A leisurely swim is one of summer’s greatest pleasures enjoyed by many but for Horace Greeley’s Boys Swim and Dive Team, summer is the time for tough workouts in the pool to prep for next season. They are hoping to clinch the State Championship Title for a third year in a row.
This past spring, the 35-member team won that title at Ithaca College for a second year in a row, and were the first team in Greeley’s history to win back-to-back state titles. The boys practice year-round, including the summer, and swim for approximately 15 hours weekly plus two land workouts weekly consisting of strength training workouts and stretching. It is a grueling schedule with some students waking up prior to 5 a.m. for morning practice, but many of these students have been swimming since they were in elementary school and are truly dedicated to the sport.
The team is hoping for a three-peat this year despite graduating six talented swimmers. Swim coach Meg Kaplan notes that the “rising junior class is filled with state level swimmers who have two to three years of state swimming under their belt. They are determined to direct the team to win another championship one at a time – league, conference, sectional, New York State and Federation. It is a goal that has not been accomplished by any other team in NY state history.”
Harriet Engel, mother of senior swimmers Eric and Oliver, explains that the Greeley swim team or what many refer to as “G-swim” is run differently than a team sport. The boys swim under the Greeley banner but many practice under the tutelage of Zac Hojnacki, the Head Coach of the Marlins, a swim club based out of the Mount Kisco-based Boys and Girls Club of Northern Westchester.
Engels’ boys began swimming at age seven for the Willowbrook swim team and eventually landed at the Boys and Girls Club with the Marlins. Of the ten boys who qualified for States this past spring, nine swim with the Marlins and one for the Larchmont-based Badgers. “The G-swim legacy is due in large part to the Marlins’ success,” explains Engel.
“During COVID it became abundantly clear the boys need the G-swim team. They love the high school team. It is a lot of fun for these boys and they bond as a group. You can see the smile on their faces on the deck. Swimming is a solitary sport. When they swim for their club, they are swimming for themselves but when they swim for G-swim they are swimming for team glory,” Engel says.
Hojnacki believes the team’s success is due to their values as a group. “They have a great culture and are passionate about the team. They embrace each individual’s success which propels them as a group,” he notes. Hojnacki who has been with the Marlins for the past five years has noticed that the G-swim team has progressively taken the sport of swimming more seriously and really bought into a culture of training excellence not just for the Marlins but also for their performance on G-swim. He works with several swimmers from various high schools throughout Westchester and has been impressed by the Greeley boys and offers a recent anecdote. “This morning after practice we were pulling lane lines which is basically grunt work. A few years ago maybe only a few kids would willingly do this. Now we have 20 or 30 kids helping each other and they treat one another with respect. The camaraderie, sportsmanship and teamwork play a role in their success and has them performing at a higher level.”
Meeting Goals & Striking a Balance
Hojnacki is also grateful for the ongoing dialogue that he has with Kaplan and the Greeley team. “We have the same goals, and it is about finding a balance between the G-swim and the club’s practice schedules, meets etc.,” says Hojnacki who is currently training some of the Greeley swimmers for nationals and even Olympic trials.
Hudson Chung, a former captain who just graduated Greeley will swim for the University of Chicago this fall. He believes the combination of coaches is crucial to their success. “Coach Meg who does the line-ups helps us achieve a win on every level from sectionals to divisionals to states while Coach Zac is amazing and helps push us to our limits,” he says.
So will the G-swim team be able to have a three-peat this year? Kaplan and Hojnacki both think it is possible to accomplish. “They need to remain focused, train to their maximum ability and stay off the injury list. It’s the character and trust in their brotherhood and drive and determination that fuels the swim team forward,” Kaplan adds.
These swimmers train seven days a week from before the sun rises to after the sun sets. Despite the fact that Greeley does not have a pool. “Where there is a will, there is a way. Come watch a meet at SUNY Purchase. We will for sure not disappoint,” she sums up.
On an early summer day in 2019, Danielle Leventhal stepped into room 205 at Seven Bridges Middle School in Chappaqua. Danielle, a 2012 graduate of Horace Greeley High School, had attended Seven Bridges, as did her younger brother Alex. 
William D. Tap, M.D. chief of Sarcoma Medical Oncology Service at Memorial Sloan Kettering (MSK) was Danielle’s oncologist. In addition to surgery, her treatments included proton therapy, a radiation treatment used to shrink the tumor, followed by chemotherapy, studies on acupuncture and eventually clinical trials of new drugs. 
Because sarcomas are so rare, and because youngsters often have lumps and bumps that are not given adequate attention, sarcomas are often misdiagnosed or receive a late diagnosis. “Sarcomas present with a remarkably wide range of symptoms from belly pain to shortness of breath,” says Dr. Tap. “Honestly, they are easy to miss.” Treating sarcomas in the young adult range (age 15-39) is very challenging. “The survival rate of pediatric cancers has increased greatly, but we need more research to discover how we can positively treat these rare cancers that are affecting young adults.”
Burick says First Descents encourages participants to make the most of the time you have, in the places you are in, and the people you are with. Their tag line, Out Living It, is a play on words celebrating the spirit that participants embrace. 
In 22 years, some 10,000 young adults have gone through the core program, which includes a weeklong adventure free of cost. Adventures range from rock or ice climbing to whitewater kayaking and surfing. Participants develop an unwritten bond and become like a second family and can continue to adventure with peers through the #Out Living It project. 
Chappaqua has had its fair share of well- known residents in the White House but there’s a young rising star there with Chappaqua roots who perhaps you’ve never heard of – meet Dhara Nayyar, a 2014 Horace Greeley High School graduate. Nayyar is the White House Regional Communications Director for the southern half of the United States. In this role, she serves as a spokesperson on the White House agenda, working with state, local and national reporters. From January 2021 to December 2021, she was on the research team in the Executive Office of the President where she worked to protect and defend President Biden and his legacy, including developing a 25,000 page opposition book on Mike Pence for the Biden-Harris presidential campaign.
