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As a boy, Reagan was active athletically. He graduated from Dixon High School in 1928, where he played on the football and basketball teams, became president of the student body, acted in school plays, and wrote for the yearbook. But it was as an accomplished swimmer that Reagan especially stood out. He worked six summers as a lifeguard in Lowell Park in Dixon on the treacherous Rock River. According to newspaper reports of the time, Reagan saved 77 people from drowning over a seven year period. He also coached swimming for several years, making him the only president to have been a swim coach.
As a child, Reagan and his friends spent a lot of time at a local swimming hole, just north of Dixon. As he leaned to be a better swimmer, he began swimming in the Hannepin Canal. He became especially proficient at the crawl stroke, and it is said that he was unbeatable. He began working as the Lowell Park lifeguard from 1926, when he was 14, until 1932. He was paid 18 dollars a week and all of the nickel root beer and ten cent hamburgers that he could eat. During the morning hours, he would teach swimming lessons to children. According to the International Swimming Hall of Fame, parents from miles around brought their children to learn how to swim from "Dutch" Reagan. It is over that time that he is credited with rescuing 77 lives from the water during his seven summers at the park. Reagan later said that he found that lifeguarding provided one of the best vantage points in the world to learn about human nature. He said, "There was the life that shaped my body and mind for years to come."
After he graduated from high school, Reagan attended Eureka College in southern Illinois, where he received an athletic scholarship as a member of the swimming and football teams. During his freshman year, he never lost a swimming race. He served as the college swim coach while competing until his graduation in 1932.
Reagan's life experience was varied. He was a sports radio announcer and broadcaster, he starred in over 53 Hollywood films from 1937 to 1964, 81 television productions from 1950 to 1966, and he served on the Screen Actors Guild from 1937 to 1960 and as it's president for seven terms. He was 55 when he first ran for public office, and was a two-term governor of the California before serving his two terms as President. While he was an actor, he returned to his home town to attend the dedication of Dixon's first swimming pool. At the ceremony, Reagan good-naturedly chided the locals, telling them "You must be a bunch of sissies. The river was good enough for the rest of us." He then surprised everyone by stripping to his bathing trunks and swimming several laps in the new pool.
As president, Reagan continued swimming on a regular basis, in the White House pool, as well as in the swimming pools at Camp David and at his own California ranch. In 1988 he was inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame, located in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. After leaving the presidency, Reagan disclosed, in a letter he wrote on Nov. 5, 1994, that he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. In the letter he wrote, "I now begin the journey that will lead me into the sunset of my life. I know that for America there will always be a bright dawn ahead." As the condition progressed, Reagan was not able to continue swimming. In January of 2001 he had surgery for broken hip that he suffers in a fall at his Bel Air, California home. On June 5, 2004 he died at his home at the age of 93.