Growing up in the 1970s, one of the shows that remains as a memory footnote is “Man from Atlantis,” starring actor Patrick Duffy and airing on NBC in 1977 and 1978 before the marquee name leading man Duffy (who sported webbed hands and feet) jumped ship (and networks) to CBS to star as “good guy” brother Bobby Ewing in the primetime soap opera “Dallas.”
Valparaiso has its own good guy hero and would-be “man from Atlantis” in the guise of podiatrist Dr. Paul Sommer.
In December 2024, Sommer made headlines when he joined Mayor Jon Costas to help light the city’s downtown Christmas tree and was named “Valparaiso’s Good Neighbor” for 2024, the city’s annual accolade that started in 2020.
Mayor Costas has hailed Sommer for being a stand-out with “the local running community” while “helping families of kids with disabilities and those with ALS,” all while “leveraging his love for endurance sports to raise funds for causes he cares about.”
Sommer, father of four, has lived in Valparaiso for more than 50 years and first earned media attention in 2011 when he carried Kyle Polhemus, diagnosed with Duchenne muscular dystrophy, with him while competing through the course of the Valpo triathlon to raise money and awareness for those with the illness. He continued his crusade for Kyle and others by next completing a long-distance open water swim to raise funds for the newly launched Kyle’s Legacy Foundation.
By participating in swim challenges and triathlons, Sommer has also been a key fundraiser for soldiers and families in Ukraine.
But Sommers’ “holy grail for helping others” was joining the public effort for a push for a return of an annual “swim the Chicago River” event, which ceased nearly a century ago.
For the first time in 98 years, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson agreed to allow a return opportunity in September 2025 for the Chicago River as the water trek host course for an open water swim event, which was approved by the city after officials had denied it a permit in 2024.
Sommer was among the 500 qualified swimmers navigating the option of a one- or two-mile course through the designated stretch of the river along the downtown Riverwalk, beginning at the Dearborn Street bridge and ending near the Clark Street bridge, and followed by a festival along the Riverwalk with events and celebration for onlookers and participants.
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Sommer was crowned as the top fundraiser in last year’s swim, which he dedicated to his brother Greg, and raised more than $34,000 to fund research for ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. The funds are given to “A Long Swim,” a Chicagoland non-profit organization collaborating with the ALS research studies at Northwestern University.
This year, Sommer has increased his own challenge and set a fundraising goal of $42,000. Almost $5,000 has already been raised via his dedicated Facebook page, “Chicago River Swim 2026.”
“I wanted to plan something extra special and different this year,” said Sommer, a 1979 graduate of Valparaiso High School.
“This idea is an effort to truly bring to the Chicago River Swim the real reason we are fighting this disease and the very people who suffer from ALS. I will be swimming the whole race while pulling behind me in a raft my friend, Jeff Birkel, who has had ALS for three years.”
This year’s event is Sunday, Sept. 20, and the 500 race applications are already filled.
Sommer was on the high school swim team coached by legendary Charles “Skip” Bird, who died at age 70 in 2011. (Coach Skip’s beloved daughter Mary Bird Matern died last month at her Chesterton home at age 58.)
In what’s still celebrated as “a remarkable feat of engineering,” Chicago’s Sanitary District, now the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District, engineered to reverse the flow of the Chicago River in 1900 to draw water from Lake Michigan and discharge it through a system of canals leading to the Des Plaines and Mississippi Rivers. Creating “this new source of water” allowed “the river to clean itself” to support a growing urban population at the turn of the century.
To celebrate the improvement of the Chicago River, the Illinois Athletic Association hosted what became a series of open water swims in the river starting in 1908.
According to Sommer, these river swims attracted high-profile swimmers from around the globe, including Olympic star-turned-Hollywood actor “Tarzan” John Weissmuller, who won the event twice before more than 100,000 spectators who lined the river.
By the late 1920s, the competitive swims were halted because of industrial discharge and street runoff polluting the river water. It wasn’t until the 1970s that the Clean Water Act and the Environmental Protection Agency began to enforce discharge violations.
Sommer said today, through awareness and efforts, the Chicago River is at its cleanest level on record, according to city officials, who boast the river is home to more than 80 species of fish.
More information about this year’s competitive swim is found at www.chicagoriverswim.org.
Philip Potempa is a journalist, published author and radio show host on WJOB 1230 AM. He can be reached at [email protected].