The Man, The Myth, The Legend: Remembering Dave Kerr as the Kerr Memorials Reach a Milestone
David Kerr (right) and Dan O’Malley fight a wave at the 1980 South Jersey Lifeguard Championships.
Memory Lane soon reaches a big Avalon milestone. It comes in the form of a number, 40, on July 19.
That date marks four full decades of the Avalon Beach Patrol hosting its annual Kerr Memorials, which salute its own man, myth and legend, Dave Kerr.
The Avalon Beach Patrol lieutenant embodied all those principles after an unforgettable yet tragically short 28 years on earth. He died of cancer in 1981.
That’s why every year since 1984 – apart from the 2020 races canceled by Covid – Avalon honors Kerr with this midsummer serenade.
Has it really been this long? Kerr’s memorials now exceed his life span by nearly 150%, leading successive guards to adopt different blends of his legacy.
Kerr becomes a collage of memories, ideals, and principles for those who knew him, imagined him, or were enriched by his friendship.
Beach patrol members add a compartment for ‘iconic’ to Kerr, whose name sparks an air of purpose around headquarters. Time to buckle up for the big race. Time to shine. This is the Kerrs.
From all directions, emotional waters run ocean-level deep on this patrol regarding him.
Here’s a look at Dave Kerr, the iconic man, myth, and legend to the Avalon Beach Patrol.
The man: Kerr was a 1980 South Jerseys rowing champion who fought cancer until his dying breath, spending his final days with his patrol. Kerr’s life battle formed the inspiration to launch the Memorials in 1984.
The myth: Young guards never met him. They discover Kerr the week of every memorial event via special speaker. They are also told of the importance to win in his honor. Avalon has captured 28 of the previous 39 editions, including eight straight years twice. It has a current win streak of three.
This is not a simple competition against one or two opponents. There are often 10, meaning most of the patrols from Brigantine to Cape May.
The legend: Kerr’s friends recall an integrity that exceeds working at a beach patrol. One named a child after Kerr. His rowing partner speaks fondly of Kerr shaping his own life. From various vantage points, many people cite Kerr as a monument to goodness. He served the roles of pal, mentor, disciple, philosopher, and athlete.
Murray Wolf on Kerr the man: The evolution was storybook in the eyes of Wolf, the longtime Avalon captain.
Kerr had played football at Middle Township High School and been a black belt in karate. He went into the Air Force, working a four-year stint in Korea.
He had been a member of the patrol for about a decade, having been elevated to lieutenant, when he suddenly blossomed in the boat.
“He and Dan O’Malley had never ridden together and so I tried them out,” Wolf remembers. “They looked pretty good. Then they captured the row-offs and I started wondering what they may be able to do next. They go over to Wildwood for the Dutch Hoffmans and they win by a lot, over a minute, on a short course.
“I started to think we had something here. That year they just trounced everybody.”
O’Malley and Kerr prevailed handily in the 1980 South Jerseys in Brigantine. (Avalon also captured the team championship.)
The teammates were preparing for their 1981 defense when Kerr suddenly didn’t feel right.
“His father took him to a hospital and the doctor who looked at him was Dave Smith, a former South Jerseys champion [1964] from the Margate Beach Patrol,” Wolf remembers. “He told Dave’s father that young Dave had cancer and that he had three months to live.
“That was a shock to all of us.”
Kerr insisted on rowing despite the pain and rounds of chemotherapy. Wolf accommodated him, keeping Kerr in the projected South Jerseys lineup. He recalls Kerr spitting up blood or vomiting after every workout, but wanting to continue. Rather than seemingly yield to the illness, Kerr kept aiming at competition.
“One day Dan comes to tell me that Dave didn’t think he could go anymore, but he wouldn’t tell me because he did not want to disappoint me,” Wolf recalls. “So, I called Dave in, told him to take that race off and we would start up again as soon as he felt right.”
Sadly, that never happened.
Watching Kerr stage his final fight was one of the toughest things the patrol had to endure, Wolf says.
Matt Wolf on the Kerr myth: “Our point of view is that Dave Kerr is almost mythical,” says Matt Wolf, the 40-year-old current chief of the Avalon Patrol. Wolf never met Kerr, but heard abundant stories about him from his father, Murray.
“I look at Dave in the sense that even though we don’t know a George Washington, Abraham Lincoln or Martin Luther King, we know that they represent the values we want our country to stand for,” Matt Wolf adds. “Dave Kerr represents the values our beach patrol wants to be.
“Here’s a guy who, just a couple weeks before losing his life, is spending his final days doing roll call for the Avalon patrol and helping us out. Think about that motivation for a young guard. Are you ever going to be late? Here is a guy with perhaps two weeks to live and he’s doing roll call. Are you going to hold HIM up?”
Kerr’s spirit of inclusion produced an ever-expanding race format. The patrol has also added women’s events over the past couple of years. Final scores will thus have multiple results. Patrols can use far more of their guards for the Kerrs than many other races.
However this event grows, it will be an extension of Kerr’s personality and beliefs.
His memorial became so important that this event is usually one of the three biggest objectives for the patrol each summer. The first is making sure nobody drowns. The second is claiming the Kerr races, and the third is capturing the South Jerseys.
The Avalon patrol retains another vital link to Kerr. It recently winterized and preserved the boat he used to win the South Jerseys championship.
Dan O’Malley, Jim Toolan saw Kerr, the legend: O’Malley, now retired in Puget Sound in Washington state, smiles at the mention of Kerr. He savors the magic of his rowing partner and of a 1980 season in which everything went right. It started one afternoon when the jeep rolled up and he was told Murray Wolf wanted to see him.
“I said, ‘Oh, shoot, what did I do?’” says O’Malley, who had joined the patrol in 1971. “It turns out that they were offering me a position as lieutenant. From there, I got to know Dave. We worked out together and then we were representing the patrol. We both wanted to win so much, not just for ourselves and for the town of Avalon, but for Murray.
“There was a certain force with him. Murray didn’t have to say much, you just wanted to please him.”
That’s what happened. Kerr rode the stern, setting the pace from the back of the boat. O’Malley steered the boat from the bow position.
And they sizzled, far earlier than most rowing tandems do. It often takes three years for a partnership to reach its top stride, but Kerr and O’Malley clicked right away.
Besides winning races, they formed a deep personal bond.
“Dave was the best of all of us,” O’Malley says. “If you want to be the best in life, that’s it. It’s Dave and his spirit. Dave has affected my entire life in a big way. He was my partner. He died, I didn’t. That easily could have been the other way around.
“I live my life remembering Dave,” he adds. “A lot of us do. And we know that over the course of time, some people are going to pass away and inspire future generations.”
O’Malley described Kerr as a soft-spoken, friendly man who loved the ferocity of competition. He enjoyed the pre-race banter with opponents and was happy to be there.
Until the race started.
“When the flag was up, Dave was a different person,” O’Malley observes. “He had a crazed look in his eye, it almost was scary. I think the biggest job for me was keeping up with Dave.
“He was a machine.”
The O’Malley-Kerr machine enjoyed many highlights. One, of course, was the South Jerseys. Another was a lesser-known nugget involving the Around-the-Island Row, a race of approximately 20 miles. The pair won easily, with a couple of quirks.
“You know it’s a hot day, a long race, etc,” O’Malley recalls. “Now here we are, very far ahead, and Dave passes out in the boat. He fell right to the bottom of it. I’m thinking that we had already done well, maybe we should just call it a day. But when I got him up, he said, ‘C’mon, let’s go, we have to win.’”
So, they continued. And Kerr collapsed again. He also got up again and the two won with ease.
O’Malley loves his lifeguard recollection, recalling a job more fun than the commercial real estate career he successfully wove in California. He returns to Avalon every couple of summers. He rowed in the first Kerr Memorial and has seen a few others.
Toolan, a retired Philadelphia lawyer, considered Kerr his best friend. They sat side by side on 11th Street every summer for four years.
One of his sons, Brendan David (the BD initials later morphed into “Beads”) is named after Brendan White and Kerr, two of his lifeguard pals who passed away from cancer.
“The story you are doing in the Seven Mile Times is an outstanding way to honor Dave,” says Toolan, who spoke to the Avalon guards about Kerr before the 2023 event.
“I don’t want to see the Kerrs morph into just a race. I want people to know who the race is named for. I want them to remember the spirit Dave brought into this world. He always wanted to make himself better, make other people better.
“Dave was very philosophical,” Toolan adds. “He asked about what our obligation was to other people in this life. How should we treat them? Dave never, ever bad-mouthed another human being.”
Toolan has a rich Kerr memory collection, but recently found another from a former Wildwood guard. It was the night before the Dutch Hoffmans that Wildwood hosted in 1980.
“It’s 10pm and this guy has a thankless task of watching the boats overnight,” Toolan recalls. “Dave goes up there to check the boat, make sure everything seems right. He sees the guard and they start talking. The next thing you know, Dave leaves and comes back about 20 minutes later with a pizza. He sat with the guy and they shared it together, one night before a big race.”
Toolan remains tied to the Kerrs. He officiates it every year, gaining a flashback to his buddy.
Toolan was on the Avalon patrol from 1972 to 1980. All five of his children – Kate, Jen, Heather, Jimmy, and Beads – would later work for the ABP. His wife Leslie shot the video of Toolan addressing the troops before the 2023 Kerrs.
Toolan has an Avalon home on 20th Street and the bay, just a few blocks from where his Kerr memories began.
On July 19, he gets another spiritual reunion with his buddy.
Everybody will get something from this event. Some will recall Kerr, others will appreciate what the races convey. There will be an atmosphere of honor, inspiration, and a cerebral touch, inspired by Kerr’s memory.
Few people can mean so much to so many.
