Sun, sand, surf and paperwork
By gloria stravelli
Staff Writer

CHRIS KELLY Michael Fowler hit the beach back in 1964 (left), and he’s been there ever since (right, standing).

What started as a summer job during college has become an endless summer of lifeguarding for Michael Fowler, lifeguard supervisor at Seven Presidents Oceanfront Park in Long Branch.

Fowler, known as "Spike," has made lifeguarding his avocation for 38 summers, the bulk of them spent at a three-quarter mile stretch of beach front along Ocean Avenue.

"I carry photos of my rookie years to show my young lifeguards that I’m still doing this 38 years later," Fowler explained. "Lifeguarding has been wonderful to me. It’s a tremendous responsibility, but I wouldn’t have had it any other way."

As head of lifeguards at Seven Presidents Park since 1989, Fowler uses his summertime role to complement his position as professor of marketing at Brookdale Community College, Lincroft section of Middletown, where he has been on the faculty for the past 31 years.

"I loved the job so much, I designed my entire adult career around the opportunity to continue lifeguarding," explained Fowler. "I was overjoyed with the fact that lifeguarding could become an ongoing process. It’s really not a story of how much you can earn. It’s how you spend your time. I absolutely love both my jobs."

And, Fowler’s work doesn’t end when the county-operated beach closes for the summer.

"Lifeguarding continues all year," Fowler noted. "I have lifeguard-related administrative tasks year-round like budgeting, and I do all the purchasing of lifeguard equipment for the park system. I begin in earnest to get ready for the summer in mid-February."

Growing up in Avon-by-the-Sea meant Fowler spent summers at the beach; but he became a lifeguard reluctantly.

"I didn’t want to take the qualifying test to become a lifeguard," he explained. "I was 18 years old, and I was sitting on my front porch in Avon on the day of the test when my scoutmaster, Dr. Jim Forsythe, drove by. He had trained me as a lifeguard.

"Thirty-eight years later I look at this unbelievable coincidence," Fowler said, of his encounter with Forsythe that day. "He called out to me, ‘Why are you sitting on the porch? The test is this morning.’ I answered, ‘I decided not to take it.’

" ‘Absolutely not,’ he shot back. ‘Grab your bathing suit and come on.’

"He drove me in his car and delivered me to the test and came back to take me home," said Fowler, who passed the test, was hired, and began lifeguarding in Avon in 1964 while a student at Seton Hall University, South Orange.

On busy weekend days, Fowler’s crews oversee the well-being and safety of some 10,000-15,000 people, and the popularity of the beach, operated by the Monmouth County Park System, continues to grow. Last year, Seven Presidents’ lifeguard crews rescued 50 bathers and assisted 150 others. Since Fowler’s tenure began, his crews have rescued more than 500 bathers.

Fowler stresses the lifeguards’ mission is preventive.

"The crew has to be alert. They are trained observers," he said. "That means trying to prevent people from getting into danger rather than having to respond," he explained. "I think of rescues in terms of planning, rather than reacting. I teach my lifeguards to look for problems in the water. They look for people in the problem areas, like a rip current. Then, they look for people having problems in the problem area. If they’ve done their job, they will have a rescue planned with regard to filling each function. It’s done on the spot."

When a problem occurs, Fowler has developed a mode for his crews’ response. "My protocol is to send the least experienced, least qualified rescuer first and save the more experienced for backup," he said. "The protocol is to always swim to the farthest victim first. Then you know everything you need to respond to is between you and the shoreline.

"In my 38 years, I have a perfect record of no drownings when my crews have been on duty. I’m very proud of that record. It doesn’t happen by accident."

Lifeguards are acutely aware that the ocean is a formidable force, he said. "The water is something we respect," Fowler confided. "We have awesome respect for it because it will always win."

Over the years, Fowler has developed a rigorous training regimen that begins the first day of the season and continues each day throughout.

"We train every day, rain or shine, rough or calm, hot or cold, sick or well," Fowler noted. "If it’s raining, some crews will stay in. My crew is out training, doing anything from running, rowing, rescuing, kayaking, paddling to swimming.

"The fact is there are days when we have 15,000 people in the park. Responsible for their health, safety and welfare are 20 lifeguards I have hired and trained. That is an awesome responsibility, and that’s what I think about on this job constantly. There is no margin for error."

It’s fair to say that Fowler, who has trained hundreds of lifeguards, has dedicated his career to promoting the professionalism of lifeguarding.

"For many years, lifeguarding had been a defiled, degraded line of work," he commented. "Years ago, lifeguards were depicted as womanizing party animals, people unwilling to work at a real summer job, and that really hit me. When the U.S. Lifesaving Association (USLA) came into being, one of its goals was to promote lifeguarding professionalism, and that is one of my goals as a member of the USLA Monmouth County chapter."

Dispelling that image and advancing the concept of lifeguarding professionalism is as much in the details as in the training, according to Fowler.

"It includes everything from the way you look, to the way you speak, to the way you act," he stressed.

Fowler prepares his crews to react to circumstances ranging from a child being knocked down by a wave, to a cardiac arrest in the water, to a full-out rescue in rough seas.

One of the more memorable maneuvers performed by his crews, Fowler recounted, involved the rescue of a group of bathers who entered the water at an unguarded section of Monmouth Beach to the north and were swept offshore.

"Our beach was red-flagged (swimming not permitted), and they disregarded that. The people were swept offshore and the crew observed it and responded in dramatic fashion," Fowler said. "The lifeguards had to pick up their equipment (a hard and fast rule is not to enter the water without equipment), run north, up the beach, and enter a very rough sea. One guard got swept over the top of a jetty, but they effected the rescue, and no one was hurt."

The lives of bathers are not the only ones endangered at these times, Fowler pointed out.

"Lives can be compromised," he said. "That’s why guards get upset when the public wants to ignore warnings about heavy surf, rip currents. Sometimes people have to be protected from their own bad judgment," noted Fowler, who has almost drowned twice during the course of rescuing bathers.

How do lifeguards deal with the risks inherent in their work? "It would be foolish to assume guards are not afraid, but fear comes in ways the public wouldn’t think of," Fowler said. "When you go into heavy surf to effect a rescue, fear is not the proper term for what you feel. Rather, there is a sense of trepidation and respect for what lies ahead."