Waves of Memories: Catching Up with Some of Avalon’s South Jersey Lifeguard Champions
Mike Cras and Craig Whitehead (standing) celebrate the first of their three South Jersey championships.
The South Jersey Lifeguard Championships date back a century to 1924, with continuous competitions since 1944. Avalon is hosting the event this month, so we thought it would be interesting to catch up with some of the legends who make up Avalon’s rich legacy in South Jersey lifeguarding.
It’s been 76 years since a lifeguard named Don DeForrest, a Delaware County native who spent his summers on First Avenue between 21st and 22nd streets, won Avalon’s first-ever South Jersey title on Saturday, Aug. 20, 1949.
Since capturing that first title, roughly 3,800 men and women have passed the test and served as members of the Avalon Beach Patrol. Among them, only 26 have gone on to win a South Jersey or Howarth title. That’s just over half of 1% of everyone who has ever guarded. The odds are extraordinary. These are some of the legends of the Avalon Beach Patrol.
The best place to start anything is at the beginning. As we mentioned, that’s Don DeForrest. A world-class swimmer in August 1949, he was an All-American at the University of Pennsylvania. DeForrest also held the world record in the 150-meter freestyle when he won Avalon’s first championship and would go on to set numerous world records.
A longtime employee of the Chrysler Corporation, he and his wife Peg had nine children. DeForrest passed away in October 1990. Although the South Jersey championships have been held for more than a century, DeForrest remains the only beach patrol captain ever to win a South Jersey individual championship. It didn’t happen easily.
Newspaper accounts confirm a story shared several years ago by Don’s widow Peg, who has since passed away. Always a fierce competitor, DeForrest was in Los Angeles two days before the AAU National Swimming Championships. After it ended, he went to the airport with Walter Farrell of the Wildwood Beach Patrol for a flight likely lasting 10 to 12 hours, with refueling stops along the way.
They flew to Philadelphia Airport, where a car waited for them. The 6-foot-4 DeForrest was “quickly” driven via Delsea Drive to Sea Isle City, where he got out, stretched, and won a highly competitive Tri-Resorts swim. The next night, DeForrest won the half-mile swim, earning Avalon’s first South Jersey championship in 22 minutes, 35 seconds, and helping ABP finish third overall behind Ventnor and Atlantic City in front of what was described as a crowd of more than 5,000 spectators.
DeForrest went on to win many championships throughout his life, but his wife said, “Winning that South Jersey Championship always meant so much to Don. He loved being a lifeguard, and winning that swim was a great accomplishment in his lifetime.”
It would be Avalon’s only title for 23 years until Pat Gallagher won it again in 1972, when Atlantic City’s Jim Whelan (the late state Senator) and legendary Ventnor lifeguard Bill Howarth dueled for second place.
DeForrest and his family moved to Missouri in the 1970s, and that was where he died. He must have passed his love of Seven Mile Beach to his children because, to this day, some still vacation annually in Avalon.
Sticking with the theme of firsts, we need to highlight the first woman from Avalon to compete and the first to win a Howarth Invitational Championship. Long regarded as the unofficial South Jersey Championship for women, the Howarth Invitational, which dates back to 1995, is hosted by the Ventnor Beach Patrol. The South Jersey Chiefs Association has officially recognized it as the women’s South Jersey Lifeguard Championships.
The first female member of the Avalon Beach Patrol to compete in the Howarth Championships participated in that inaugural event. Jill (Kozakowski) Chin, now a teacher at Cape May County Technical High School, was Avalon’s only entrant that summer. Jill, who guarded the 18th Street beach, competed in the swim and made it into the scoring by finishing fifth overall.
The guard who holds the distinction of winning Avalon’s first-ever women’s championship is Reilly Bonner. A native of Havertown, Bonner won the 2018 singles championship. That summer, The Press of Atlantic City named Bonner one of its Lifeguard All-Stars for 2018, among all patrols. Today, the Havertown, Pa., native lives in Philadelphia, where she works as a practice management coordinator for Blank Rome, an Am Law 100 firm. She still spends every weekend in Avalon, which she describes as “my favorite place on earth.”
Reilly’s lasting memory from the 2018 summer? “I spent a lot of hours in the boat that summer, and we ended up having a successful year, not just in singles, but in doubles with Danielle Smith. We always had so much fun. We were always lucky and grateful to spend our summers doing the best job. Riding in that final wave and being lifted by my team was an incredible feeling – and of course, getting a handshake from Captain Murray [Wolf]!”
In August 1990, the doubles team of Mark Duszak and Jay Nissley achieved a respectable second-place finish earlier that summer in the Cape May County Championship. Nissley also had an impressive fourth-place finish in Cape May’s Superathalon, South Jersey lifeguarding’s equivalent of the decathlon. However, the doubles field that summer was highly competitive. Joe Sheffer and Chris Oves from Ocean City were the defending champions, and the Swifts (Jim and John) from Margate promised to challenge the champions. Ocean City was counting on the doubles team, which had scored numerous victories that summer, to win its record 29th South Jersey team title. But Duszak and Nissley ended those hopes when they claimed Avalon’s third-ever doubles crown.
Today, Nissley owns a direct mail firm in Harrisburg and still has a clear memory of that race: “Ocean racing can and does get crazy. It all clicked when it mattered most. The OC boat was the favorite and was dominant all season, but we felt that if everything clicked, we could be champions. We put in the time and training; we just needed a little ocean luck on our side. We had plenty of bad ocean luck all season. The rowing gods blessed us with a perfect race when it mattered the most, from the start to the turn, and at the finish. We just had to pull our butts off in between. It is a great honor to be a South Jersey champion. I love Avalon and South Jersey rowing.”
By the way, the “rowing gods” swamped the defending champs at the start, and Ocean City’s vaunted doubles team finished 10th.
The lifeguarding gods must have been smiling down on Murray Wolf and the Avalon Beach Patrol in 1973 when two-time 1972 Olympic silver medalist Tim McKee, a native of Newtown Square, Pa., followed some friends to Avalon for the summer and took a job on the Avalon Beach Patrol. McKee would add the 1973 swim championship to a resumé that would eventually include a third Olympic silver medal, six American records, and a spot in the International Swimming Hall of Fame.
Several years ago, Whelan, the then-state Senator, told the Seven Mile Times, “Tim and I were friends, but at the flag, I felt a foot to my head. I looked up, and Tim was gone. He was quite the competitor; I always respected that about him.” Today, McKee lives in Florida, where he works in real estate after a 20-year career as a lifeguard and public safety officer with Ocean Rescue.
Chris Craft arrived in Avalon in 1989 as a highly celebrated swimmer from Villanova University. A pool swimmer since age 6, adapting to ocean swimming was not easy for him. Press reports didn’t list Craft among the top contenders for the 1989 swimming title. But in the race, a group of four swimmers, including Craft, rounded the flag and headed for the beach. The Wildwood swimmer led with about 25 yards to go. Then, everyone saw the talent that had driven Craft to the Olympic trials the previous year. With 10 yards left, Craft took the lead and finished nine seconds ahead. Today, he divides his time between Naples, Fla., and Paoli, Pa., where he owns an audio and video production company. He still considers the 12th Street beach his “home” and has vivid memories of the 1989 Jerseys.
“The excitement that not only did I win, but so did our doubles crew and our singles guy was second,” he recalls. “We almost swept it all! But we won the team title in dominant fashion. And of course, getting a hug from Murray was the icing on the cake. I never felt so alive as I did that night. It was as important to me as even competing in the Olympic Trials for swimming … maybe even more gratifying! We all came through with such a dominant team performance when it counted the most! I will always be proud to be an ABP alum and also extremely proud of having had the opportunity to win a South Jersey title!”
You can’t mention the words “dominant fashion” without including Craig Whitehead and Mike Cras. The duo won three consecutive doubles championships from 1991-93 and fell two boat lengths short of becoming the first team to ever four-peat in the South Jersey doubles in 1994.
Today, Cras lives in Havertown, Pa., where he is in construction management. Whitehead, or “Whitey” as his legions of admirers call him, can still be found on the Avalon beaches when he’s not teaching and coaching in the Philadelphia School District. Whitey is in his 37th season on the Avalon Beach Patrol, where he holds the distinction of the second-longest tenured guard of all time in Avalon. He’s been a lieutenant since 1993. There aren’t too many rowing titles in college or on the beach that Whitey hasn’t won in his impressive career.
Cras has great memories but still misses what made him a legendary winner: the competition. “A good number of my lifeguard rowing friends were also friends from high school [Monsignor Bonner] and college [Temple]. I value those friendships. I have moved on from rowing, however, I do keep active, and the one thing that I miss is the competition at the races each week.” Whitehead, too, still treasures memories of the South Jerseys: “Winning the Super Bowl of lifeguard racing was a very pivotal moment of my life. At 20 years old, your life could go in any direction. I think [it was] one of the biggest things that sent me on a positive note. Life trajectory was the success I had as an ocean rower. It’s not only the personal pride that you feel, but most importantly, the people you do it with. I have been very fortunate to be involved in several organizations that have allowed me to be surrounded by great people who challenge me to be a better athlete and person. The ABP continues to do that for me to this day.
And finally, the man after whom Avalon’s signature event is named, David J. Kerr. Dave teamed up with Dan O’Malley for the first time in the summer of 1980. The new duo proved successful, winning at the Dutch Hoffmans and Tri-Resorts and finishing second at the Margate Memorials. Kerr described their pace in the Jerseys as “steady” and straight, an angle that proved elusive for the team in earlier races.
Now retired and living in Puget Sound, O’Malley still has special feelings for his former rowing partner from that memorable 1980 season. “I live my life remembering Dave,” he told Seven Mile Times in 2024. “A lot of us do. And we know that over time, some people will pass away and inspire future generations.” Tragically, Kerr was diagnosed with terminal cancer in 1981. He rowed his last race on July 31, 1981, and never had the opportunity to defend his title, although he remained on the beach throughout the summer of 1981 as he battled cancer. Ironically, Kerr was diagnosed by Dr. David Smith, a Margate Beach Patrol legend himself. Kerr lost his battle on Sept. 22, 1981.
Sadly, we don’t have the space to visit with each of Avalon’s 26 lifeguard racing greats, but they all hold a special place as legends of the Seven Mile Beach.