Evolution
Absolutely. Except that some knees and other things nevertheless do go bad. I'm just back from a fiftieth anniversary of my eight-oared crew, The Orphans of the Seekonk, and literally had to haul the guy behind me out of the boat after our row because he didn't have any knees left. Just then 300 Brown University oarsmen and oarswomen began to cheer and clap and shout for us.
The trans-generational evolution and momentum not just in equipment and rowing style and program seemed to stand still for just a moment.
Maybe the ovation happened because we seventy-year-olds made it back to the dock. And still were friends after 50 years. And made it to the reunion.
Also, however, we hired the first paid coach, we transformed a rowing club into a varsity sport, we made first contact with the man who donated the boat house, we were invited to row in the 1960 Olympic Trials and did. One of our guys, a tremendous men's freshman coach, then became the first coach of the women, a program which has been to the White House a couple of times. That happened later but in the beginning, after three years of steady effort, we got the sport recognized despite the determination of one Dean and one Director of Athletics to stop us, and without that, I don't think any of the later national championships for both the women and the men would have happened.
There are similar sport stories all over the world, I suspect. The stroke and frequent captain of our crew, sponsor of the Iraqi national crew's current visit to the United States, brought those beleaguered yet charming and extremely polite oarsmen to our reunion with him.
And before we could even carry the shell and oars we just used up into the boathouse, the current Brown oarsmen did it for us.
Absolutely. Except that some knees and other things nevertheless do go bad. I'm just back from a fiftieth anniversary of my eight-oared crew, The Orphans of the Seekonk, and literally had to haul the guy behind me out of the boat after our row because he didn't have any knees left. Just then 300 Brown University oarsmen and oarswomen began to cheer and clap and shout for us.
The trans-generational evolution and momentum not just in equipment and rowing style and program seemed to stand still for just a moment.
Maybe the ovation happened because we seventy-year-olds made it back to the dock. And still were friends after 50 years. And made it to the reunion.
Also, however, we hired the first paid coach, we transformed a rowing club into a varsity sport, we made first contact with the man who donated the boat house, we were invited to row in the 1960 Olympic Trials and did. One of our guys, a tremendous men's freshman coach, then became the first coach of the women, a program which has been to the White House a couple of times. That happened later but in the beginning, after three years of steady effort, we got the sport recognized despite the determination of one Dean and one Director of Athletics to stop us, and without that, I don't think any of the later national championships for both the women and the men would have happened.
There are similar sport stories all over the world, I suspect. The stroke and frequent captain of our crew, sponsor of the Iraqi national crew's current visit to the United States, brought those beleaguered yet charming and extremely polite oarsmen to our reunion with him.
And before we could even carry the shell and oars we just used up into the boathouse, the current Brown oarsmen did it for us.
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