The Rowing Podcast
The Rowing Podcast
Paul "Zenquist" - The Quad That Could Have Been
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I chat with Paul Enquist, stroke seat of the 1984 Olympic US Men's Double that won gold at Lake Casitas.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KD-s4jrqUPU
In nineteen eighty-four, two young oarsmen refused to take no for an answer. Cut from the U.S. Olympic skulling camp, the duo embarked on a journey that would dramatically change the course of their lives. It had been fifty-two years since the United States had won a medal of any kind in the men's double skulls. At odds with the U.S. national team system, up against a loaded field of talented international rowers, the two oarsmen had their work cut out for them. In the Olympic grand final, with 500 meters to go, the U.S. men's double skull hunted down the entire field, crossing the line in first place to secure the gold. To this day, it remains the last medal of any kind for the U.S. in that event. The Bauman, Brad Lewis, went on to write a book about the adventure titled Assault on Lake Casetis, or simply Assault, as it's known in the rowing community. The Stroke Seat, a strong, steady, but often understated oarsman, returned to Seattle, hung up his oars, and began a career as a commercial fisherman and longshoreman. His name is Paul Enquist, and I'm very excited to welcome him to the podcast today. Paul, good to be talking to you finally. How are you?
SPEAKER_01I'm doing great. Good morning.
SPEAKER_00Good morning. To preface some of this, two books that were pretty impactful for me, that I think, frankly, any any young rower, or it maybe any rower for that matter, should read, um, should be The Amateurs and Assault on Lake Casitas. And you were one of the central characters to both of those books. So when I was thinking of getting this podcast going, you were easily one of the first guys that I thought of. I had heard that you were living somewhere in Seattle. A few clicks through the white pages later, I was on the phone with you. It's good to be finally speaking to you.
SPEAKER_01Well, it's nice to be speaking to you too. I'm not I'm not all that involved in rowing anymore, but happy to talk about it.
SPEAKER_00So, you know, when I spoke with uh I actually spoke with one of your former teammates, Tiff, about this. Um, and I'm curious what your thoughts were. What was it like to be, you know, a protagonist, a main character in these two books that have become you know kind of famous, at least within the rowing community? You know, what was that like when it was getting written and all that? What was the experience like from your end?
SPEAKER_01You know, it's kind of interesting on Halberstam's book. He he called me a few weeks after I got home from the Olympics, and and we started talking just for a couple minutes, and then he he said, Hey, I I gotta go, I gotta call you back. And and guess what? He never called me back. And so the book was written. I really I really didn't talk to him at all about my side of the story. So the book was written without him really talking to me. So everything in there about me was was gathered from the other guys.
SPEAKER_00No kidding. Okay, gotcha. What about uh what about Brad's book, Assault? I mean, how much of a part of that were you? You know, did you and Brad have discussions about it?
SPEAKER_01Or no, not really. I think that was pretty much all his side. I don't remember him calling and discussing any parts of it with me at all. So there you go.
SPEAKER_00Gotcha. I'd like to start most of these podcasts really at the beginning to get to know our speakers a bit. And so, where were you born? Where's home?
SPEAKER_01So uh born in Seattle and grew up in Ballard, just you know, suburb of Seattle there, just west of the University of Washington. My whole life, 73 graduate of Ballard High School, along with all my family and my mother's family, and my uncle's families, and grew up in Ballard. And uh, but when I went to college, I decided it was probably best if I went across the state over to Washington State University. If I got away from home, I probably had a better chance of success. There wouldn't be as many distractions. So that's where I went to college.
SPEAKER_00You know, what about your family? Tell us a little bit about them. You know, what did your uh what did your folks do? Do you have any siblings, brothers or sisters?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I have an older sister, three years older, and a younger brother, three years younger. My family was all my dad, his brothers, two brothers, and my grandfather all commercial salmon fishermen. Interesting, my my grandfather ran his own boat. One of his crew members every summer for almost ever was an old coach from the University of Wisconsin named Norm Sanju. And he came out, he was from that area where my grandfather was from, and he came home every summer and went fishing with my grandfather. And then he went back to Wisconsin and coached crew the rest of the year.
SPEAKER_00No kidding. When it was when it was probably more of a part-time gig.
SPEAKER_01You uh yeah, if you I when I was back there as a freshman at college at the Midwestern Sprints, there was there was a shell in the shell house at Wisconsin named the Norm Sanju.
SPEAKER_00You know, you say uh salmon fishermen, are we talking about the big boats, like the ones you'd see on the deadliest catch? I mean, I'm you know, what are we talking about?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, not not quite that big. There was a limit of 58 feet, state of Alaska put in. I'd I took over for my dad immediately when I got back from the Olympics. He wanted to retire and I wanted to get into it, so I took over for from him. And uh I'd leave here towards the end of June with a crew of five and go to southeastern Alaska for two months, come back sometime after the first of September, and fish around here till the eighth till November and then hang it up for the year. What's the name of your boat? It's called the Supreme. It was an old wooden boat built in 1919. I sold everything in 2003. Uh got into that longshore deal and I didn't really have time to take care of it anymore.
SPEAKER_00When you got to uh when you got to Washington State, you know, my understanding is you were you were going to try to be a basketball player. What's the story behind that?
SPEAKER_01Went down to the basketball office. I wanted to try out, because between my between graduation from high school and start at Washington State, I put on like 30 pounds of muscle that summer. I finally filled out a little bit. I mean, I graduated from high school, I was 6'6, 170 pounds. And when I started at Washington State, I weighed over 200. So I wanted to try out, but I went to the office and they really wouldn't give me the time of day. So that was out. And the first day of classes, uh, one o'clock, a one o'clock class right after lunch, a technical drawing class for all engineers. That was my major mechanical engineering. The professor wrote crew on the blackboard. And then when class started, he said, Any of you that are interested in rowing with the crew need to see me after class. So I went up and talked to him, and he sent me up to the offices of the department. And one of the professors there had been a teammate of Dick Erickson's at the U. And he was kind of trying to help get the program started at Washington State. So I went up and talked to him, and he told me when practices were, and if I could make it great. And that's how I got started.
SPEAKER_00What about the uh what about the moment of kind of getting hooked?
SPEAKER_01I think I I really enjoyed it right from the start. I mean, you would you wouldn't believe this. The first day I went down to the river, it was a small club program with maybe a couple eights of guys. I think we had three eights and a four in my first season. But that first day, I think I'll never forget this. They put up an eight in the water, and they, a guy got in one of the seats of five or six seats, and he took a few strokes while we're hanging on to the boat at the dock, kind of to show me how it was done. And uh then he had me get in it and try it a couple times. And then we went out on the river in the eight. And I remember we rode down river a ways, and then we turned around, came back, and and we raced the other eight like about 2,000 meters up the race. I had never rode before that day. And I remember sitting in that seat watching the stroke ore, and I think, okay, I'm gonna get in on this one. And I tried my darndest. And then and then I kind of take a break. I'm like, okay, I'm I'm missing that stroke, but I'll try to get the next one in. And that's that's the way it went. And uh it just went from there. I made as many practices as I could as as my classes would allow, and I just stayed with it from there on out. When I was a senior, uh, a lot of us had stuck with it for four years. Um, and we actually we came in fourth in the West, they called it the Pac-10s or something like that, down at Redwood Shores. And uh and we felt pretty good about that. I don't know if a Washington State boat's ever done as well since then.
SPEAKER_00What happened after that? Um, you know, there's uh my understanding is that uh you got to know Bob Ernst a bit and and even did some rowing over at Conabare.
SPEAKER_01Well, I I uh I kind of got to know Dick Erickson through the years. You know, I'd say hi to him at me see him at Regatta's, and and then one summer when I was home, Bob had just gotten hired by the UW and he kind of ran this little informal uh camp at the U for the summer. And we learned how to how to skull in those old Pocock fiberglass singles, or we'd go out in a double once in a while, or or a pair, or something. Small boats, and it was a group of maybe 15 or 20 of us. It was real informal and it was really fun. And then after my senior year, I got invited to an Olympic development camp that um down at Squaw Valley that Harry Parker was coaching. And so when I got back to Seattle, I started thinking, you know, I need to give this a try. I need to see where I can go with this. So I went over to the U and I talked to Bob Ernst, and Bob's recommendation was go buy a single so that you can train without depending upon anybody else. And I I drove right from Conober over to Pocox, which was right on the Lake Union there. And I walked up and I said hi to Stan, and I said, I'd like to buy a single. And he said, Well, we've just had a cancellation on this one, and he said, You can have it if you want. And I ended up buying a single right then. And I went back over to, I went right from Pocox back to Conibert and saw Bob and said, Well, I got a single, where can I keep it? And he he gave me a spot hanging in the rafters there, the the old boathouse. And that's how I got started skulling.
SPEAKER_00Did you spend a lot of time training independently? Were you part of a lot of more camps? Obviously, you know, for folks who've read the book, they know where it all culminates, but what was the path like between those two points?
SPEAKER_01So Bob ran a group in the morning. He coached us two days a week, just kind of organized us. It was about it was about half guys, maybe six or seven guys and six or seven women. We did that all spring, and then I got in a van with one of my guys I was rowing with in Seattle, and we drove back to Philadelphia uh towards the end of June. We raced in the Independence Day regatta. He had connections with Undyne Boat Club, and we stayed there and we raced a couple races. We were there about three weeks, and then we drove to St. Catharines or raced at Canadian Handling and then came home. That was that first summer. And then the next summer, I actually ended up flying back to Boston and kind of doing the same thing, just living in one of the boat houses and rowing out of Boston for the summer. So that's how I got started in the at that level of rowing.
SPEAKER_00Did you uh did you feel like you had a knack for the this not necessarily the single, but a knack for skulling right away? Did you see a lot of boat speed early on, or was it a longer path?
SPEAKER_01It was a long path. That first spring I spent I spent at least six weeks instead of rowing with the guys, I was rowing with the girls. It was a slow progression. That first summer back east, yeah. Yeah, I was way behind the good guys. And so it was pretty humbling. It was a long, long road to to work work my way up.
SPEAKER_00Do you feel like there was a um I don't know, maybe a click moment, a light bulb moment where you felt like you had gained a significant amount of speed, be it from fitness or just kind of getting a better feel for the boat, that turned the page in your run career from trying to get decent at the single to then going pretty quick. Was there any moment like that for you?
SPEAKER_01I don't think so. I think I just stayed with it, and it seemed like every year got a little bit better. I got a little bit closer to competing at the elite level. The single was never really my my boat as much as I struggled with it. I had moments, but very few, but I just stayed with it and just kept after it.
SPEAKER_00So how did you eventually make your way into the camp system with the with the US and find yourself in the U.S. skulling camp? What was that transition like and how did it happen?
SPEAKER_01So in 1982, a friend of mine from Seattle here, we'd been training together. We went back, we got invited. We we raced at the Nationals in Detroit in mid-July. We got invited to Boston to Harvard to try out for the quad, and we both got cut pretty early. But, you know, we and then we went, we got cut from the quad camp, but we went and raced in the doubles trials together, and we lost by about a half a length in the double to a double that really wasn't very good. But it was encouraging that we were that close. So stayed with it another year into 83. 83 was pretty much the breakthrough year for me. Uh we stayed with it another year, trained hard, went back to Boston again and uh and got invited to the sculling camp, which Harry ran again, and uh kind of had a breakthrough moment at the sculling camp. Harry was trying to select a double and a quad for the World World Championships and a double in a quad for the Pan American games. So there was a lot of us there. I think the camp started with 24 schullers. Believe it or not, it was Brad and I were paired together one day and we were doing probably four-minute pieces or something. There were four doubles, and we got clobbered in the first one. We were way behind. And Harry came over and he started, he got really angry with me, and he goes, How can I tell what you're capable of when you're rowing four beats a minute lower than everybody else? You know? Okay, we turned around to do the next piece, and I told Brad, I said, Look, it I gotta sit up taller and shorten up a little bit if that stroke rate's gotta come up, which I did, and we went from getting clobbered to winning that piece by open water. That light bulb went off. And the thing is, we took off and we weren't we were so much faster. And you know, instead of rowing at 28, we were rowing at 32, and things were clicking, and then Brad got all excited during the piece, and you know, we're gonna click we're doing great. And it was kind of a light bulb moment. And Harry came about in his launch and he goes, Yeah, yeah, that's what I want to see. So that was kind of the moment, and it was a really long process that summer, but in the end, Brad and I got put in the double together and raced in the trials, which we won by 25 seconds or something. It really wasn't much. And we ended up going to Germany for the World Championships as the U.S. double. And we came in sixth, we made the final, which was for U.S. sculling back then, that was a big deal. U.S. didn't have very strong sculling, and we ended up in the finals. We had a crappy race in the finals, but we were in the finals.
SPEAKER_00And then uh and then the rest is is kind of history. If you read the uh if for folks who who would want to know more about it, basically read the books and you can you kind of get to learn about the uh uh the journey. I I do find it interesting that you guys had, in fact, had some exposure to that boat ahead of time and and there was some good foundation there.
SPEAKER_01But the thing is, Brad Brad wanted to be the single scholar in '84. He didn't want anything to do with me. Once we came home from Germany, he was done with me. And John Biglow, uh his family lived in Seattle, Bellevue, and I really liked growing with John. And we so we spent that winter training together. Had a great winter training. And I knew when we got back east in '84 after our winter training that John wanted to try the single. Like, oh, I just want to try it and see how I do with the trials. I thought, and I told him, I said, you know, if you enter the singles trials, you're probably gonna win. Which he did.
unknownRight.
SPEAKER_01So that was the end of our dreams of rowing a double together. And that put me in the camp. And it put Brad in the camp, which he didn't want anything to do with. That started my long scary.
SPEAKER_00Paul, what story would you like to share with us today?
SPEAKER_01Uh, so I want to I want to talk about one practice in 1984 up at Dartmouth. Uh, after the trials, after all the trials, after all the boats were selected. Uh, Howard Stam has a picture of our boat in his book. It's a quad with Tiff at Bow, Brad at two, me at three, and John Bigelow at the stroke seat. But he never he never mentions it in his book. And Brad has a few paragraphs about it in his. And I thought I'd go into a little more detail on it because I think it's I think it's interesting.
SPEAKER_00No, I was going to say I've seen that picture and I know which one. I was actually looking at it this morning, and I thought, wow, well, that's interesting. It's all the guys. It's you know it's John, Paul, Brad, right in the middle, and then Tiff in the bow. I'm like, Jesus, well, that's a that's a pretty stacked quad. I wonder how that one was. So actually, I'm I'm really excited to hear about this. So please uh do tell.
SPEAKER_01Oh yeah, so the background is um, you know, John Bigelow won two bronze medals in the single, one in 81, one in 82 at the Worlds. And then Tiff won a bronze in 83. Uh, and then Brad and I finished in the finals. Maybe we finished sixth, but we were in the finals of the double in 83. So everybody's up at Dartmouth training, and after about a week, Harry comes up to us and says, you know, you guys want to get together in a quad just to break up the monotony of training, uh practice with the eight the next morning. And he said, Yeah, that sounds like a great idea. So we rigged a quad the afternoon before, and we took it out for a spin just to check the rigging, and it was horrible, and brought it in and changed a few things. And then in the morning we went out. The old race course at Dartmouth was like three miles upriver from the boathouse. It was a long ways. And we rode up there and we're starting to warm up, and we got to the top of the finish line area of the race course. We're supposed to meet at the other end, and we stop, and this argument, this loud argument between Brad and John start. And I'm sitting right in between them. And Brad tells John, if you're gonna row like that, I can't do this. And John says, Well, I can't change how I row now. And and Tiffany says, Look, it we just let's just make the best of this. So down we go down the race course to the starting line, trying to get warmed up. We turn around, we take they start us, they give us probably a six or eight second lead. We start even with the the quad that won the trials. Uh so it's two quads, a straight four. They start the straight four first, then the two quads, then the eight. And I think we got maybe a six or eight second lead on the eight. And we start off and we don't do a start. This is this this boat is rough, really rough. We just three strokes to get going and and get to race rate and and go. And we're we're just trying to survive and keep going, but we look around and we're open water up on the other quad immediately. And and we're kind of cruising along. And it took a long time for the eight to catch us, and it was pretty even at the finish line. That was the first piece that we did three 2000s that day. And the second piece, I don't remember that well, but it was probably more of the same. But the third one was special because we decided the eight is not gonna catch us and pass us in this one. So we we took off from the start. I'm just gonna add that the the the quad that raced in the Olympics that won the trials was in this race, but they finished all the pieces, probably ten lengths behind us. I mean, way back. Wow. Way back. So we took off on this last piece and we're rowing down the course, and and the eight's coming up on our stern with about 500 to go, and Bob Jogstad or the coxswain of the eight, we can hear him, and he's he's absolutely screaming at his guys in this string of profanity aimed at us, and all of a sudden. Of course. With the same kind of language, which would make any longshoreman blush, screaming back at him. And so now this is this is really intense. And we're not going to let those guys get by us. This a came right up alongside us, but that's it. They're not going any farther. And believe it or not, with Jogstitter and Tiff screaming at each other the whole last 500 meters, we did not let them get by us. And it was it was really it was incredible. It was one of the most incredible things I've ever experienced out on the water. That quad was was rough, but it was fast. It was incredibly fast. And so we we finished those three 2,000 meter pieces and long row back to the boathouse, and it was pretty interesting. You know, we're just just on a nice smooth paddle back to the boathouse. It was quiet. Nobody was saying too much, and I think everybody was everybody was thinking, what what just happened? What what's going on here? This this was a special, special moment. This boat is fast. It would really be nice to to try this later on, but that wasn't going to happen. So that was a really special practice to me. I I remember at the Olympics, the U.S. quad was one of the boats. They didn't even make the semifinals. And I remember after our race, watching the quad final, I'm thinking, where would we have been if we'd have been in that race? That's a moment in my rowing career that really really stands out to do something like that in a practice.
SPEAKER_00No, I I love it. And you know, the interesting thing about that story, Paul, is um how it started. You know, I think there's the there's kind of a oh, I don't know, maybe a lazy misunderstanding that a really good boat always feels good. And I think there are there are cases like the one you just described where everything from how it feels to even the individuals maybe not getting along all that great in the boat, um, you think to yourself, oh god, this is gonna be bad. This is gonna be one of those practices we're just gonna have to like grit our teeth and get through. And then you're surprised by how fast the boat is. It's kind of an interesting lesson, actually, that sometimes how it feels isn't actually how it's going to go, which I think is important.
SPEAKER_01So surprising. It was so surprising in that first piece when we took off. Oh my god, why are we open not even at the 500 meter mark? We're lengths of open water on the other quad that just won the trials. Really? These guys just won the trials and we're lengths ahead of them. How does that happen?
SPEAKER_00Did you guys what you know what was said when you guys got back?
SPEAKER_01I think we put the boat away and said, wow, that was really fun. That was good. Um, you know, but it's over with now. Uh to me, it was just it was something really special, special moment in rowing. Um and it didn't, you know, we all went back to Brad and I went back in the double that afternoon, and and John back in the single, and Tiff back in the single, he was the spare, and and it was it was done. But but it was really a special thing. And I and I I think that I think that we all think back on that that wow, wow, that that was a that was a boat that would have been fun to go on with.
SPEAKER_00Have you ever uh put that boat back together, even just for fun, you know, later on after after the Olympics and all that, you guys just hopped in and had a go, or was that it the last time?
SPEAKER_01That was it. One one and only. That was it.
SPEAKER_00The one and done.
SPEAKER_01You know, I I remember I remember when we got to the dock and and uh Harry would got out of the launch and came over, and he was just this he had he loved seeing stuff like that. He loved seeing people compete like that, and he had just this great big smile on his face. He, you know, people working that hard in practice, I think he knew that was gonna pay dividends down the road, and and I just remember this big smile on his face about how that went. I have in my logbook that uh written down that that afternoon and the next day I was really tired.
SPEAKER_00So, Paul, if your closest friends could only describe you using three words, meaning three distinct adjectives, which words do you hope that they would use for you?
SPEAKER_01Hardworking, honest, quiet.
SPEAKER_00What jolts you out of bed every morning? What gets you excited and motivated to attack the day or attack uh you know whatever thing that is that you're pursuing?
SPEAKER_01I like challenges. I I it and it I'm really into sport fishing now. If if I'm going fishing, that's a challenge to me to see if I can be successful in that. I I don't jog anymore because of some joint issues, but I do a lot of cycling. I don't like the ergometer because I don't like those numbers looking at me. I when the numbers aren't where I want them to be, it pisses me off. But but uh any of that, it you know, whether it's trying to catch fish or see how fast I can go up this hill on my bike, just just things like that. It seemed like there's something every day that that I look forward to to challenging myself to do. Even if it's just taking a fishing reel apart and doing maintenance on it, you know. I I love doing stuff like that.
SPEAKER_00On the flip side of that, Paul, what's um what really kind of turns you off and and kills your energy?
SPEAKER_01Uh what kills my energy? I don't like hanging around with people that are lazy. You know, I feel like it's such a waste. It's such a waste of time. I like hanging around with people with high energy.
SPEAKER_00Who is somebody that you really admire in rowing and why?
SPEAKER_01I really admire John Biglow. He rode with such an intensity. And and having spent a year training with him, uh, it was it was pretty incredible. He came out here in October of '83 and we trained together through the end of April pretty much almost every day. And we had to do s he had uh he had a uh back problem. And we had to modify our training from what was recommended by by the national team coaches so that so that it wouldn't bother his back. And uh I remember Korznowski told us in the middle of the winter that we were wasting our time training that way. Well, I don't I don't really think we wasted our time. I mean, John won the singles trials and Brad and I rode down the field in the last thousand meters, so we must have been in shape. But anyway, and we had we had this secret flight of stairs over by his house that were just incredible, and we started training on those in the afternoons a couple days, a couple days a week, and John was really good at those. And and I remember the first time I tried to do them with him, couldn't walk right for a week. You know, he was so good at him. He was it was incredible, and it was so it wasn't a fluke that he was really good, he was a really good scholar.
SPEAKER_00What's your favorite boat class? Um, you know, the single, the double, the eight. What's your favorite and why?
SPEAKER_01I have to say the double for a variety of reasons. I I like the double, it it it requires you to be really technical technically proficient. It takes because the bigger boat, the balance in it's not so difficult. And so I'd I'd have to say the double. The quad requires a really high degree of technical expertise because it everything has to move so quick. The double, not quite so much, but it's it's a lot easier boat to to balance up than a you know, a single. One of the things I want to say that, you know, and I sp I at the camps I rode with a lot of different people, you know, and and some felt better than others. But one thing about rowing with Brad that was blatantly obvious right from the get-go was that the double we rode in was rock solid, steady, perfectly level, great balance. It was almost like, to me, it almost felt like I was sitting on an ergometer. I didn't have to worry about the boat rocking around at all or anything. It was always solid. It was always balanced up, and just I was able to put all my effort into making the boat go fast. For Brad and I to match up, because I'm 6'6, he's about, I don't know what he is, 6'2, 6'3, and I got really long arms. For us to match like that one day I told you about at 83 at the camp, I had to shorten up because he there's no way physically he could match me in length, especially in a sculling boat. And what it was doing was is it was we were so out of sync when I was too long, it didn't go well. So when I shortened up a full stroke, for me, it felt like I was rowing three-quarter slide. And if I went any longer than that, our boat speed went down the drain. So I really didn't use too much slide. I mean, really, and I think a lot of good scholars these days don't do that. I've watched a lot of the world the finals of the worlds and singles and whatnot. They don't they don't get huge leg compression, and they don't look like they're rowing short at any stretch of the imagination. So yeah, that's how we did it. Just sh how I just shortened up, sat up a little taller, and and we matched up well and away we go.
SPEAKER_00Do you have a favorite racing distance?
SPEAKER_01Uh, I think I like the longer distances. Um yeah, I'm not much of a sprinter. I I like uh you know, 2000's fine. The head races are maybe better for me.
SPEAKER_00Do you have a favorite race course or a regatta? And why?
SPEAKER_01I like I like the course at Princeton. I for some I'm a flat water guy. I always had trouble when the water got rough. And I don't know why that is, and I tried to correct that. Rough water seemed to affect me a lot more than it affect other people. We'd be in practices if we on a flat water piece, I'd be rowing pretty competitive with other guys, and if the water got rough, I'd get clobbered. I don't know why that is. Princeton was always nice and flat. I always look forward to rowing there because I knew it would be nice calm water.
SPEAKER_00Do you have a uh kind of a pre-race mantra? Did you have one that really helped to focus you and get you in the zone?
SPEAKER_01About all I can say on that was that my focus for the Olympic final was that this is the last race I really ever have to row. And we have a plan. I'm the stroke of this boat, and I have to execute. And since it's my last race, that's gonna happen. I'm gonna do exactly what we've planned on doing. And that's the way it went. You know, people ask us, man, god, you guys were way behind in the beginning of the race. We were right on plan. We weren't planning on being behind, trust me. We can't control what those crews do in those other lanes, but we can control what we do on our boat. And we were right on the money in stroke rate, power, and everything else. You know, and by the second 500, we had we were done losing ground to people and we were moving back already.
SPEAKER_00If you could give one piece of advice to each of these individuals, what would you say to a rower, to a coxswain, and to a coach?
SPEAKER_01As far as a rower goes, I think you you need to be steady. In a rowing race, things don't change real rapidly. You have to just hang in there and stay with it. And as far as coxswains go, I wish they wouldn't talk so much. I I think they feel like they need to do something back there to make things better. But you know, steer a straight course and give the rowers a chance to they have to figure it out themselves. You can't it just doesn't do any good to call power tens all the way down the race course. The rowers just tune that out after after a very short distance. As far as coaches go, just stay positive with the guys or girls. Just be a positive influence to them.
SPEAKER_00Well, Paul, um I've really enjoyed having you on. It was really fun to to listen to your story and to to finally meet you. I, you know, the those two books, I think I I can't even tell you how many times I read The Amateurs. I think I picked that book up. I don't actually even know where I got it. You know, when I first was starting to row and reading about all you guys was a was a big deal for me because it it kind of set uh an ideal in my mind of what a really good rower should be, how they should act, and and and what have you. And I felt like, okay, these are these are really solid guys. I want to be like them. And I know that when I read Assault on Lake Casetus, I I have literally read that book to pieces. I mean, it doesn't even stay together anymore. I have to kind of slap the book the pages back in by order if I ever wanted to read again. I have to literally read page by page, like I'm reading an essay. And it was a real honor to finally speak with you. So I appreciate it. You coming on. Uh, any other final thoughts or I'd like to add one more thing.
SPEAKER_01Um, you know about that book Peter Mallory wrote, that history of rowing, or yes. When he was writing the section about this '84 sculling camp, which there was a lot of stuff going on. And the emails amongst all of us that were involved in that started flying back and forth. And and I and I stayed out of that for the most part. You know, there was there's still bitter feelings about some of the from some of the people that that felt like they got screwed by having to race in the trials and all that. And all these emails were flying back and forth, but but it appears that I'm the only one that kept a logbook of what we did. And so finally, finally, one day I sent Peter an email and it carbon copied to everybody else, and I said, Well, Peter, I have all the boatings and distances and times and results from every practice at that camp in my logbook, if you want to know what happened. That stopped all the emails from flying back and forth. That was the end of it. And I guess maybe I'm the only one that kept a written record of what happened that year. And I'm looking at it right now.
SPEAKER_00Any interesting pieces from there or any interesting takeaways from that uh that logbook?
SPEAKER_01I just it were just brief notes in a little type calendar book you'd buy at a bookstore. I just wrote notes, and usually I just put, like at camps, if we were doing doubles, there were four doubles. I put the lineups down and the pieces we did and the distances and how the results went according to the way I saw it. And uh it's kind of nice to see it, refreshes my memory. The interesting thing is the last entry I made was was when we got down to the Olympics. Didn't write anymore after that. But when we when we got down to uh Lake Citas, that was my last entry.