire people to donate to causes that are meaningful to us."
When they learned in April that Dugan had a brain tumor, "We were kind of floored," Wallace said.
Wallace will join Walton and Matthies on one team, with the Evans brothers and Fallant on the other. Each team will have a two-man inflatable sea kayak, and another boat will carry support people.
The teams will begin at dawn Saturday from the northeast corner of the lake at Incline Village, Nev., and they plan to camp Saturday night at Emerald Bay on the southwest corner. At dawn Sunday, they'll head back to the starting point.
"In addition to the distance," Wallace said, "this is a very difficult lake to swim across." The thin air at 6,200 feet makes endurance events more difficult, and the afternoon winds are likely to cause "a rolling sea of whitecap waves."
Matt Evans pointed out another, less obvious challenge. "The water is so deep and so clear, there's nowhere to focus," he said. "It can affect your inner ear. The visibility is around 85 feet, although the recent fires may decrease the clarity. Some people can become nauseous."
For more information about the swim and how to make donations, visit swimanything.com. E-mail Tom FitzGerald at tfitzgerald@sfchronicle.com.
http://sfgate.com/.../08/23/SPJTRMP7T.DTL
This article appeared on page D - 8 of the San Francisco Chronicle
[/url] San Francisco Chronicle Sections DatebookCommentary96HoursBay AreaSportsNewsBusiness © 2007 Hearst Communications Inc. | Privacy Policy | Feedback | RSS Feeds | FAQ | Site Index | Contact