Riverdale Y’s swim coach copes with cancer

Since September 2012, you can usually find Susan Murray in the pool at The Riverdale Y, conducting practices as head coach of her successful Riverdale Rapids Swim Team or working out her adult clients on her Masters Team. Murray, it seems, is happiest when surrounded by water.

“[The Rapids] are part of the Westchester-Fairfield Swim league, a league of 13 to 14 teams in the area of Westchester, Connecticut, Tarrytown, White Plains,” Murray said while sitting in her small office at The Y, located at 5625 Arlington Ave. “We’re one of those teams in the league.”

Murray’s team of 43 kids is off to a terrific start to its competitive season, posting a 3-0 record so far with its next meet set to this Sunday. Swimming and teaching is a labor of love for Murray.

“I’m here by 4 p.m. or a little earlier,” Murray said. “Practice for the young kids starts at 4:45 for the 8 and unders. There are seven of those but some days I’ll have five, some days I have one. So we have to gear the practice to who we have that day. But at 5:30, my assistant head Charles Buckley takes over the 8 and unders and I coach the older kids, which range from 9-15. Practice is over at 7 p.m. but two nights a week I have Masters practice with the adults until 8:30. Other times there are administrative duties to take care of, such as swim meet entries, things like that.”

Murray said the swimming community at The Y has become like a family because of all the time they spend together.

“We definitely get to know our kids pretty well,” Murray said. “We get to know who needs a little softer touch and who can handle straight talk. We know we need to be gentler with some children and other children can really accept criticism without taking it to heart.”

Surgery delayed

But as happy as teaching in the pool makes Murray, her life outside it the past year has been more tumultuous. Last January, a yearly mammogram brought the stark news that Murray had breast cancer.