Levittown Swimming Association

I was recently asked to draft an article to inform the community about the Levittown Swimming Association. I decided the best way to accomplish this was to examine the history of the organization along with the history of the community. Fifty years ago, William Levitt completed construction of his planned community (17,447 homes that were built in the Hempstead and Oyster Bay Townships). Levitt's community was unique in so many ways that he was featured on the cover of Time magazine.

Levitt's plan was unique for his time in the consideration he paid to making Levittown a planned community rather than just a layout of tract housing. Levitt's emphasis on community was epitomized by his inclusion of over 250 parcels of property in the Levittown Park District.

Out of these seeds have grown a community of local sports and recreation programs in Levittown that continue to thrive today. Most suburban communities have grass roots level baseball, basketball, football and soccer programs and leagues. Only Levittown has an all-volunteer community based swimming program. William Levitt included nine community pools in his master plan. The original residents of Levittown were mostly refugees from the city. Many were people who moved here to work in the aviation and defense plants during the war. Others were returning veterans who fled from the city to suburbia with a dream in mind of providing a certain lifestyle for their families. These original residents had strong expectations for a new way of life.

Out of this grew the local churches and synagogues, along with other community groups that included chapters of already established organizations such as Boy and Girl Scouts, sports leagues, Kiwanis and many others, and a new innovation; a community based swimming and diving program. The Levittown Swimming Association (LSA).

The organization was founded during 1954 when residents George ["Tom"] and Ann Columbo brought several residents together with the idea of creating a competitive swimming and diving program where their sons [could] compete on a local level. Tom and Ann joined with Bill Mattor and Marge Boettor and created the LSA. LSA held its first season of swim meets during the summer of 1955 under the supervision of Tom Columbo, the first LSA president.

LSA is a swimming program that utilizes the nine joint district pools. It is an all volunteer, not-for-profit organization that is now in its 47th season. The basic foundation of LSA was a program where each of the nine pools in the district had a team where children develop and learn competitive swimming skills, and then use them to compete against each other in swim meets during the season. The demographics of Levittown have changed over the last 50 years and our program has evolved with those changes. In the mid '90s our enrollment dropped to less than 200 swimmers and a trend of declining enrollments signaled a possible end of our program. Over the years LSA had many other offshoots of its original program that included diving, inter-league swimming competition through the Nassau County Swim Conference, and winter swimming programs. With the organization at a crisis point the leadership focused on the basics that gave LSA its original success. Forty-seven seasons later we have evolved back to our original program of nine teams swimming against each other and boast a membership of about 450 swimmers.

When I attended my first LSA meeting about 20 years ago I observed several people I affectionately characterized as dinosaurs. These included Connie Schenk and Susan Epstein. Their children had graduated the program and left the ranks of LSA. Not only did I wonder why they were still here but why were they still both so devoted. Both served as president of and members of the LSA Board of Supervisors long after they had children in the program. Last year I found myself serving a third term as president. This occurred several seasons after my oldest child had aged out of the program and after I had moved out of Levittown. How on earth, I wondered, had I become one of those dinosaurs?

My answer came to me at a recent Levittown Youth Council meeting. Albert Mirenda, who has worn several different hats in LSA, was addressing the members and speaking about our upcoming season. During his remarks he made references about the camaraderie of our swimmers. How the boys and girls of different ages in our organization come together and work together as a team during our meets and championships. He described year after year watching the older swimmers on a team encourage and mentor our younger swimmers as they strive to develop their skills. He discussed a level of sportsmanship and respect amongst our athletes that is unfortunately not seen more often in other programs.

Many of our former swimmers have gone on to join Town of Hempstead or County of Nassau as paid lifeguards. Brittany Gurrieri, Alexis Fallerino, Erica Leo, Jessica Diepietro and Brendan and Garret Wyckoff are just a few. Other former swimmers such as Leigh and Andrew Mirenda and Andrea Fogel teach in instructional swimming programs.

Other swimmers and coaches also serve as swim coaches and officials for a variety of other levels of competitive swim programs. I looked around and realized that it has been a dedication and very special group of volunteers who have worked to make this organization what it is today. LSA is an unusual organization. In many organizations, after a person has served as president or as a board member, they will fade into the background. LSA is one of few where after a person serves as president they serve again and again and wear many hats. After my first two terms as president ended I served two terms as a vice-president and third term as president and as a board member and corresponding secretary. Following me as presidents were Kerry Fallerino and Michelle Gurrieri, who also have served again as vice-president, coach, board member and secretary. Carol Wyckoff, president of our board of supervisors has simultaneously served as a coach and records clerk.

We also have many former swimmers who have come back over the years to serve LSA - Carol Wyckoff (president of our board of supervisors) swam with Michelle Gurrieri (past president and coach), Kellie Drummond (coach) and Mike Martin (coach). In the past we have had many other swimmers return to serve as volunteers. Some include: Michelle Restivo, Sherri Epstein-Sloane, Joseph Agovino and Amanda Widro.

LSA is one of the cheapest and best-kept secrets of Levittown. While many sports programs have registrations that run into hundreds of dollars we charge only $15 per swimmer or $35 for a family of three or more. This covers a seven week swim season with an average of eight hours of practice a week. LSA has been very fortunate to find quality people to serve our organization. Eight years ago Sheri Mangus joined our corps of volunteers when her children started swimming for LSA. Her first involvement like many parents was very minimal, serving as a timer when her children swam in meets. Four years ago she started to help out as a coaching assistant on an occasional basis. Since then, she rapidly moved through our ranks serving as a head coach, as vice-president and as our current president. Sherri, as most of our past presidents, was approached by our board and asked to run for office. Despite her initial reluctance to serve, she agreed and was elected. We are looking at a great season this year under her direction.

This article is full of praise for the volunteers and swimmers of LSA. The organization I wrote about are the people in your community. They are your friends, neighbors and relatives. They provide Levittown with much to be proud of. Why don't you share in this great organization. If you have children who are interested in swimming let them come to one of our practices or if you're just interested in sharing a few hours of time with your neighbors come watch one of our meets. It is well worth your time.