When Robert Gamer took up swimming at age 66 to keep in shape, he didn’t realize he was embarking on a momentous second act in his life, which would culminate in his 80th year: status as a national swimming competitor.
Gamer, who had only swam for fun as a child, took to the pool more seriously after he retired at age 66 in 2011. An Air Force Veteran, Gamer had been active throughout his life. In addition to playing sports, he biked from his home in Franklin Lakes to his job at UPS in Mahwah—seven miles away—at least three days a week. Swimming would give him some variety in his workouts.
“I joined the Wyckoff YMCA, an excellent facility with 2 pools and a very helpful staff, but when I got in the pool, I thought, What’s the real point of this?” he says. To give himself a focus, he started swimming with U.S. Masters Swimming, a program where swimmers are grouped by age, to give his lap time purpose. He started trying out strokes, primarily teaching himself with some tips from a swim coach. “I realized that my freestyle wasn’t very good, my backstroke was awful, but I was pretty good at the breaststroke and butterfly, so I stuck to those two strokes going forward.”
When he started swimming, Gamer says he was lucky if he could do 25 yards of butterfly. “But then I got to the point where I could do the 200-yard butterfly. I thought Wow. " I could be competitive in this,” he says. “Then, the questions became: Gee, could I do it a little faster? How do I compare with other people? So suddenly there was a reason for trying harder.”
Gamer began searching for every swim meet within 200 miles — and learned the art of competing as he went. “Since I never swam competitively, it was eye-opening,” he says. “In the first competition, I had no idea how fast the heats went. I saw the first heat was over and realized, My god, I’m swimming next! I came running out, and they had already blown the horn. I jumped in and just did my heat. That’s how green I was.”
When he started competing, he recalls seeing a man at one of the meets wearing a warm-up jacket with patches that read “U.S. Masters Top 10” with corresponding years. “If you were one of the 10 fastest swimmers in a year you would get one of these patches,” he says. “I thought, This is like looking at Michael Phelps. But then I started thinking, I want to get a patch. And that became what I was working for.”
In 2024, Gamer earned those patches: one for breaststroke and one for butterfly. And in 2025, he earned two more for those same strokes.
Over his 15 years of swimming, he estimates he has competed “roughly 120 to 140” times, including at the Garden State Olympics in 2017 winning 5 gold medals and in 2023 bagging 1 gold, 2 silver, and 1 bronze medals, and in 2024 at the Empire State (NY) Senior Games, winning 4 gold medals.
Unlike the other meets, athletes must qualify to participate in the National Senior Games, which is like the Olympics. In 2025, Gamer qualified for six events in Des Moines, Iowa. There, he felt the competitive vibe was intensified. “I was much more conscious of who I was swimming against,” he says. “We were eyeing each other up.”
Gamer finished ninth in the 50-yard breaststroke, sixth in each of the 100-yard and 200-yard breaststrokes, and second in the 50-yard, 100-yard, and 200-yard butterfly events. “At the Nationals, I was number two in the Butterfly,” he says. “That’s pretty good.”
“I started swimming to stay in shape. I never expected it would take me to nationals.”—Robert Gamer