Humble, Grateful, Believing part II

Sculling out of Riverside in 2009, photo credit Igor Belakovskiy

Uncharacteristically, I was nervous.  Incredibly nervous.  So nervous I could not believe how nervous I had become... for only a brief talk to a high school crew banquet.  There was no pressure to perform, yet I felt so, so compelled to do a good job, to really reflect deeply on what the sport has meant to me, and to capture some of that in a well-delivered talk to a group of high school girls and their parents and coaches.  Phone calls were made.  To mom, to friends, to rowing mentors, to whoever... just to run ideas by as many people as possible and see what they would respond to, what would work well.  What worked best?  Chatting up two or three dads right before going on during the "mixing and mingling" pre-talk part of the evening, telling them not my stories, but only glimpses, synopses of what the stories were going to be.  They loved it.  Once I had them laughing, I knew it was going to go fine.

Although I tend to black out most of what happens when I'm in front of an audience, a bit lost in the momentum of the thing, here's an approximation of what went down, story one of three:

"Thank you Mike Brown for that glowing introduction... thank you all for having me here.  Quick show of hands from the athletes..."

The Merion Mercy girls were all gathered front and center, seated, literally at my feet, maybe 6 deep 10 wide, the parents in the adjacent rooms and space at Malta Boat Club

"... ladies, who here LOVES... (long pause)... the erg?"

Silence.  Blank stares, then before it could even set in.. "not all at once now!"

Flurries of giggles, had to cut them off quick. "Ok, so we're on the same page there.  Parents!  How many of you have rowed before, show of hands...ok so we have a few of you.  Like it or not you are now 'crew parents' and willingly or not you will learn more about this weird sport than you ever thought possible, if you have not already.  I love rowing, I'm passionnate about it, and for this talk tonight, I'm going to tell you three stories that touch on three themes that have come up again and again in my rowing career, themes which have helped to define it, the highlights and the lowest times, also coming to define my life.  These three things are first, rowing has kept me humble.  You have to be humble in this sport, because you're going to lose a LOT more than you're going to win.  Sorry.  That's just how it is.  At a race there literally is only one winning crew, out of 20 or possibly hundreds!  Second, rowing has made me grateful, grateful to be able to use my body, grateful for the people I've met who are inseparable parts of my life, who have helped me, grateful for the experiences shared and places it has taken me.  Third, rowing has made me believe in what is possible, with enough work and time.

"The first story I want to tell is from my first season as a rower, the second is from rowing in college, the third rowing after college.  So, when Mike Brown told me about some of the previous speakers you've had at this spring party, I thought, geez, I'm not really qualified.  That's some hot company, some Olympians, some Gold Medalists there, and I don't have those kinds of stories.  Personally, when I see someone who's 6'5", 225lbs, and they tell me about a race they won, I think, well...YEAH... I mean, I should hope you won!  I don't come from an athletic background.  I was an artsy kid.  Sports... not really my thing.  My parents kept pushing the sports on me though... baseball, got knocked out by a ball, so, that was out, soccer, we made it to our regionals in 8th grade and I accidentally scored an autogoal from a cross kick, so... nah... I LOVED track but noticed when I was sprinting there were all these other kids in the lanes next to me finishing way, way ahead, barely out of breath.  I quickly realized no amount of training would ever make me as naturally fast as these gifted athletes just starting their careers.  My mom remembers the day I came home from Summer crew camp in 8th grade saying 'Mom, I finally found a sport I can DO.'

"Something about crew made sense to me.  I just really liked putting the blade in the water and moving the boat past it, plus it was fun, easy, outside!  I had no sense whatsoever of the incredible athletic requirements, it was just fun to paddle around!  But by Spring of 9th grade, as part of The Lakeside School Crew, I came to enjoy that aspect too.  My first coach was Jim Bargfrede.  Right away I was humbled.  Jim was the most jacked, tenacious athlete I'd ever seen, he had rowed as part of an undefeated 1996 University of Washington JV crew (whole team unbeaten the following year), had gone to national team camp, went 6:18 on the erg, which was OVER A MINUTE faster than I went, how do you even begin to close that gap?? had gone to National Team camp and not made it.  Jim's abilities were UNFATHOMABLE to me as a frosh in high school rower... but something happened that season.  I dropped 20 seconds from my first erg to our last erg, and I thought, well, maybe with enough work, enough time, I can keep improving... keep dropping my scores... and these abilities that are currently beyond me will become mine with time.  Maybe, with enough time, I thought, I can make myself good enough at this to make the National Team, the highest standard.  Being coached by Jim made us humble, but he also made us believe in what we could do." 

"Jim was very serious in his pre-race talks, and for Regionals that year, which was our big race, he called us over before the Final.  We'd won the heat, and we didn't think we were particularly good, just focused, but we had a creeping belief that maybe we could do well.  Jim would never, never talk about a result before it happened.  Our goal was to race our race, as fast as possible.  Jim put his hands on his hips, looked at the ground, asked us how we felt, we all gave hushed 'good's and 'ok's, to which Jim answered with his own (nervous?) goods and oks, a quick rundown, normal race plan, Aaron (our cox) has the calls, so listen to him, then:

"'Guys, no matter WHAT happens out there, win, lose, by and inch or a mile, first or last, whatever happens... guys... your mom is still gonna love you.'

"It took a couple seconds... had Jim just made a... a joke?  Right before our biggest race, the focus of the whole season?  Jim?  Jim barely smiled, definitely not pre-race.  We couldn't help it, we all burst out laughing.  Jim cracked a huge smile.  We all visibly shifted around and relaxed.  'Am I right?  No matter what, you come back to shore, all sweaty, and she's gonna give you a big hug and tell you how great you did, and all that crap, and love you just the same... but if you guys can put together a really, really good race, and if you guys can... win this thing...'

"At this point we all stopped smiling.  The tone had gone SERIOUS.

"'if you guys can win this thing... ....

"...your dad is gonna love you a little bit more. NOW (we're all hysterical) I'M NOT SAYING he'll love you a LOT more... in fact he won't even say it, won't even show it at all.  But when you come back to shore, and he gives you a firm handshake and says, nice going son, I'm proud of you... you'll KNOW.'

The Washington JV toss their cox into the water
to celebrate the 1996 Windermere Cup win.
Jim is in the center, weaing his Texaco hat
he wore every time he coached me 2001-2004.
We were so grateful as a high school frosh crew
to have Jim coaching us... beyond that...
we were in awe.  We were boys.  Jim was a MAN.
 He had a big truck, a big rottwieler, a loud voice,
a permanent five-o-clock shadow, a beautiful
marathon-running wife, a contracting job,
the ability to fix anything,
and also happened to be the unattainable
heartthrob of every girl on the women's team.
As a 15 year-old former non-athlete,
how could you not want to BE Jim?

"If Jim is this relaxed before our race, shoot, maybe we can medal, maybe even win!  Jim believed in us, so we believed in us.  Jim shoved us off, we had the best race of our season and overperformed, coming in second to a superb crew, and sprinting through our toughest rivals."

So ended my first story for the Merion Mercy Crew.  Addendum - reminded Jim of this story when we met up in Seattle this summer, and he gave credit to longtime US Team Coach Mike Teti for the original incarnation before one of his National Team crews raced and won.  It's some good stuff.  Next time: a story from college, and a story from after college, illustrating pure elation and pure humiliation, respectively.