Conquering the Channel

Just how far would you go to prove the viability of your business?

For Florida physical therapist Stanley Paris, the answer is 23 miles — in swim trunks and a bathing cap no less!

On July 26, Paris, founding president of the largest physical therapy school in the nation, the University of St. Augustine, plans to prove his professional salt by swimming the English Channel.

If successful, Paris, now 70, will crawl stroke his way into the record books as the oldest person ever to complete the legendary swim.

“Now that I am the oldest person [to attempt to swim the Channel], I think that this will make a very good statement about how I, as a physical therapist, have lived my life in terms of maintaining my health and using the knowledge I have gained in restoring, maintaining and enhancing the physical function of the human body,” the septuagenarian explains.

A swimmer since the age of five, Paris began his training in New Zealand. “When I was 14, I swam in my first open water three-mile race. I was way out front,” Paris recalls. “I’m not fast, but I have endurance.”

That characteristic endurance led Paris to compete in the New Zealand National Championships and later propelled him to attempt the Channel swim in both 1983 and 1986. His first attempts, though close, were unsuccessful, denied on technicalities including inclement weather.

But on his second attempt in 1986, after suffering the choppy seas and a two-day hospital stint to treat jellyfish stings, Paris cleared the Channel in 12 hours and 59 minutes. He was 49 years old.

Having swum the expanse before, Paris vacillates between confidence and fear that his age might deny him his new goal. “I believe I can do it, but there is a nagging fear I can’t,” he admits. “But you can go through life thinking you can do things but not doing them, or you can go through life thinking you can do things and then achieving them. I am one of those latter people.”

So to prepare, Paris is taking no chances.

Relying on his previous experiences, Paris has developed a plan of attack, which he began more than a year ago — exercising daily, swimming for hours at a time and driving non-stop up and down the Eastern Seaboard to beat “the circadian rhythm” of natural patterns of sleep.

Also in his arsenal for the Channel attack? Flat Coke-a-Cola and mashed bananas — his diet for the swim. “I am still experimenting in the eating department. A swimmer will do their best to take on some nutrients. I will attempt to take on 200 to 300 calories an hour beginning at the second hour,” says Paris, who drinks flat Coke to settle his stomach and provide energy.

But at the end of the day, Paris knows it is sheer determination that will propel him to his goal. “Mentally you have to have that determination — that tenacity, the absolute conviction of why you are there. That resolve will get you through despite the cramps, the mind-numbing and body-stiffening cold, jellyfish stings and weather. You mentally cannot lose sight of your goal, which is to exit the water unaided in France with no water beyond.”

In his professional life, Paris has shown the same go-getter mentality. He got his PT certification, a Ph.D., and went on to serve as the official physical therapist for the New Zealand Olympic teams in 1960 and 1968. He also founded the University, which has since expanded to locations in Boca Raton, Fla., and San Diego.

While the growth of the field in general speaks to the legitimacy of his life’s work, Paris said he hopes that conquering the Channel will be a further testament to the benefits of physical therapy. Donations and pledges supporting his swim will go to the Foundation for Physical Therapy.

“It’s only been in the last decade or so that physical therapy has become an autonomous profession and therefore had the need to prove its efficacy,” Paris says. “We lack a lot of evidence for the benefits of physical therapy. There are no long-term studies. The purpose of my raising funds is to support research into the long-range effects of physical therapy.”

Never one to back down from a challenge, Paris has scheduled a backup date in early September, should his July attempt fail. By then, Paris will be 71.