By G. PATRICK PAWLING
A doubles rowing shell is about 16 inches wide and 31 or so feet long. Getting in one isnt all that complicated. If you can fly an airplane through a storm and eat a hard-shell taco at the same time without any spillage, youre good to go. If you want complicated, try making a double go fast.
OK, so I made a mistake. In an earlier column I wrote that I didnt get whatever it was that people love about rowing. Enter a guy named Bill Subin. Local attorney. A member and a mainstay supporter of the Viking Rowing Club, which has run thousands of people through its program since the 1960s. Subin calls, asks if I want to row. I say yes. How hard can it be? I grew up rowing, but that was a 12-foot aluminum Sears (no kidding) rowboat. Theyre tough to flip.
So this thing Subin wants to put me in, I might as well be trying to sit on a Popsicle stick. I know right away there is no way Im going to keep that thing right-side up. Which is probably exactly what every other beginner thinks. But in this case. ...
Relax, Subin basically tells me. Then he gives me about two weeks worth of lessons in roughly 38 seconds. Which is my fault, being in a hurry and all. He says something about left hand over right, I think it was, and then hes talking about when to slide the seat up, and all of a sudden were going pretty fast. Well, not fast for Subin, but man Im telling you were leaving a wake in a no-wake zone, and Im pretty sure that if the cops are around were getting a ticket. That fast. Or so it seems.
And the whole time, Subin is talking describing the egrets and the things that he loves about rowing and how many kids Viking has sent to colleges like Harvard on scholarships and how proud they are of their new boathouse and then he told me one of the reasons he is talking so much. To stop me from thinking so much. And he was right. When I stop thinking and let my body do its job, all of a sudden things start to flow a little more. Then my brain would kick in again and spoil it.
Subin and the others are good at this kind of thing because rowing has been going on at Viking for a long time. The club was basically started by a guy named Dr. John Holland, who Im not going to embarrass too much by saying what a good guy he is or how much he has contributed to this area. Suffice it to say that one day Holland got interested in rowing and wound up trailering a used shell out of New York City and all of a sudden southern New Jersey had a rowing program. Goes to show you what can happen when a determined guy has a good idea. Not that Holland ever did it alone. The number of people who work hard for Viking, and the number of hours they put it, would be difficult to calculate. But it started slow.
Viking alumnus Dr. Frank Previti, wrote a little about early days recently in a program put out to commemorate the dedication of the clubs new boathouse in Ventnor. He noted that in the early days 1962 or so the boats were stored on picnic tables in a backyard in Ventnor Heights and carried for practice every day over a white picket fence onto a series of boat slips. Previti, in fact, explains it well:
In those early days, rowing style was a matter of conjecture, extrapolation from lifeboats, and the force of John Hollands personality, wrote Previti. Then he adds, The spark that really ignited rowing was Dr. Hollands good fortune to find a Philadelphia beer salesman who lived in Northfield. Our fledging club was suddenly blessed with a world-class oarsman and coach. This was none other than Thomas Bear Curren. He was an Olympian and World champion who had taken LaSalle to a Dad Vail Championship and would later do the same for Temple.
Since those days, Viking has run plenty of people through its program. It has sent rowers to championships around the world, prestigious colleges around the country and into the top tiers of professions such as medicine, law and business. There is no way to prove how much rowing has to do with the success of an individual, but the discipline it takes to make a boat move fast the synchronization, the strength, the grit all that cant hurt. Before crew, no Holy Spirit grad had gone on to an Ivy League school. Now Ivy League placements are not out of the ordinary for Spirit and other schools that participate. Coincidence? Maybe.
Weve got so many people whove done so well, said Subin. And not just in rowing doctors and lawyers and engineers and other professions. I get so excited by the stuff. And now Im seeing the second generation come through.
Subin said Viking and other clubs in the area are out to disprove the old idea that rowing is a country club kind of sport only for people who can afford it. Thats not the way it works any more, he said. Anybody can do it, and to prove it, Subin let me into a boat. That proves theres no class requirement.
No, I didnt flip it. Yes, I enjoyed it. And yeah, I was wrong. This rowing stuff is pretty cool.
For more information about the Viking Rowing Club, call Bill Subin at (609) 645-7511 or Ward Holland at (609) 641-5079.
(To contact Pat Pawling with a comment or story idea, e-mail onthewater@pawling.net or call (609) 398-6593. To contact Chris Polk, e-mail chris@polkimaging.com or call (609) 487-3141.)
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