David Vail, 81, will be the first masters swimmer to be inducted into the Maine Swimming & Diving Hall of Fame next month. Courtesy of David Vail

BRUNSWICK — Don’t get it wrong, David Vail is honored to be inducted into the Maine Swimming and Diving Hall of Fame next month. But, he’s quick to add, being the first masters swimmer chosen feels a bit strange.

“I have to stress it’s a really bittersweet thing to be honored at age 81 for winning a lot of events at New England championships or national championships,” he said. “Other people that I had gone back and forth with as friends and as swimming rivals over many decades either had to drop out or have passed away. I would say I’m really different from a lot of the younger swimmers who enter these hall of fames, and that is that I haven’t done things that I consider to be phenomenal swims, but I’ve survived.”

Vail may not consider his four gold medals and eight silvers at the National Senior Games, or his 130 top-10 finishes in individual or relay races, phenomenal, but three organizations do. On Sept. 29, Vail will be inducted into the New England Local Masters Swimming Committee Hall of Fame. Then, on Oct. 12, he will be inducted into the Maine Swimming and Diving Hall of Fame. In 2016, Vail was named to the Maine Senior Games Hall of Fame.

Vail, 81, started swimming as a teenager diving for scallops off of Long Island, N.Y. He later joined his Cleveland high school team after realizing football and basketball weren’t for him. While studying economics at Princeton in the early 1960s, Vail swam the backstroke, freestyle and played water polo. As a graduate student, he was an assistant under Yale coach Phil Moriarty and coached the Makerere University swim team in Uganda while on a research fellowship.

Then, Vail stopped.

“I think you’d find if you talked to a lot of former swimmers in their 20s, that they’d say they just kind of burned out on swimming,” Vail said. “In my case, there were lots of other things that I enjoyed doing.”

After moving to Brunswick in 1970 to teach at Bowdoin College, Vail picked up cross-country skiing, kayaking and distance running. In his 40s, Vail suffered stress fractures and started going to the on-campus pool for physical therapy in between his classes. By 50, he began working out with the masters program. Within a year, after an almost 25-year break, Vail started winning competitions. He also started to wear prescription goggles, which helped with his nearsightedness and allowed him to increase his distances.

Since starting his masters career at 50, Vail has held over 30 New England records. He currently holds nine in the 80-84 age division.

Brad Burnham, head coach Bowdoin’s collegiate and masters swim teams, has known Vail since 2000, and credits Vail’s consistency as a reason for his sustained success.

“David swims frequently and has been for decades now,” Burnham said. “He also consistently works hard and is continually learning new things.”

Vail is recovering from a fractured rib, so he isn’t doing much strenuous exercise, other than walking, riding his bike and paddling a few laps, but he hopes to be back in the pool in a month. Vail isn’t a stranger to setbacks in the pool.

In 2012, he was diagnosed with chronic lymphocytic lymphoma; the following year, he was diagnosed with bladder cancer. Chemotherapy, immunotherapy and other medications have allowed him to return to swimming, but he also gives credit to the sport itself.

“Maybe this is similar to other people my age who are still involved in competition, and maybe it’s a little different, (but) I’m convinced it’s helping to keep me alive,” Vail said. “And my oncologist, my cancer specialists, would agree fully with that. There’s an important benefit to the healthiness, the resistance that I have and so on that comes from hard exercise that reduces the negative impacts of the cancers that I’ve had.”

Although Vail is the first masters swimmer to be inducted into the Maine Swimming and Diving Hall of Fame, which has inducted 79 individuals since 1992, he hopes he is not the last. According to Lee Crocker, the hall’s president, Vail has suggested other masters swimmers around the state for future consideration.

Next week, Vail will drive to Auburn, Massachusetts, with his friend and fellow NELMSC hall of famer Fred Schlicher. He will be thinking of all the friends, teammates, medical professionals and his wife, June Vail, who supported him throughout his swimming career.

“She’s had enough of going to swim meets, which can be pretty damn boring much of the time,” Vail said of his wife, “But her patience and her support have really been crucial.”