For the past two weeks, patriotic pride has swelled just by watching all of the great athletic performances by USA athletes in the Paris Olympics. The same kind of emotion, exuberance and sense of patriotism will be on display Saturday on both sides of the Hudson River and actually in the river itself as the sixth annual NYC Hudson River Navy SEAL Swim takes place. Longtime area basketball coach Ken Termini and former Pen Argyl athlete Jeff Gum will be among the more than 300 participants who will start at the Empty Sky Memorial in Liberty State Park in New Jersey and end at the World Trade Center in Manhattan.
They will start by swimming from Liberty State Park to the Statue of Liberty where they will do 100 honor pushups and 22 pullups in an effort to salute the nation’s freedoms and civil liberties. From the Statue of Liberty they swim to Ellis Island and after 100 more honor pushups and 22 pullups for the nation’s diversity and those who came to the U.S seeking a better life, they are back in the water and swim to Battery Park in Manhattan.
At that point, they grab America flags and run to the World Trade Center Memorial. To finish the event, they do 100 more pushups and 22 pull-ups to salute those who lost their lives on 9/11, in Extortion 17 tragedy in 2011 and all Americans who lost their lives in the line of duty. On Aug.
6, 2011, 30 American military servicemen and a U.S. military dog were killed when a CH-47 Chinook helicopter – call sign Extortion 17– was shot down in Afghanistan.
The mission with the swim is to support over 30 Navy SEAL Foundation programs for SEL community active duty, veterans and their families. “If you look at the confirmed swimmer list, you see all of their military, law enforcement and firefighter designations or guys that lost family members or foster families in Iraq or Afghanistan,” said event director and founder Bill Brown. “That list speaks volumes about the character of the individuals who will be in that water.
” Brown said that while the swim is challenging, it’s something that the participants never forget. “When you swim by the Statue of Liberty and experience the magnificence of it, it’s very powerful,” Brown said. “All that she represents .
.. our freedoms and civil liberties .
.. that’s where it really hits you.
That is the basis of what our country was founded on, the idea of the Constitution, life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, equality, due process, all of those ideas, that’s what she symbolizes. And then you think about all of the families that came through Ellis Island to this nation and all the diversity we have, that’s also a pretty powerful thing. The people I am swimming alongside are really beautiful Americans who put their life on the line for years.
They’re in the water with me and it fires me up.” Termini said there are actually 31⁄2 miles of swimming involved along with two miles of running and the honor workouts. “For me, it’s going to be 122 pushups because I can’t do pullups,” he said.
“I never heard of it until a couple of months ago and once I did I tried to get involved in it. When I told people about it they said they had seen something on Fox News about it last August. It’s a very unique event done predominantly for the Navy Seal Foundation.
“I am just a patriot doing this. I’ve gotten involved and tried to help out at preliminary events. This event has grown from 33 people in its first year to 300 this year and it’s important to raise awareness.
The reason for the 22 pullups is that 22 vets commit suicide each day.” Termini, a 1982 Parkland High graduate, said he had more free time this summer because for the first time in many years he’s not a head coach anywhere. “This has given me something for me to latch on to for motivation and it was the driving force for my summer,” Termini said.
“I’m probably in the best shape I’ve been in in 20 years. And I love open-water swimming. One of the neat things I’ve already done is the Dial-In Swim on July 10.
That was an Army Ranger, a Navy SEAL, five elite force divers and myself. We had two state police escort boats with us and we did the swim to chart tides, sightlines and timing.” Termini said he has been amazed at how receptive and friendly everyone has been since he signed up to participate.
“I mean these Navy SEALs eat pain for fun,” he said. “They come from all walks of life, from all political persuasions, but when they’re together they’re all about helping each other and pushing everybody to be their best. It has just been an incredibly positive experience for me this summer and I am proud of the fact that I’ve raised over $7,500, which puts me in the top-5 out of nearly 300 people.
” Termini, who was part of Penn State’s water polo club team in college, said the last leg of the three-part swim is probably the toughest challenge. “The last leg from Ellis Island to Manhattan is demanding,” he said. “It’s the longest leg, about two miles, and it’s the most heavily trafficked section and it has the most current.
Plus you’ve already done a mile and a half in the water and two honor workouts and you’re already fatigued. So if you’re not in great shape, that last stretch can be most difficult.” Gum, who played soccer, basketball, track, cross country and was a kicker on the football team at Pen Argyl in addition to setting powerlifting records, is doing his sixth NYC Hudson River Swim.
He has his own Sunga Life swimwear brand, which most of the SEALs wear and he was interviewed on Fox News’ Fox and Friends Weekend show, which is co-hosted by Pete Hegseth and Will Cain, who participated in last year’s swim. “You’ll see the SEALs are wearing the bone frog, which is like a memorial to our fallen brothers and everyone is wearing a Roman numeral 17, which honors the 17 frogmen who died in Extortion 17 in 2011,” Gum said. “This is such an important event to raise awareness because many veterans struggle once they are out.
They lose meaning, they lose community, so this is a way for the guys to come together and have another mission and get together as a community and do something challenging. It’s also a way to honor the guys we lost and the victims of 9/11 and raise funds for he Navy SEAL Foundation.” Gum, who served as a Navy SEAL for 10 years in California and did two deployments in the Middle East including Iraq, became an instructor and sees many of his former students at this event.
He now lives in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, but has family in the Lehigh Valley and is always happy to come back home. “I am very proud to have been a part of this event because it’s an amazing thing all around,” he said. “We work with a lot of law enforcement people and back in 2020 when there was a lot of talk about defunding the police, it was my second year of participating in it and we wore shorts that supported the NYPD and the New Jersey state police because my grandfather received a Purple Heart as a marine in the Korean War and he retired as a New Jersey state policeman.
” Gum said that the police from a variety of agencies always support the event. “While we’re focused on completing this, they always have our backs and make sure we are safe, so it’s the least we can do to support them in return,” Gum said. Gum said that close to $1 million is raised per year for the Navy SEAL Foundation.
He graduated from Pen Argyl in 2002 and while he was in high school 9/11 happened. “I tore my ACL playing basketball as a sophomore and I was stuck in a brace and totally miserable,” he said. “I realized I needed the biggest challenge possible in order to be fulfilled and that’s when I became obsessed with becoming a Navy SEAL.
And then as a senior 9/11 happened and it reinforced 10-fold why I wanted to become a Navy SEAL and go hunt the most evil people in the world and make sure my family was safe.” The participants have become a family of their own with support and encouragement for each other. No medals are given out to those who finish first.
It’s not a competition, it’s a gathering of greatness. “One of the things I love most about this event is that it brings our pride and patriotism to New York City and New Jersey and to the country through Fox News,” Brown said. “The most beautiful thing about the swim is the people it brings together and reminds us of how beautiful our country is and what we’re all about.
We come together to remember why we have such a great country. We remember those we’ve lost and show how we can come together, rebound and move forward. That’s what we’re going to do on Saturday.
”.
