Published in the Wesleyan Magazine June 2013 Camaraderie and Inspiration The Founders of Wesleyan Crew and the Head of the Charles Alex Thomson, Class of 1982 The thing that makes crew different from other sports is there are simply no prima donnas on a crew team. You can be the best soccer player or hockey player on a bad team and your ego can get a boost from your ability to make a play or score a goal and at least gain some solace from a loss. With rowing, there are no touchdown dances or high fives from the crowd. In fact there is little or no individual attention on a crew team, you win and lose together as a single, faceless entity. Rowers embrace the concept of teamwork like no other athletic group I have encountered and are among the most physically fit athletes in the world. Rowers will never “go pro” and rowing glory only comes from fairly obscure World and Olympic competition that might be televised at odd hours of the morning, with results buried on the back page of the sports section. Rowing is certainly not a “prime time” sport. For instance, who but the rowing community knows that the United States Women’s National Team is a six time World Champion and two time Olympic Champion? Basically they have dominated women’s rowing, worldwide for the past ten years. There are few sports teams that can make that claim. Rowers often practice at 6 AM and measure their performance on an ergometer, a medieval contraption that looks like an upside-down bicycle. The ergometer is so physically demanding that competitors often have a bucket nearby to wretch in when needed, and that happens often. Rowing is a binary exercise. You win or lose, period. There are no shades of grey. This shared misery and triumph means that rowers form a bond like few other athletic groups and many rowers continue to row, many into their 80’s, getting together with former teammates at various regattas. Wesleyan has a rich rowing tradition dating back to the late 1850s, where it competed against colleges up and down the East Coast. I ran across an etching a few years ago from 1879 from Harper’s Bazaar showing Wesleyan racing Columbia on the Hudson. With the emergence of football and baseball, however, enthusiasm for rowing slowed and by 1884, the rowing program at Wesleyan was defunct. After an eighty year hiatus, some enthusiastic individuals namely Peter Harborow ‘64, Professor Robert Rosenbaum, Assistant Dean of Admissions, Phil Calhoun and Dean, Mark Barlow, revived rowing at Wesleyan. The early years were not easy, borrowing boats from other schools, adopting the dilapidated Middletown Yacht Club and wading into the Connecticut River in March and April to launch their only boats; two used 4 man shells. A special group of the rowers from the mid to late sixties revival of Wesleyan Crew call themselves The Founders of Wesleyan Crew. These men come together to row on a periodic basis and have rowed in events like the Veterans Regatta at Henley, England, The Head of the Housatonic and The Head of the Connecticut. Their tradition and camaraderie, however, are best embodied in their annual pilgrimage to row in The Head of the Charles. The Head of the Charles by any measure is a grueling affair for competitors. While spectators lounge on the riverbanks, the race is 20 minutes of absolute bedlam with boats jockeying for position around tight turns and under bridges. The Race for competitors has been described to me to be as physically demanding as running a 10,000 meter race on your hands and knees. Having made their first appearance in 1966, The Founders have rowed in 20 Head of the Charles races, all but two after 1992. I was introduced to the Founders in 2007, when they needed a rower to fill in at The Head of the Charles. I lived nearby and volunteered to join them for the race. When I met the members of the crew, and their followers (like former coach Phil Calhoun), I realized I that I had met a remarkable group of men, who embody the essence of teamwork, good sportsmanship and camaraderie. Their dedication to one another, Wesleyan and the sport of rowing truly inspired me. I called a couple of my Wesleyan Rowing friends like Kevin Foley ‘82 and Paul Slye ’84 and brought together my own group of rowers to compete in the annual Head of the Charles in 2008. This year the Women’s Crew also entered a boat in the alumni event, which was terrific to see. It is also important to note that without the enthusiasm and efforts of the Head Coach of the Men’s Crew, Phil Carney, we would never be able to bring our groups together to race. For the past 25 years, Phil has provided the program with terrific leadership and consistent success which has made the Men’s Crew a contender for both the New England and Small College National Championships. The members of The Founders Crew have an average age of 66 years old. These are individuals with divergent interests located in different parts of the country and sometimes different parts of the world. They have come together to share the agony and ecstasy of racing, the triumph of finishing; and to cement the bonds formed over 48 years ago rowing at Wesleyan. I certainly hope that the alumni crew I formed just four years ago, with an average age of 50, will follow the tradition of The Founders of Wesleyan Crew and are still rowing together in 2028, and beyond. As Will Macoy ‘67, the Captain of the Founders Crew proclaimed to me with a chuckle after the Head of the Charles this year, “The older we get, the better we were! And we’ve all got quite a few strokes left to go before we finish.”
Posted on: Mon, 08 Jul 2013 15:58:56 +0000
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