The members of Loyola Blakefield’s swimming and water polo teams will be spending their Christmas break in the pool rather than by the fireside.
Beginning on Monday at 9 a.m., more than 36 boys will compete at Loyola in a grueling 100-mile relay race, which could take anywhere from 28 to 36 hours, to raise money for the Breast Cancer Program at the Johns Hopkins Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center in Baltimore.
This year, the boys are swimming in honor of teammate Ken Vinyard’s mother, Suzanne, who succumbed to breast cancer in August at the age of 45.
“We as a team have always been close, and whenever something happens to any of us, it brings us all together,” said Ken, a junior at Loyola. “The guys have really been there for me in the past couple of months.”
Suzanne, who was diagnosed in 1999, was a member of the Loyola Blakefield Mothers’ Club and supported the high school’s water polo and swimming teams.
“Loyola has a motto, ‘Men for Others,’ ” said Curt Vinyard, Suzanne’s husband and Ken’s father. “They very much live it. They really come together for each other. Their dedication and generosity really floored me. Of all of the things they could do, the fact that they decided to unite behind my family moves me beyond words.”
The idea for the race was founded in 1996 by Joe Curreri, a Loyola Blakefield alumnus and swim team captain, as a means to raise money to start a water polo team, which Loyola did not have at the time. That was the only year that Loyola raised money to keep for themselves.
“We have enough stories nowadays with teen kids, especially boys, doing the wrong thing,” said Loyola’s aquatics coach Keith Schertle. “This is a good thing. This is their Christmas break, and they are here with me, swimming for a cause that’s near and dear to the guys’ hearts.”
Subsequent races have raised money for the Ronald McDonald House, the Johns Hopkins Burn Center and Cristo Rey Jesuit High School. Last year’s race raised $10,000 to start a scholarship fund in the name of Curreri, who died last year in an apparent drowning while serving in the Philippines as a Green Beret with the Army Special Forces.
“Unfortunately, since 1996, there’s been someone who has had some kind of tragedy that’s touched one of our guys on the team,” Schertle said. “So we’ve just tried to turn it around into a good thing.”
