Sunset Pool lifeguard Valerie DeAngelo keeps a close eye on divers during a public swimming session. Photos by John Gurzinski. Teri Schill works with beginners enrolled in a morning swimming class. Pardis Salehi, a lifeguard and Sunset Pool manager, runs through a few admission preliminaries with a summer camp group. Jessica Wagner helps student Alena Kalandos learn the aquatic fundamentals of floating and kicking.

Lifeguards. Bronzed gods and goddesses who, seated upon their pipe-and-fiberglass thrones, inspire awe and envy -- and the occasional hormonal surge -- in sunbathers and swimmers who gaze upon them.

Except at times like these, when the pool vacuum at Sunset Pool isn't working -- not to get too technical, but it's not sucking as well as it's supposed to -- and three of the pool's lifeguards are trying to MacGyver it back to life.

"Hug it," one lifeguard suggests. "It worked yesterday."

Yeah, there's nothing like a not-sucky vacuum to shatter that iconic, glamorous, "Baywatch"-inspired image of lifeguard cool.

A lifeguard may be the quintessential summertime job, but it's about a lot more than those who've never sat upon the poolside high chair might see. Still, on a torrid Southern Nevada day, it's hard to think of a better way to spend the workday.

The lifeguards at Sunset Pool are among the 200 or so lifeguards who work Clark County's 15 neighborhood pools and water parks each summer.

Most are high school and college students, says Jessica Ralles, program supervisor for Clark County Parks and Recreation. However, an early-season public call for guards did attract "some older folks, too," she adds, including a college professor, "a couple of moms and some teachers."

All are, as the county requires, Red Cross-certified lifeguards who have certifications in CPR as well. Those who teach swimming lessons also are certified Red Cross water safety instructors.

Their primary job is, of course, to watch over swimmers who use county pools. But their day really begins an hour before their pools open with such hardly glamorous tasks as cleaning bathrooms, cleaning the pool deck and taking out the trash.

It's only when patrons arrive at 11 a.m. that Sunset Pool's lifeguards begin their more lifeguardlike duties. First on the day's agenda is teaching kids' swimming classes.

Four groups of kids arrive today. Teri Schill takes the beginners' class, where kids are launching themselves off the side of the pool and getting used to submerging their faces in the water, while Jessica Wagner helps kids practice the flutter kick.

On the other side of the pool, Mike Stith helps kids nail down that tricky breathing rhythm needed to do the front crawl without drowning, while Ryan Carrington teaches his kids that weird scissors-kick thing.

"This is, like, hard," a kid in Carrington's class complains.

But everybody has a good time. One kid, leaving the pool deck after class, even offers a hearty "Bye!" at a volume any lifeguard would respect.

The day continues with adult lap swimming at noon. But seeing as how nobody has shown up today, the guards take advantage of the opportunity to brush up on skills they'll need for the upcoming Clark County Guard Games, a county interpool lifeguard competition.

Last year, Sunset's lifeguards took second place in the event, which includes both recognizable lifesaving skills -- pulling a person from the water and the like -- and such bizarre games as treading water while holding a brick.

(Last weekend, the Sunset guards again placed second, this year to the guards from Desert Breeze pool.)

Typically, county lifeguards use slack periods at their pools to work on their skills, Ralles explains. "We would encourage that, just to keep them in shape."

Sarah Reiss enters the pool, positions the brick above her head and begins to tread water. "Even if I hit one (minute) 30 (seconds), don't tell me," she says.

Reiss treads. And treads. And treads some more before calling it quits.

"Oh, you just made it to one-thirty," says Schill, who's manning the stopwatch.

This is Reiss' seventh summer as a county lifeguard. One of her favorite things about the job is watching children -- kids in classes and kids who are just regulars at the pool -- grow up.

Reiss even remembers when Schill was a 9-year-old who'd stop by the pool regularly with her family. "We basically watched her grow up," Reiss says. Schill is now in her second year as a lifeguard.

At 1 p.m., swimmers begin to drift in for public swimming. While more swimming lessons and a swim team practice are scheduled for later, it's as a neighborhood pool that Sunset Pool is most popular, Ralles says.

The guards begin the rotation that will continue for as long as swimmers are in the pool.

The number of guards working depends upon the number of swimmers. Today, two guards will rotate on-chair, spending 15 minutes at each of the two positions before heading back to the shelter for a break.

This -- protecting swimmers -- remains the essence of lifeguarding. It takes concentration and focus to keep an eye on what's going on in the pool and, more importantly, what becomes amiss.

Actually, Wagner says, it's the single person swimming back and forth in a nearly empty pool that will lead to whatever the aquatic version of highway hypnosis is. "But when it's a lot of kids it's not bad," she adds. "Your 15 minutes flies."

The job also requires a sort of sixth sense for what might cause a problem, from running on the deck -- which, the Sunset guards say, is the single thing that annoys them most -- to swimmers whose skills don't seem quite sufficient for the part of the pool they're in.

"The worst is when you scan back and look back and one's gone," lifeguard Valerie DeAngelo says. "You're like, 'OK, where did they go? OK, they're sitting on the edge.' That's when your heart stops."

"Also what keeps you on your toes is when you see a kid floating," DeAngelo adds.

Once, an entire track team decided to see who could hold his breath the longest.

"I was on the stand," DeAngelo says. "I don't think that's a good game."

Actually, Ralles says, "most of what lifeguards do is about prevention. So most of the kinds of accidents we see are things like bloody noses and stubbed toes, that kind of thing."

When a lifeguard actually has to enter the pool, it's usually to pull in a swimmer who has wandered into water that's too deep, she says.

Particularly tricky for lifeguards, lifeguard Kylie Little notes, is having to correct an adult who's doing something he or she shouldn't be doing.

"It's like an annoyance to the parent," she explains. "We have to tell them why they can't have kids on their shoulders. So it's a confrontational kind of job."

That lifeguard mentality doesn't necessarily let up when a guard's shift is over, either. Once, Reiss says, "I was at a pool party and people were doing back flips. I was going to have a heart attack."

"I know I used to go to Wet 'n Wild and I used to yell, 'Walk!' " adds Pardis Salehi, a lifeguard and Sunset Pool manager.

The Sunset crew works well together. Their day is filled with good-natured joshing and mock arguments over whose turn it is to make a convenience store run for refreshments.

"We're best friends because we have to work together all day long," Wagner says. "I see these guys more than I see my own family, I think."

Still, they're skeptical of the notion that, as lifeguards, they're icons of anything at all. Do swimmers at least flirt with them sometimes?

"I don't know about the guys," Reiss answers. "But dads who bring in kids, they're all like, 'Hey! Hi. How are you today?' "

But even as that particular stereotype shatters, the guards agree that the job really is as great as it seems.

As summer jobs go, it's a good one, Little says, and "even though it's hot, I wouldn't want to be in a store trying to sell retail."