April 28, 2008

BOSTON - Boston University men's crew is up and often done with practice before most of the rowers' fellow students wake up. They race early on Saturday mornings in front of a scattering of family and friends, often on cold, windy days.

Decades ago Lincoln A. Werden wrote the following for the New York Times: "Rowing is a sport in which the anonymous dominate. There are no grandstands packed with cheering thousands... [The oarsman] shoves off with his crew from the dock and does the job. He can pull his heart out in the middle of the race or in the last 20 strokes and few will know about it..."

Rowers compete in an intense and often painful sport with little or no fanfare. Why?

That is a question that has been asked over and over, notably in an editorial in Sports Illustrated in the late 1960s. Each rower has his own answer. BU senior co-captain Brandon Batey started rowing after taking a physical education class taught by his high school rowing coach. The other senior co-captain, Justin Martin, began after being urged by his ice hockey coach as a way to stay in shape. Classmate Chris Klotzbach was a swimmer looking for a spring sport and took the suggestion of a friend who already rowed.

But why keep it up after finding out about all of the demands made by the sport?

Rusty Callow, the man who responded to SI's question, came up with an answer that still rings true 40 years later. Oarsmen stay with it because of the bond they feel with other rowers over the deep, personal satisfaction in working together and doing their best, despite the immense physical pain.

Rowing is a sport that has faded from popularity, and there is a distinct lack of the material rewards that accompany "mainstream" athletics, like basketball or football. Collegiate rowers can achieve success on an international level, and few on campus could pick them out of a lineup.

Batey picked up two silver medals at the CANAMMEX regatta in Mexico and a bronze at the Junior Rowing World Championships in Spain. Klotzbach made the U.S. Under-23 National Team and rowed in the 2007 World Championships. Current Terrier Meindert Klem also competed in the U-23s last year and took the 2007-08 season off to train to make the 2008 Beijing Olympics. He placed fifth overall at the 2006 U-23 World Championships in the single sculls. Sophomore Milos Nikolic finished fifth in the world in the lightweight coxless pair at the 2007 U-23s.

All collegiate athletes' lives require sacrifice for their sport, and crew is no different. Free time really only comes on Saturday after the race, but it is generally filled with homework and catching up on all the sleep missed during the week.

"The simplest way to explain the sacrifice to non-rowers is to ask them to imagine all of the time they spend doing whatever they want each day then to subtract four to six hours from it, and that is the free time I have on a daily basis," notes Martin.

Batey mentions all the events he has missed in his rowing career - family gatherings, nights out with friends, high school graduation and prom. This year, Martin, Batey, Klotzbach and the other nine seniors on the roster will miss their college graduation since one of the biggest collegiate regattas of the year, the Eastern Sprints, falls on May 18.

Aside from the sacrifices, rowing is, very simply put, hard work. There are no time outs or substitutions; for six to 22 minutes, a crew is in constant, agonizing motion. In some sports it is possible to "dog" it, but both Martin and Callow talk about the impossibility of hiding a lack of effort in a shell.

Callow paraphrases Kipling: "If you can make your heart and nerve and sinew serve their turn long after they are gone, you'll be a man, my son."

Martin goes further, "Every moment of rowing hurts... Sure, every athlete experiences pain from a tough hit or a long game, but rowers know the second they sit in the boat, they are going to hurt themselves. You are going to put yourself through pain over and over each practice. Each race you take [the first] five strokes with ease but want to stop on the sixth, seventh and eighth strokes...until you get through about 250."

Now, imagine a year-long training regimen that does not let up simply because the river has frozen over.

Freshmen who walk onto the team in the fall practice about 20 hours a week to pick up the technique, and then the team spends October and early November rowing in races that can go for three miles.

After the Charles River freezes over, the BU rowers move indoors to continue weight training and work out on the rowing machines. The Terriers do circuit and distance training as December, January and February grind on.

In March BU and crews across the nation forgo the week-long party known as spring break to train. Each day is an intense itinerary of wake up early, row, eat lunch, take a nap, row again, eat dinner and pass out. Then the spring racing season starts.

The team keeps up with its 20 hours a week of practice, and just because the river thaws the weather does not always improve. Rowers fight rough water and the cold. Ice can form on the oarsmen after they are splashed by the men behind them. Even when the temperatures warm up, the wind does not always cooperate.

"This past summer at Worlds in Scotland the conditions were horrible," said Klotzbach. "We were in a boat that was entirely too big, and the wind was out of control. There were white caps going across the lanes and gusts of wind between 13-30 mph. Because the boat was so big, we were getting blown around like a sailboat. We had no control of the boat, and the race was an absolute nightmare."

Rowers typically rise about three hours before a race - that is around 4 a.m. for those of you keeping score at home - after going to bed early the night before. The coach gives a pre-race talk, and the rowers launch the boat and warm up. Then there is the race.

"[It is] two kilometers of intensity, pushing your body to unimaginable heights," said Batey. "The feeling after competing in rowing is like none other. The pain is excruciating; every muscle in your body is swollen. After the race there is a rush of pain. It feels good, though, satisfying. And if you win, it seems to instantaneously disappear."

Summer training still means 20-25 hours a week practicing and international or club racing. The athletes need to retain their high level of aerobic fitness, technical talent and mental focus for the fall season when it starts all over again.

That technique involves a great deal of subtlety that most casual observers fail to catch. Good rowing looks graceful and occasionally effortless, but it demands so much. The rowers' movements need to be fluid, seamless and synchronized. The blades, when horizontal over the water, should be at the same height, and the oarsmen need to put them in the water at the exact perfect moment to not disrupt the flow of the boat and to maintain a consistent speed.

Good crews do that 35-40 (or more) times a minute for around six minutes in a 2000-meter race.

All sports provide benefits like physical fitness and quality competition, but crew does not make the front page of the sports section or draw thousands to the riverbank. So where are the rowers' rewards?

Batey, Klotzbach and Martin each reference the positives rowing brings to the non-athletic side of their lives. All three talk about the discipline, focus and mental toughness developed on the water, but they all also mention the quiet satisfaction in knowing they - and their teammates - did the best they could.

"Each person instills endless trust in everyone in their boat, knowing that they are pulling as hard as physically possible," concluded Batey. "I think trust is needed more in the sport of rowing than most any other. If one person is having a bad practice, everyone is having a bad practice. A rower can't be benched or pulled out during a race. Pain is felt and shared with all. Glory is felt by everyone. Everyone contributes to the boat's success; no one [person] stands out in a shell. Everyone does...or doesn't."

This unity is perhaps both the rowers' biggest reward and stumbling block in explaining to others why they row. As BU alumnus Dick Carlson noted, only those who are part of the sport can fully appreciate what it means to be an oarsman.

Brandon Batey. Chris Klotzbach. Justin Martin. Three of Lincoln Werden's anonymous athletes who populate the sport of rowing. Three athletes who joined a crew for different reasons but stuck with it because they found the unity Rusty Callow talked about 40 years ago. The feeling of brotherhood uncommon in other sports still seems as alive today as it was in the late `60s.