When Fordham University assistant swimming coach Ed Cammon is at swim practice, he's intensely focused on helping the Rams work on their strokes. When Cammon is away from the pool, he's helping out at Ground Zero.

Cammon has been an assistant coach at Fordham for the past 31 years, and he's been a New York City firefighter for the past 38 years.

Cammon spent the night of September 11 at Ground Zero, looking for his colleagues, and he has been working 24 hours on and 24 hours off ever since.

"I've never seen anything like it in my entire life," Cammon said of the devastation.

Cammon spends his "off" hours working with student-athletes and teaching swimming techniques. He loves his work with the student-athletes and considers it, especially now, almost as a form of therapy.

"With all that's going on, it's just tremendously positive to go out of one world and completely into another."

A 1981 graduate of Fordham, Cammon has seen every one of Fordham's current men's and women's swimming and diving records set, and he's had a hand in the successes the AquaRams have enjoyed for the past three decades.

Cammon is working hard to be at every practice, but he's also working hard at Ground Zero, where he and his brothers from Engine Co. 36 of East 125th St. are looking for their missing friends.

"That's what we do," he said.

-- Kay Hawes