Swimming for competition and quality of life

A childhood battle with polio altered Stan DeLair’s gait, but not his competitive spirit or positive outlook.

DeLair contracted polio when he was 3 years old. As a boy growing up in Arizona and Nebraska, he played pickup football, basketball and baseball. But it was in the swimming pool where he truly thrived.

He spent part of his childhood in Tucson, Arizona, during the 1950s, when the city had a population of about 50,000. He later returned as an adult to attend the University of Arizona.

Over the years, DeLair has lived in California, Massachusetts, Georgia, and other places throughout the world. Though he had passed through Las Cruces many times, he had never stopped. On one drive through southern New Mexico, he decided to spend the night, explored the area and was struck by how much it reminded him of a smaller version of Tucson.

He thought it seemed like a good place to retire — and about a year and a half ago, he moved here.

Much of DeLair’s professional career was spent in the high-tech industry, working for former Silicon Valley giant Digital Equipment Corp. Founded in the 1960s, the company employed more than 100,000 people at its peak before its assets were acquired by Compaq in 1998.

When it became clear Digital Equipment had no long-term future, DeLair transitioned into the airline industry with Northwest Airlines. That industry also experienced a downturn, prompting more life decisions.

Financially secure and with his wife at the time ready to leave her job, the couple moved to Europe, where health insurance was more affordable without employer coverage. They settled in Italy and later moved to Peru and Argentina. DeLair returned to the United States in 2008.

Through it all, there was swimming.

“I started swimming when I was about 4 or 5 years old,” DeLair said. “I took lessons at the YMCA, which is kind of a funny story because at that time all the swimming lessons were done in the nude. Boys and girls weren’t in the same class, but they had this idea that swim trunks were unsanitary, so we swam without them.”

He said he practically lived at the pool but didn’t become serious about competition until high school.

“It was kind of a dumb thing to do because they were by far the best team in the state at that time — I think they were state champions nine years in a row,” he said. “I made the team, but in my event, they had the state champion and the guy who was third in the state, so I was basically a benchwarmer.”

He received an offer to swim at the University of Nebraska, where the coach had previously been his high school coach. Instead, he chose to go farther from home.

“I wanted to go someplace where I could actually swim in meets,” DeLair said. “So, I went to a small state school with about 3,000 students. We had a good small-college team. We swam against some of the big schools, like the Air Force Academy and Colorado State.”

After a couple of years, he moved back to Tucson and transferred to the University of Arizona, where his father was on the faculty and tuition cost $100 per semester.

“I was probably as good as the guys on the team there at the time,” he said, “but I was ineligible because I had swum at a different school the previous year, so I had to sit out. That was the end of my collegiate swimming career.”

About a decade ago, still drawn to the water, DeLair joined U.S. Masters Swimming, a national organization with roughly 70,000 members.

“You join a team, you work out, and they have meets regularly,” he said. “I probably swam hundreds of times in Masters meets over the years. I wasn’t one of the top swimmers, but I was competitive.”

Later, he joined a team in Atlanta for athletes with disabilities.

“It was another workout opportunity, but you also got to compete in meets, and they would cover the expenses,” he said.

During that time, DeLair set an American Paralympic record in the 1,500-meter freestyle.

Today, among his other pursuits, he competes in the Senior Games. He focuses primarily on freestyle and longer-distance races, where his upper-body strength gives him an advantage as his leg still bears weakness from polio.

“I’ve actually had more success with backstroke than freestyle,” he said. “I got a top 10 ranking in the country in backstroke. I’d never done that in freestyle. I went to the National Senior Games and won a bronze medal in backstroke. I’ve never medaled in freestyle.”

While DeLair enjoys competition, he says he swims primarily for his health.

“When I first started swimming seriously again, I went to the doctor and then went back about nine months later for a physical,” he said. “They did the blood work, and the doctor asked, ‘What are you doing? Every health marker has improved since the last time I saw you.’ I told him I’d started swimming, and he said, ‘That’s it.’”

Swimming, he said, doesn’t guarantee longevity, but it improves quality of life.

“There’s no guarantee it’s going to make you live longer,” DeLair said, “but I think it definitely makes the time you spend doing it worth it.”

DeLair will compete in the Doña Ana Senior Games that start in March. The swimming events are scheduled for Saturday, Mar. 7, at the NMSU Aquatic Center.