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His office is in a now-stationary camping trailer at the end of a long, sandy lane, surrounded by scrub pine and patrolled by Tux, a lethally slim gray cat with the white markings that gave him his name. Bragg, 63, is a mustachioed, white-haired version of Hayden Fox, the over-the-top television football coach played by Craig T. Nelson. The connection is no leap - much less a vault - of the imagination. In 1960, this now-retired college athletic director won an Olympic gold medal in the pole vault. Those were the days before fiberglass poles and a name change for his Rome roommate, a light heavyweight boxer named Cassius Clay who would go on to become Muhammad Ali, one of the greatest heavyweights of all time. While Clay won the gold medal in boxing, Bragg brought home the gold in the pole vault with an Olympic record leap of 15 feet, 5 1/8 inches, a mark eclipsed four years later. Thirty-seven years later those powerful shoulders wield wooden paddles, teaching even the most timid adventurer how to stay afloat in a misnamed stream called the Wading River. Bragg calls himself the Kayak King - "You get it, doncha?" - and offers pedal-and-paddle, half-day and overnight kayak packages and canoe trips down the river and along the Batonia Trail through his beloved backwoods. "I'm an adventurer," said Bragg, who once made a Tarzan movie in Jamaica (it was never released). He's also a runner who carried the Olympic torch through Trenton last summer. He was inducted into the Track and Field Hall of Fame six months ago and is a grandfather who designed and had made a special child-size kayak he calls "The Kidwee." Bragg isn't the only fresh-air buff to be found in the Pine Barrens. On a back road to the Renault Winery there are more than 222 acres where Nancy Sheeler, who manages the crap tables at Trump's Taj Mahal, gives horseback-riding lessons, boards Arabians and breeds and raises alpacas. "You know, they are just like dumb bunnies on really tall legs," Sheeler, 47, who owns and operates Heavenly Acres with her husband Glenn, said of the alpacas. The ranch is in Laureldale, a tiny farming community adjacent to the Atlantic City Expressway. Sheeler offers hay rides and pony rides and also sponsors equestrian clinics and shows. But most of all, she loves to share the furry Andean animals with visitors, particularly if they are children who might find horses too tall and forbidding. Alpacas grow to be 36 inches high in their hindquarters, have padded feet and no teeth. Sheeler's alpacas love to eat grapes. Gentle animals to the point of shyness, the alpacas are even a little intimated by Sheeler's poodle, Tasha. Could be the red nail polish with which Sheeler paints the dog's toenails. More traditional destinations also lure visitors off Absecon Island, on which Atlantic City is located. Twenty-two golf courses lie within a short drive from Atlantic City. Among them are two 18-hole championship layouts at the Marriott's Seaview Resort. Legendary golfer Sam Snead won his first PGA tournament on the bay course here. The second hole at Seaview is the head-banger because of the head wind that blows in off Reeds Bay. The 432-yard hole is rated a par 4. Seaview is a short ride north on Route 9 off the White Horse Pike in Absecon. Designed by Stephen Kay is the Blue Heron Pines Golf Course, and its No. 14 hole will bring golfers as close as they may ever get to playing the prestigious and ultra-exclusive - read: private - Pine Valley course in Clementon. No. 14, a par 5, is patterned after Pine Valley's "hell's half-acre," or No. 7 hole. At Blue Heron, the 14th features a massive waste area of dirt, sand and bushes 290 yards down the fairway. You will have to ask yourself before you swing if you're feeling lucky enough to make the fairway in two strokes. Anything more and all hell can literally break lose with your score, especially if you fail to make it over the sand trap that protects the entire front side of the green. And, for all of you who collect club tags: Kay has recently finished designing a brand new course in Swainton called Sand Barrens that's scheduled to open this month. Another Kay course, Harbor Pines, opened last year in Cologne, a tiny village up the White Horse Pike near Egg Harbor. If you're not a landlubber, then salt air and salt-water fishing just might be the outdoor sport to clear the casino cobwebs. Atlantic City has charters for just about every taste and test of mettle: back-bay flounder trips, blues and weakfish excursions, reef and wreck fishing, shark fishing and charters for the elusive striped bass as well as tuna and marlin. Sushi, anyone? IF YOU GO GETTING THERE: Spirit Airways has the cheapest flights from Logan to Atlantic City International Airport in nearby Pomona, where you can catch a shuttle bus to your hotel or the Boardwalk. Continental and US Airways offer turboprop service from Newark and Philadelphia, respectively. By train, take Amtrak to Philadelphia and New Jersey Transit to Atlantic City's new rail station. By car, take I-95 to the Tappan Zee Bridge exit in New York. Cross the bridge and pick up the Garden State Parkway south to the Atlantic City Expressway east. It's about a six-hour drive from Boston. KAYAKING: Kayak King: Call (609) 296-8002. A single kayak rents for $15; $ after 4 . Overnight camping trips that include tents, cooking gear, food, kayak and transportation is $40 per person. OTHER ATTRACTIONS: Heavenly Acres: (609) 965-7688 or (800) 257-2229. Hayride and pony ride combos for children 2 to 10, $10. Hayride-only, $5 per person. The Greater Atlantic City Golf Association offers a one-stop option for setting up tee times: (800) 465-3222. Blue Heron Pines Golf Club, Galloway: weekends June 28 to Sept. 8, $100; (609) 965 4653. Marriott's Seaview Golf Resort, Absecon: weekends, $99; weekkdays, $89; (609) 652-1800. Atlantic County Party & Charter Boat Association, Somers Point: ocean, bay, and half- and full-day rates available; (609) 645-4001. Angler's Choice Sport Fishing Charter Reservation Services, Northfield: canyon billfishing, overnight tuna chunking, and spring and fall striper trips; (609) 272-2244. INFORMATION: Atlantic City Convention and Tourism Authority: (800) 262-7395 or (609) 449-7130. Photo Caption: OFF THE BEATEN PATH: Eugenia Harvey of Atlanta feeds an alpaca at Heavenly Acres, one of the many attractions located just outside of Atlantic City's bright lights. Herald photo by Helen-Chantal Pike
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