The Rowing Podcast
The Rowing Podcast
Steve Gladstone
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I chat with Steve Gladstone about his early days of coaching, the underpinnings of American Rowing, architecture, and more.
In 1966, following his graduation from Syracuse University, my guest began what is today regarded as one of the most successful coaching careers in U.S. intercollegiate rowing history. He began as the freshman coach at Princeton in 66, moving on to coach the varsity lights at Harvard, where his crews posted four straight undefeated seasons, four sprints titles, and two wins at the Thames Challenge Cup and the Wifel Challenge Cup at Henley, in England. He served as head coach at the University of California, Berkeley twice, from 1973 to 80, and again from 1997 to 2008. During his time with the Golden Bears, his team had six undefeated seasons, captured five IRA titles, and won eight Pac-10 titles. In between his two stints of Cal, my guest led the heavyweight men at Brown from 1982 to 1994, during which Bruno captured four sprints titles, five IRA titles, two national collegiate rowing championship titles, and an undefeated season from 93 to 94. He's one of the founders of Resolute Racing Shells, where he was the president and the director of marketing. Currently, he's the men's heavyweight coach at Yale, where he and his team have transformed the program. For the first time in history, the heavyweight men have won three straight IRA national championships, five consecutive Sprints titles, three Row Cup Team Supremacy titles, and a victory in the Lady Split at Henley in 2015. This 14 IRA championship wins place him in a tie with Charles Pop Courtney of Cornell, my alma mater, for the most varsity eight titles in the history of collegiate rowing. I'm proud to have as my guest today, Steve Gladstone. Well, Steve, where's your hometown and you know where are you from originally?
SPEAKER_01Originally from uh the North Shore of Long Island. There's a series of towns that are all interconnected out there, Manhasset, Rosalyn, all those that area. So Port Washington.
SPEAKER_00So that that part of Long Island. What about family? What did your folks do? You know, what was kind of the what were the professions that you grew up around?
SPEAKER_01You know, my father was uh was a radio journalist, not to be mistaken, with what you see today. What you see today are, as you all know, are talking heads. He, like his uh all his contemporaries, you know, uh were uh reporters, people who wrote their material that uh that they uh put on the air. He was a mutual correspondent for the United Nations for a number of years, mutual broadcasting, and he was he was out and about in the world. Wherever there would seem to me a crisis, uh he was he was there, whether it was in South Africa or the apartheid business or the Suez Canal, but it was blocked. He was out and around and uh he loved his work. That was uh that was obvious.
SPEAKER_00You know, I'm kind of curious. It's not it's not usually a job I would imagine that one could um travel with one's parents, but uh did you ever get to go with him on any any of these kind of trips for um to get a story or a scoop or what have you? Did you ever actually get to see it in action?
SPEAKER_01Um I did the quiet ones. I was with him once. They used to have these Geneva conferences uh and I went with him once and I was I was young, I was a tag along, but uh I did have the opportunity to see him work. And occasionally, if I was on vacation from school, I would go in with him uh into New York and go into the uh into the newsroom and watch all the interaction and the various writers, journalists, and uh then watch him uh broadcast.
SPEAKER_00How did you first get exposed to rowing? When, where, you know, what what was the first time you you took a stroke?
SPEAKER_01I went to prep school at Kent, and in those days you went in the eighth grade, so I was uh what they call a second former, and it was in the spring of 19, it would have been the spring of 1955 as a little little guy. We got in boats. There were three clubs at the school. There were the Macedonians, the Algos, and the Husatonics, and each one of those clubs seem strange to hear at this time, but each one of these clubs had four or five boats of people that didn't include the two crews that represented the school in the springtime and racing. So it would have been in the fall of uh of 1955 or spring of 1955.
SPEAKER_00Didn't you and John Murphy, who's the women's head coach at Brown, weren't you guys friends or yes, we were yeah, we were good friends.
SPEAKER_01And actually we were from uh he was from Huntington, uh Long Island. So we were friends at school, and we were friends when we were out of school. It uh seemed at that time we never had enough time out of school. But uh yeah, John and I have known each other for years.
SPEAKER_00That might have been the first time you rode, but what was the thing that hooked you? Maybe that's not a moment, but there's something about the sport that's gets us all it gets us all kind of hooked for life. What was or what were those things?
SPEAKER_01Is it sophomore maybe junior year, that I made it into you know the what you would call now the varsity squad. Uh there were two boats, first boat, second boat, and I was in the second boat, and you know, just feeling the uh sort of the unified force of of of the people in the boat, I mean literally the visceral swing and drive of the boat. And the other other it was very, very intoxicating, and the other piece to it was it was such wonderful direct uh competition to boat side by side, and you could you could really quantify your your effort and the effort of the boat. I mean your boat would surge when the legs were driven. So it was overall the feel of it and the direct competitiveness of it was very, very appealing. I was captain of the football team as well. I was a linebacker and uh loved that. Uh but it wasn't it it wasn't as as appealing. It was it was very satisfying, you know, to coordinate the efforts, but the efforts were so different uh and not interconnected that in some ways it was more of an individual uh process on the water. And it didn't have the same sort of a feeling of of the boat surging. You know, a good tackle, a good hit was was fun, but it wasn't the same. So in the winter I wrestled and and so in the spring it was rowing, and I knew that rowing was, you know, although I was less physically, how would you call it, suited for the sport. I mean, I was a little over six feet and I was you know, I was blocky in those days. I was 214 pounds, 212 pounds, which was a lot uh back in those days. I was probably more physically suited for football than I was for rowing, but rowing was rowing was what captured captured me without question. You know, where did I guess where did it take you from there? Yeah, I'd be I'd be mistaken if I didn't mention uh with the rowing, one of the other major s causes, if you will, of of my getting involved for the rest of my life was the coach Thomas Dixon Walker. A very, very, very inspiring man. Not not verbally, he was very quiet. He was back in the day we'd call an old Yankee. He didn't say much, but he sure taught great rowing, and you could you could feel his competitive nature was palpable. So Tote played a huge role in rowing being sort of the the center of my life.
SPEAKER_00Steve, what story do you have for us today? What would you like to share with us?
SPEAKER_01It's gotta be a rowing story, right?
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I'll give you an abbreviated version, not of the story, but of the circumstances. I was married in between my junior and senior year at Syracuse, was married in France uh to a French woman. Uh we were married in October of 63. So I was out of Syracuse for a good part of my senior year. She couldn't get her visa uh to come back uh to the States, so I didn't get back to the States until I think it was probably late February, early March of my uh senior year. I was not able to row. I needed a job, had a baby on the way, so life turned pretty radically at that point in uh the direction of what I would call at that point survival. I finished my degree in the summer of uh summer of uh 64. I think it probably was mighty late July, early August. The first job I applied for was a coaching job at Dartmouth and didn't get it. So I went to work in New York with uh advertising firm, uh Baton, Barton, Derson, and Osborne, not with the intention of that was going to be my life's work, uh, not even close. It was something I needed a job, and uh that was there. The Dartmouth job didn't unfold. So I worked in New York City for about close to two years. It was around Thanksgiving time of the following year that I had a call from Vic Michelson, who had been my freshman coach at Syracuse, uh who was a brilliant coach. And he was the head coach at Brown, and he called me up and said, Steve Dutch at Princeton, that's Fred's dad, has had a heart attack, and they've relieved him of his uh crew coaching duties, and Pete Sparhawk has been elevated to the head coach position. Why don't you apply? So I was absolutely thrilled. Got the job by default. The first choice uh was Bill Stowe. Bill had uh just uh stroked the USA to a gold medal at the Olympics in Tokyo. He was two years ahead of me at Kent and was an outstanding oarsman at Cornell. I think maybe one, maybe two IRA winners. And Bill said, no, I'm not interested. I don't know what he had in mind uh at that point for work, but he was not interested in the uh that job. And then the next person that uh Pete went after, that's Pete Swarhawk, the head coach, was Tony Johnson. And Tony was at the beginning of a brilliant international career rowing. And Tony said, no, I'm I'm not gonna do it. I can't do it because if I get paid, uh I lose my amateur status. Essentially, I got the job by default, and and that made sense. My rowing career was, you know, we'd won the Eastern Sprints as freshman, and we had a good sophomore year. I've forgotten where we finished, maybe fourth at the sprints. But it was not, you know, it was not a rowing career of any real note. So it made sense that those two guys would uh be the first picks, but I got it by default, went down there, and for about a month I was commuting from New York City uh on the bus, which was uh a long haul. Oh wow, okay. Right. And uh, you know, once once we got on the water, it was immediately clear to me that this is that I just love the work. Uh and that was that was the beginning of a coaching career. And I was, you know, on I guess it was difficult because I didn't get the Dartmouth job, but I did get the uh Princeton job. And uh from that point on it's been the uh been the focus of my life. That's that's the story.
SPEAKER_00You know, I'd like to kind of dig in a little bit more and ask about, you know, what was year one like? I asked that because I've had a number of coaches on who've talked about their first their first year of really sinking their teeth in to coaching. Can you talk about the first year? A lot is learned in that first year.
SPEAKER_01Simply because it took a long time for Pete to get a coach. So my you know, my first year began in December, and of course the racing season began in March. Yeah, let me give a little background. Uh at this time uh in U.S. rowing, a lot of the older coaches, the veterans, the people who had been around for years who had been very, very well grounded in their rowing and also in their coaching. And these were almost to the man, they were Washington men. You know, I can they uh they were you know uh Vic Michelson, for example, uh at Brown, and you had Dutch Schock, who was at Princeton, you had Lauren Shoel at Syracuse, you had Norm Sanjou at Wisconsin, Tom Bowles had been at Harvard, Rainey had been at uh Columbia, McMillan had been at MIT, uh you had E. Bright, who had been at uh at Cal. So many Stork Sanford, of course, at Cornell, who was one of the premier coaches. And a lot of them were that were at the very end of their careers and were being uh replaced by a younger generation of coaches that didn't have didn't have the same grounding. Up until up until 1960, uh the U.S. had won the eight, very often by fractions of seconds, but the U.S. had won the eight. In 1960, they didn't. The U.S. Naval Academy represented the United States at the Olympic Games. It sort of came out of nowhere because that Navy crew had won very few races uh that year, uh, but they won the trials. The strong crews in those years were where Cal had won the IRA. I think Washington was in that group. But whatever, the Naval Academy, I think, came in, came in fourth. The crew that beat them was a West German crew, amongst others, was a West German crew from Rotzeburg, Germany, and the their coach was Carl Adam, who had never rode. He was a physics teacher, and his sport had been boxing. He had an entirely different, uh, very original take on what to do, what how to move a boat, and it he was the first coach actually to have uh the slide uh move through the pin. Uh they wrote a much higher rating, very front-end oriented stroke. And so they were in vogue, uh which has happened so often in the United States, it's it's in some ways it's uh disheartening. But they were in vogue, so we were all searching. Searching, and so the Ratzburg style, if you want to call it, or the Ratzburg method, was what a good number of the American coaches, not all, but were trying to were were looking to uh imitate. And of course, imitation is deadly uh because you do really understand the you know the the rationale behind what the training is and and and the stroke itself. You know, the U.S., you know, all through the heyday of American collegiate growing, you know, it'd been long distance rows, low cadences, long distance rows, which came back into vote with the East Germans paradoxically, and is present now. But at that time, you know, a good uh a workout would be we're gonna go do four times 500 meters, you know, with a certain amount of rest in between, and then we're gonna do three times two uh 1,000 meters. So that that's what most people were imitating. And I I came in, I looked at it, and you know, and said, well, okay, this you know, this is what's going on, and this is what you know Pete wanted to pursue, and of course I you know fell in line with that. But I had very, very little knowledge other than my own experience. I had some thoughts about it, but very little hard knowledge. The long, long, one, long story. I, you know, in the beginning it was it was a probably a pretty poor imitation of what Ratzburg was doing. This but the the first year, in some ways, certainly psychologically, informed what I've done for the rest of my career. Uh the quick story with that is that that freshman crew at Princeton was stroked by Bill Titus, who's a Seattle guy, and he had gone to Lakeside, and he had spent a lot of time under the tutelage of both uh Stan and George Pocock. So he was he was he was knowledgeable and he knew how to move a boat and he was also inspiring. So he stroked the boat, we opened against Rectors and won that race, and then the Naval Academy and beat the plebes. And I thought we were doing pretty well. And essentially, when I was in the coaching launch, I was just trying to get people to do things together, and you know, not really looking at the relationship of one movement to another. It wasn't particularly effective. Maybe visually it looked coherent, but it wasn't anywhere close to uh efficient. But and then we went up, it was the Compton Cup, raced Harvard and lost by, oh, I'd say 16, 17 seconds on the Charles and then came back uh the next weekend uh raced in the I think it's called is it the Child's Cup, the Penn Princeton. Yeah, maybe it's Child's Cup. That sounds right. That sounds right, yeah. Yeah, and we we lost that by the same margin. These were put to put this into context, those were really bad beatings. They were over a mile and three quarters, so it might be it makes it a little less uh devastating. But we didn't, I didn't, and the crew didn't uh lose its uh lose any of its enthusiasm, and we kept pounding away at what we were doing, feeling confident that we could turn it around. And uh we went to the sprints uh and we didn't turn it around. I I we might have been in the small finals, and if not in the small finals, the very bottom of the grand final. But that we you know we were all undaunted, and uh we got together, we knew that what we would have been doing clearly didn't work. So we had a little conference, the crew decided, and this is this is a very key piece. The crew decided, you know, I gathered with them and Bill was I think Bill was was the voice of the crew, Bill Titus. And we came up with a strategic, very thought-out, physiologically appropriate solution to our problem. And the solution to our problem was we were gonna stop eating desserts that was one piece, uh after every practice would do 30 jumpies. So that was the the the physiologically thought out uh strategy for improving our speed. Of course, I'm being you know I mean this is true, true story. So so so we went up to we went up to Syracuse where the where the races were, and uh in those days uh the uh varsity was three miles. I believe the JV the J V and freshman were two miles. I think that was it. I know the freshman race was uh was two miles, that's for sure. And we had a uh you know, we had a time trial and where the varsity started first way back at the three mile mark, and then with J's and then us, and we'd go. And we did reasonably well in that time trial. I think we finished ahead of the Jays. So the day of the race came, it was just one race. The crew just took off, led the race right up until the last 30 strokes, and then Penn went through. But they went from being very slow to very fast. I mean, they were second at the IRA. So you you know all the uh the other competitors. I mean, that includes Cornell, Navy, Washington, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. No, Washington's uh, I guess Washington's freshman traveled, I'm not sure. But from that point on, it became very clear to me, and it it and it it was clear, and it it it happened, that a crew's expectations, as unrealistic as they might appear to be from time to time, let those expectations flourish. Don't worry about them being being disappointed if if they don't. And the other piece, probably which is more important, is the if you want to call it the influence or power when the group decides, the oarsmen decide on a strategy. That strategy can be uh certainly massaged and the coach will have an influence, but there's nothing in my experience that's more powerful than the people who are actually going to be on the water racing, feeling that this is their game. So that was a great, you know, that's a long story, but there's a very, very important lesson there that that I learned at that particular time.
SPEAKER_00At the time, did that the synthesis of that occur, did that occur at that time? Like did you have, did that insight occur to you at the conclusion of that season, or did it take you some time to look back and think, you know, that's kind of what I pulled from that? The reason I asked that is if that insight occurred to you at that time, do you use that lesson rather almost immediately moving forward in the in the years that followed?
SPEAKER_01Uh yes, the answer is yes. I mean, it it morphed uh in many different ways. But essentially, and this is probably not great insight for other people, uh, you become a band of brothers. You do you don't form friendships with the oarsmen. That's that's not appropriate uh when you're coaching them uh simply because you're gonna have to bring bad news sometimes and they could be confused if they thought you were their friend. But what what it it does speak to is putting across communicating the notion that this is your game. It's not Coach Gladstone's game, it's your game. Coach will guide you, coach will talk about the the training format, uh he'll give rationale, he'll take some input from time to time, the notion that uh when you're on the water, and what you do on the water has a direct impact on the outcome of the race. I believe I've always made that clear. And it's not shifting responsibility, it's really allowing their unity, their strength to come together by somewhat getting out of their way. So the answer is yeah, uh, that's true. It doesn't, it doesn't mean that uh that the basic training formats are are of course of as a coach, you influence those because you have you know certain knowledge, but you certainly consult with the crew and get a sense of how they're responding to what's going on rather than simply you know getting out of the launch and going into your locker room. It's the idea of we're we're in this together, we have different roles, but it's your game.
SPEAKER_00Well, you're talking about essentially just ownership.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00You know, are you owning the process or are you kind of a passenger and just asking somebody to tell you what to do? Yeah. Um and the the difference is pretty profound.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and you're you're uh Matt, you're absolutely right. I'd I'd use that word. It's really profound. It's it's something to to be to function that way, to present that way, however, takes a lot of faith yourself as a coach, which means have the strength to not overwhelm what the oarsmen are doing, not to take it away from them. When things get shaky, you have to project a confidence in yourself and confidence in them.
SPEAKER_00In a lot of ways, it's the um ownership, but also I think the enthusiasm and the passion for what you're doing. And from the perspective of the athletes, I mean, you know, the athletes having those things. And I do remember my, I think it was my senior year, and it's not a not a crew that I was part of, and it wasn't, you know, wasn't my team, but um when I wrote at Cornell, that the heavyweight guys, no, it was my sophomore year or junior year, when uh Todd had moved up, he was the coach for the heavyweights at Cornell. What I I really actually want to talk about isn't so much the new coach. It was just I noticed that some of the guys who were in my class who made the varsity that year, I remember them kind of talking about that was the first that was the first time in a long time that Cornell had made the grand final in the IRA and they and they got a bronze. And it was very, it was a very fast crew historically for you know the last maybe 10, 20 years of the heavyweight history there. But I do remember very distinctly that the guys in that boat were just super gung-ho about let's do this. You know, they would watch rowing movies, they'd be talking about it all the time. And it, you know, it wasn't like uh it just felt very different. You could tell there was a mentality shift of like we're super excited about this, we're excited about leaving our mark, we want to row as well as possible, like we just want to leave a piece of ourselves in the boat. And it really changed a lot. You know, I don't know that necessarily they were, I mean, they were probably fitter. You know, maybe they rode a little bit differently, a little bit more cohesively. Those are all factors, but the mentality of those guys was very different. I remember it really distinctly. They were just so invested in like, I want to make this happen. You know, even if we don't have the best erg scores out there, or, you know, we're rowing this boat versus you know that boat or whatever, we're not a West Coast crew, it didn't really matter. It really just kind of came down to their kind of their heart being in it. And it was very in it to a point that you just really noticed the difference. Um and that year just seems to stand out to me. You know, the guys were just so into it, and the boat went really fast. And you're like, what changed? Like, you know, I don't I don't really know if it was anything other than just like just being willing to put your put yourself into the boat and for real.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you know, Matt Matt, here's here's something I've noticed from a coaching standpoint, uh coach to coach. It's understandable, you know, when you go to rowing seminars and you know, US rowing conventions. It seems most coaches want to spend time on what are the biomechanics of the stroke. That's boy, is that important, not to be diminished. They want to spend time on the physiological, the periodization of training. Boy, is that important. But the psychological piece is as you pointed out, there probably wasn't much difference between the training modalities between those two Cornell crews, or even the way they rode. But the psychology of the group wasn't, as you told me, was entirely different. And coach, you know, this sounds uh I don't I I don't mean I don't want to be lecturing, but as young coaches, the people out there ought to be spending as much time with trying to fathom the psychological element to this, uh how to foster what you just described, which is the ownership, the enthusiasm. With ownership comes enthusiasm. In dictatorships, do this, do that, do this, do that. It takes an unusual group to overcome that kind of that kind of presentation. So yeah, spend more time on on what it is that causes people to come to a point where they have real enthusiasm for the work. That's not to say that sloshing over to the gym in cold wintertime, getting on an erg is not work. But you can even in those circumstances, you can have enthusiasm for the work. There can be some jokes, there can be, you know, uh a levity to it. So yeah, I'm just trying to reinforce what you just said, Matt, and probably didn't need to.
SPEAKER_00No, no, no, no. I know I thought it was good. You know, there was a guy, um, I'll I'll I'll kind of cap off this section with uh there was a fellow that wrote, he was my second class at uh Washington that I recruited. His name was Max Rennie. He was an Australian guy. Uh he wrote at Scotch College, and I think, you know, Max made uh the the four and the three V. I think he was he would bounce between the two V and three V. You know, he was he was a solid athlete, no doubt about it. But uh, I don't really so much want to talk about his athletic prowess as more of his just his attitude. You know, the winter months, I mean, frankly, let's be honest, the winter months anywhere can be not very fun. You know, if you're in the northeast, it's cold and you can't row. If you're in the in the northwest, other than California, maybe, if you're in the northwest, you know, it's rainy and it's darker. It's kind of like an Alaskan winter. But um this guy had an uncanny ability to be joyful and funny and extroverted in the crappiest of conditions and days. And I gotta tell you, as a coach, it was refreshing. And he we even, I believe there was a piece done on him in his senior year, just kind of you know, Mike wrote something about him because you know he was very much a cultural leader. But the idea of it's like, oh, it's sunny and beautiful outside and the water's flat. Oh, it's a great day for a row. Oh, it's raining and 35 degrees and the water's terrible. It's a great day for a row. It's like the same response regardless of whatever you're presented with. Yeah. And it was almost as if the worse it got, the more funny, joyful, extroverted he would be. And I think people would really pick up on that. And, you know, the the random days that he might have been out for you know being sick or something, you really noticed there was a significant vacuum in that room of, boy, it's a little quieter in here, isn't it? Or it's a lot quieter in here. You know, maybe for the athletes who are listening to, realize how much that changes the landscape. You know, even if you feel silly coming in and you know, kind of hooting and hollering and bringing that, you're like, you might feel like, oh, maybe I'm overdoing it a little bit. You know what? You might not be. It might have a more positive effect than you realize. Right now, you know, if you're training at home, calling a buddy and saying, hey, let's do an ERC piece when? Like an hour from now. Let's just like do it together and let's compare scores. Right. And you know, just like little things like that. I think it really means something.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah, no, I, you know, you know, people of that nature are just so valuable. And it's interesting, Matt, you mentioned very often, not always, but very often people of that nature are not the guys that are necessarily in your top eights. And in that respect, they're even more uh, how would you call it, more revered. Some of the uh most influential people in terms of tone and joy for the process are those that aren't because people recognize they're in it for more than just being in the varsity eight. They're in it because they friggin' love it. Uh and they love to bring it. And those kinds of people, you just said it, are just totally inspiring and can transform a crew. A crew, I mean a squad. And uh I know when we recruit here at Yale, absolutely the first criteria is do they really love it? It's it's not that you know the sincere young man says, well, coach, I really hate to lose. Yeah, I yeah, right. But if if you can somehow discern, right? If you can somehow discern if these people have just an absolute passion for the sport, the chances are you're gonna get a good man, whether he's you know, so you're gonna get somebody who's gonna have a powerful positive impact on your squad, no matter what boat he's in. And one of the greatest examples of that in my coaching life, not to diminish uh in any way diminish the terrific people that I've coached at Yale and at Cal, and I have, but probably the person that stands out to me the most was in 1994 at Brown. Every boat in that boathouse, every single boat, that included you know, what was undefeated. That includes the sprints at the IRA, is when the IRA had straight fours and four widths and pairs. They were unbeaten. The captain of that crew, his name was Dave Schopler, he was in the middle of the third varsity. And the captain of the crew was elected by the teammates. Yeah, yeah. And and Dave was just a great spirit. He was actually he was he his sense of humor was very, you know, he was not a big joke teller, but you know, he always had a twinkle in his eye. He had some funny add-on. He did a uh uh, as I've been told, you know, and he did it with frequency when I wasn't there. I guess a great parody of Coach Gladstone, which would get people broken up before the practice, which is invaluable. And then what did he do upon graduation? He became a Navy SEAL and was in the SEAL teams for 20 years. And uh one of his assignments was at Annapolis to recruit Academy guys into the teams, and uh he was coaching down there. But whatever it is, there's an example. So it doesn't have to be your top guys. He certainly wasn't, but he was a top human being. People recognized it and brought and he brought so much to uh the table in terms of morale.
SPEAKER_00We could probably think of examples all day. I mean, there's people like this that is great. They're fantastic people. Steve, 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? Direct, thoughtful, and flawed. Internally, what drives you and motivates you?
SPEAKER_01It's coaching, being in a position to mentor and influence the I guess, influence the character of the people that I coach. Let me be clear. Having the boats, the oars, and a code influence the the people that that I coach.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. What's something that or some things that you know kind of tend to turn you off?
SPEAKER_01Lack of sincerity, uh, lack of honesty, those two things I think are are for me are are major turnoffs. Not reaching a goal to me is fine if full measure is given, or if the attempt at full measure is given. But lack of sincerity, you know, what what we see nowadays, I've said this probably 15 times in the last six, seven months, optics, where a person's need to appear a particular way, let's say uh appear to have uh empathy or you know, appear to be thoughtful, is more important than actually being thoughtful. So I'd I'd call it posturing, falseness. It I find that I find that very disheartening. And there's a lot of it going on. Who is somebody that you admire in rowing and why? Uh boy, there are a lot of people. Obviously, my coach at Kent at Toke Walker, another person who is in my by my thoughts are really unsung, is Victor Michelson, who was a Washington Oarsman, I believe a JV Oarsman in the 30s. He was my freshman coach at Syracuse. He was very, very good. Then what he did at Brown, and what I mean by unsung, he was their first full-time varsity coach, or their varsity coach. He labored under really extremely difficult circumstances. He had a little boathouse unheeded, he did everything. Uh he had a part-time freshman coach, but he rigged the boats, fixed the boats. He built the Brown program that I inherited when I went there in 1981. And he, his crews at Brown were always competitive, way almost always outgunned by any kind of recruiting. And he was a modest, modest man. I mean, to give you an idea, when he was the freshman coach at Syracuse, he would get up at four o'clock in the morning and he organized a paper route. So he would get papers to the various delivery boys. He did that for years, uh, so that he could coach. They don't make him like Vic Michelson anymore. Yeah. Another another guy would be Joe Burke. Uh there are there are a number of coaches that uh that I admire. Stan Bergman would be another, you know, the ex-coach at Penn, just a phenomenal human being and a phenomenal coach. There are more. There are lots there are lots of them uh out there, and uh so it's it's really hard to single it out. I'm sure what I'll do is after this uh conversation is over, I'm gonna say, Jesus, I left out so-and-so or left out so-and-so. Oh, oh, the other uh you know, out in your area, I mean the other people, uh I knew Stan Pocock well. I knew George not well, uh, although had many conversations with him. But when I think of American rowing, boy, how how can you how can you not recognize their influence uh on the sport? I I guess I don't want to keep going on, but those are people of that I admire enormously. Joe Burke would be another.
SPEAKER_00I think no, it's just interesting because you're the one who brought it up. I mean, you you said when you were talking earlier about, you know, all these people, these coaches were they kind of came from actually came from Washington. And the thing that actually dawned on me was not the Washington piece, it was that, you know, they were all probably to one degree or another exposed to George Pocock, which just I think you know, you hear about him today, and for folks who may not have all those connections, you start to realize, oh my gosh, did that family really impact our sport? I mean, way more than some people might realize, because you know, whether or not it's the boats or what have you, but they coached so many people who became coaches all over the country that affected the way that our rowing, you know, our rowing culture here, our rowing, you know, what have you uh has evolved. I mean, it's just nuts. It's actually kind of amazing. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01It's I mean, without question, I mean it the uh their influence on all those coaches is just enormous. Therefore, from it's essentially the first the first Washington man that came back east, to my understanding, was Ed Leader. And I think it was in the early 1920s, like because he was he coached the six the 24th. Olympic gold medal crew. So it was probably here at least two years before that. And then there's just a flood came back, and they were all Pocock men. They were Washington men for sure, but they were all Pocock men. So from twenties, thirties, forties, 50s, 60s, for 50 years, essentially, from George and Stan came this American collegiate rowing. So yeah, it very, very powerful. Do you have a favorite boat class?
SPEAKER_00Oh, yeah, the eight, without question. What about racing distance? Do you have one in particular that maybe as an athlete or even as a coach that was just, you know, it's the one that you always like to race?
SPEAKER_01The racing distance that I would love to see come back is what we used to have, which was basically a three-mile championship. And why would you like to see that? Technique enhanced, efficiency enhanced, metal toughness enhanced. Matt, talk to any Yale or Harvard oarsman about the four-miler that they race. They'll tell you about it. I race three miles, but that was a long time ago. But it is an incredibly difficult contest. You know, to be able to pace, measure, tactics, it's uh it's it's tough. And it's a consequence. It's it's not to say 2,000 meters isn't. 2,000 meters is is enormously challenging. And that you asked me what my favorite is, and that would be it. I won't I won't try to compare the two.
SPEAKER_00Well, I mean, what you described almost the describes uh some of the things that some of the oarsmen who've done the the boat race, Oxford, Cambridge, who said you know, similar things. Yep. Um, it uh it changes you. There's a lot of emotional roller coasters. It's an emotional roller coaster for sure. No doubt about doing that one well. Prior to a performance, a race, you know, anything really, very high level in one's mind. Do you have a a pre-race, uh a particular way that you like to prepare before a big performance or a race or what have you, you know, like a pre-race mantra, something that really helps you dial in and focus and have your best performance.
SPEAKER_01No, uh basically the evening before races, we go over logistics and then we reaffirm that what we want to do on race day is do what we do in practice. It's the reminder not to try to overdo, but do work, work within the framework of your training, reminding them that whether it's the IRA or the four-mile race, is that all the preparation is done and just let it happen. Don't overthink it, don't over-effort it. Just go out and do your deal.
SPEAKER_00What about uh favorite regatta or race course?
SPEAKER_01Do you have one? Yeah, I think the favorite 2,000 meter race course, I guess I'm a little biased to the west, I think is Natoma. Uh, I think Natoma's a terrific course. As an event, uh, there's nothing like Henley. The the two major races, you know, the Eastern Sprints and the uh and the IRA. And I've all all already said what I had to say about the Four Miler. Yeah, I they're all compelling.
SPEAKER_00Well, it's interesting. A lot of folks have have said the Telma. And I know, at least just from a coaching perspective, logistically, I love that regatta much more. Oh wow. Just because, you know, you can you can just, you know, even the simple stuff like you know, getting the trailer in, having a place for everybody to congregate, you know, have okay, here's where the boats go. You know, it's just so orderly how it's done. And even though the times aren't necessarily the fastest there, because they're not, you know, they're historically, if you look at the times, like you're gonna get a much faster time in Mercer or what used to be Cherry Hill. Yeah. Um, but you know, whatever. I mean, it's really much more about the you know, the boats in relation to one another. But uh yeah, just you know, the way that the grandstand is set up, it feels like a championship. I mean, uh there's something about that place. I'm like, yeah, this is like the it's like this is the drag strip. I like being at the drag strip.
SPEAKER_01I don't I I couldn't agree more. It just seems more professional. Yeah, it's a it's a it's a terrific course. I think Cherry Hill could be now. It's been dredged, I've been told, so the lanes are now even. That would that would be a good spot. For 2,000 meters, Natoma, I think, is the best.
SPEAKER_00What profession other than your own would you like to attempt? Hmm.
SPEAKER_01In my family, I like I like buildings, I like architecture. I had uh family members on my mother's side of the family that were in construction, some stonemasons, some architects. I wouldn't trade coaching for anything, but if I weren't a coach, I certainly would not be in an office. I'm not, I don't have interest in commerce. I I respect it, but architecture. I've got a lot of uncles, got three uncles that were uh architects. Both my sons are are artists, and they one the youngest one made a decision between fine arts and architecture uh when he was at Brown. But I like building, I like looking at buildings. I would have enjoyed the development process and the construction process of building, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Are you familiar with Frank Lloyd, right? Oh, I sure am. I love his architecture. Between him and um I can't believe I'm blanking on the name right now, but he did a ton of uh landscape architecture, Olmsted. Yes between him and Olmsted.
SPEAKER_01I I coached his I coached uh Jay Olmsted at Brown. He was a six-man in that uh 87 boat, which was very you did not. Yeah, I did. And and yeah, Jay Jay Olmsted actually went after Brown, he went to uh uh went to Harvard and their School of Uh Landscape Architecture. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know how how many generations would Jay have been removed if he graduated, say if he graduated in 88.
SPEAKER_00Oh my gosh, I'm trying to think because maybe not. I think it might have actually just been a grandfather. The reason I I say that is that um Buffalo, New York, which is my hometown, um, has really been has really been touched by Frank Ledwright's architecture and by Olmsted's landscape architecture work. I mean, it's a gorgeous city architecturally. I mean, a buddy of mine who was in college with me, you know, when I told him where it was from, he said, Oh, that's like a that's kind of akin to an architectural mecca. There's so much there. And people don't really realize it sometimes how beautiful it is and how some of those buildings, how how impactful they were in the architecture community. So you're so you're a Buffalo guy. Do you know the origin of the name of your city? Uh well, there's there's a couple of theories around it. One is that it's a it's borrowed from the French word uh Beaufleve, I think. That's right. Yeah. And I've heard that, and there's there's a lot of there's a lot to support that one. So that seems to be the the one that everybody rallies behind. There was something to do with the labeling of the Buffalo River or you know, some other geographical um landmark that it was kind of borrowed from, but uh, I'm pretty sure it's from the French. Yeah, that's um at least I like to think it is.
SPEAKER_01So that yeah, and you know what that means. Beau is beautiful and fleuve are is rapids in in old French.
SPEAKER_00That's my understanding as well. Probably some sort of a reference to Niagara Falls or at least the river that's going through to it. Yeah, pretty special. Well, to close things off, if you could give one piece of advice to each of the following three people, what would you say to a rower, to a coxswain, and to a coach?
SPEAKER_01To both the rower and the coxswain, I would say this endeavor to do your very best. Make the comparison of yourself where you were the day before, and just stay focused on your team and what you can bring to your team, both as an active athlete, and understand that what you do, how you behave, influences the whole, influences the group. You have a tremendous opportunity to bring, you know, bring your squad forward. The the coach, I'd say this the less this process is about you, the happier you'll be, the more it's about you, the more unhappy you'll be. Ego is a big destroyer. Engage in bringing the people that you're coaching forward, and that's it. Always ask the question, what's in the best interest of the squad? Don't try to please. That's deadly. You know, if you if you try to please, you're gonna lose your integrity. And uh make it less about you and more about what you can do to bring the squad forward. So that's that might sound a little bit contradictory, but that's what I'd say.
SPEAKER_00Awesome. Well, Steve, thank you so much for joining today. Uh it was great to talk to you. Some some good stories along the way, and I think some great insights. And um, you know, I hope people enjoy it. So thank you again. Okay, Matt, thank you so much.