The Rowing Podcast
The Rowing Podcast
Tori Murden McClure - First Woman & American to Cross the Atlantic
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https://www.pocockfoundation.org/donate
https://www.amazon.com/ROW-Dawn-Landes/dp/B08JZKTWQN
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4600888-a-pearl-in-the-storm
Hey guys, this is Matt with the Rowing Podcast. Do you remember the first time you got into a rowing shell? While rowing has been a part of my life for a very long time, for many kids, it's never even an option. That's why the George Pocock Rowing Foundation was started. Centered in Seattle, where the legendary boat builder started his work, the GPRF reaches kids across the country to help them find, start, and stay rowing. The people at the Foundation believe that rowing changes lives on and off the water. They've been leading innovative programs since 1984, working to get more kids to unlock the amazing opportunities that rowing provides, promoting more racial, cultural, gender, economic, and lifestyle diversity in boat houses throughout the United States. Join me in learning more and giving back at www.pocock foundation.org. She was also the first woman and first American to ski to the geographic South Pole, and the first woman to climb the Lewis Nonattac in the Antarctic. My guest is the president of Spaulding University, a private Catholic university in Louisville, Kentucky. She wrote a memoir about her amazing journey in a pearl in the storm, how I found my heart in the middle of the ocean. I'm honored to have as my guest today Tori Merton McClure. Tori, it's wonderful to have you on the podcast. Thank you so much for making time. You've got a lot on your plate these days as a you know as a president of a major university. So thanks for joining.
SPEAKER_00Thanks. Thanks for having me. Yeah, things are things are busy in the higher education world.
SPEAKER_01I would imagine. I'm kind of curious how, you know, without going into too much detail, but how are you guys dealing with the really with a new situation where you know there's a lot of virtual education happening? And I mean, this this is kind of an interesting trend among a lot of industries, you know, telehealth, et cetera. How are you guys making the transition, if you will? How are you how are you dealing with it?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so I uh I'm the president at Spaulding University, which is a fairly small school in downtown Louisville. So the social unrest has been challenging because we are right in the heart of downtown, and so we've, you know, had some windows and doors broken, but uh windows can be replaced, lives cannot, and I certainly uh support the protesters. Maybe not the ones that set a car on fire that belong to Spaulding, but everybody else. Um I'm also the acting board chair uh for the NCAA. So life has been really quite interesting. Um and I I I relate to that that curse. May you live in interesting times. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01You've built quite an amazing list of accomplishments. Um I I would say kind of an extreme sport accomplishment. Um obviously you're a rower, but you know, with what you've done with your crossings of the Atlantic, with what you've done, you know, in your adventures in the uh the the South Pole, I mean you're kind of a you're kind of a world adventurer. There's there's just not there was kind of an age of exploration with, you know, I'm a big fan of a book called Endurance. Um Yeah, a hundred. I mean, I've I've I've read andor listened to that story a bunch of times. Um my coach in college was the first one who told me about that, Chris Kerber. He said, you know, if you want to read a book that I don't know, will kind of like bring tears to your eyes, you should really check out uh endurance. And and man, that was the same kind of thing. So when I when I hear about this exploration work that you've done in the in the South Pole, I think, geez, you you must have seen some really interesting things. But maybe we can start far earlier. Where's your hometown?
SPEAKER_00So I was born in Brooksville, Florida, but it was not my fault. Um both my brothers, both my brothers were from Louisville, Kentucky. Uh, and my mother's family was all from Louisville, and I came to Louisville as I was in a teenager to take care of a grandmother who had Alzheimer's. But the quid pro quo was I got to go to a very good school. I'd been in public schools until the 10th grade and and uh went to a prep school for my last three years and made all the difference, put me on a very different path than the one I was on.
SPEAKER_01Could you expand on that a little bit? How do you mean?
SPEAKER_00Well, I was, you know, a rough and tumble teenager, and I grew up with a brother who's intellectually disabled. And it was a period of time in our history where, you know, folks with differences weren't very well treated, and spent most of my sort of developmental years defending my brother from bullying and other things. And when I moved to Louisville, Kentucky, my brother stayed with my parents when I moved in with my grandmother, who was quite ill at the time. And it was my first experience of not being beaten or not having to defend someone, and it was baffling to me. I really couldn't understand that it was my brother that made the difference. And so grew up with kind of a fire in my belly, like many people do, of um railing against injustice and and uh helplessness. I guess my own villain is my own sense of helplessness.
SPEAKER_01Can you tell us a little bit more about your family? I mean, uh, maybe what your your mom and dad did professionally. Were they involved in sports as well? You know, maybe that's a little bit about how you may have caught the itch for rowing.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So uh neither of my parents are athletic. My father literally can cut his hands on newsprint. Um, my mother will pass out if you throw a ball in her direction. So I'm a genetic freak somehow. Um, because I grew up really um using sports as my entree. We moved quite a lot when I was growing up. And so uh sports was my way to make friends and and meet people and and gain a level of acceptance.
SPEAKER_01Which which sports did you play growing up?
SPEAKER_00I'm six feet tall, so I played basketball um and softball. Basically, I played the sport of the season, and I remember sort of hitting that sixth grade, seventh grade partition where you know, until that time, girls and boys can like play side by side and there's no there's no differentiating. But you hit seventh grade and all of a sudden girls aren't allowed to play football anymore. I was heartbroken. It was the one sport where I could pick boys up and drop them on their heads and I wouldn't get in trouble for it.
SPEAKER_01It was awesome. How did you get into rowing? I mean, where did when did this happen? How did it happen? You know, what was your first exposure to the sport?
SPEAKER_00So I didn't row until college, like many people. Um, and I went to Smith uh for college and I was walking through the gymnasium at Smith College and I ran into a woman named Rita Benson. And Rita Benson was a grand dame. She had been at Smith since I think 1944, and this was 1981, probably. And she was the sorting hat of Smith College. And I, you know, all but bumped into her and she stared through me, sized me up, and and she said, You will row. And I, you know, said, Yes, ma'am, because she was the sort of woman that you said yes, ma'am, too. And uh, and so her her sorting hat decided I was gonna be a rower. I also played basketball, um, but learned to row while at Smith. It was, you know, such a great gift.
SPEAKER_01Well, I can't help myself. Uh, I'm I'm gonna be I'm gonna sound like a bit of a nerd asking this, but you know, I've read the books, seen the movies. I'm not really a huge fan of it, but I know enough about it. But when you say sorting hat, I've never even heard of sorting hat. And the only thing that comes into my mind is the hat and Harry Potter, where they're sorting the kids to go to the different the different houses. What what is a sorting hat? Who's who what is that role?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so it it is from Harry Potter, and uh I don't remember how I described Rita Benson prior to Harry Potter, but I was looking for a way to kind of describe the Rita Benson character to young people. Um, obviously, as a university president, I I speak to young people all the time, and they get younger and I get older, and that's how it is. And and uh occasionally references that I use get completely lost. Like when I uh was skiing to the South Pole, I got into pretty deep trouble because I forgot to wind my watch. Now you tell a young person that you forgot to wind your watch, and they look at you like you've like come from a different planet. Um, but I forgot to wind my watch, and because I forgot to wind my watch, I didn't know what time it was. And if I had been by myself, that meant I couldn't navigate because I needed time and a sextant to be able to know exactly where I was. So references uh have to change with time. The other reference that I can no longer use is I used to talk about uh um a young woman who sorted the world into two categories. You were either underwear or pantyhose. Underwear was good and pantyhose were bad. But young women don't wear pantyhose anymore, but they were bad.
SPEAKER_01Jeez, wow, okay. Fair enough. Um so other than kind of being commanded to take the sport on, what I mean, you stuck with it for a while. So what hooked you about the sport of rowing and why did you I'm assuming you developed a love for it? You must have. So what uh what helped with that?
SPEAKER_00I did, you know, one of the great things about rowing is it it's a great equalizer. You everybody succeeds or fails together. There's no there are no stars in rowing, right? That you know, the stroke might be a little more reliable, seven seat might be a little more, you know, smooth things out. But every while every seat has its personality, I was a six seat, by the way. That sense of camaraderie, that sense of uh really being in it together. Of course, my my well-known exploits were in a single skull, a really big single skull that I rode across the ocean. But you know, my probably my favorite uh rowing experiences were in a uh a double um after college, uh rowing in sort of master circuits. And there are women that I still uh have coffee with every Sunday morning that I think of as my rowing sisters. And um, so I wrote a book named A Pearl in the Storm, and two very clever people, Dawn Landis and Danny Goldstein, have written a musical based on the book. You know, Woman Rowing a Boat Alone Across the Ocean just screams musical, doesn't it? But they've actually they've actually done it. And and my favorite characters, they they have my my rowing sisters um are in the musical. They're sort of my muses that come and tell me wise things, but uh um their alter egos are Dolly Parton, Cher, and Tina Turner. And it's pretty interesting.
SPEAKER_01How long has that been out for? I mean, I've I I have no exposure to that, so now I have to go watch it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, no, it's not it's not even out yet. It uh it was supposed to have its world premiere this summer, but of course got canceled by COVID. They're getting ready to record it in a few weeks for Audible.com. Yeah, I wish them all the best. I have no economic interests, no editorial rights. I gave them the rights freely and said, it's your story. And um, I know they've had, you know, they've had their hurricanes, they've had their challenges, um, but I wish them well. Don Landis did just uh um launch a CD. Uh it's called Row R O W. And uh it's the music from the musical, uh, but recorded with artists in all from sort of the Louisville area. So um it's it's quite charming.
SPEAKER_01Very cool. That actually sounds pretty interesting. I think um if I can, maybe just drop me a link or help me find a link to it. I'll I'll put it in the episode description. Hopefully, people can find it and enjoy it.
SPEAKER_00Actually, there are two um there are two songs out that Don has put out on YouTube. Um, one's called Mount Everest. Uh again, it's Dawn Landis, L-A-N-D-E-S, and the other is Dear Amelia as in Amelia Earhart, um, which are two songs for the musical that she has um added video to. Um, but they're free and available to the public.
SPEAKER_01You've accomplished a lot of really amazing feats. Again, you're working in the South Pole, you were crossing the Atlantic. Um, I would like to talk to you a little bit about your first attempt to cross the Atlantic. Um for those who don't necessarily know, could you explain a little bit about the first voyage and what went wrong and how you found yourself in the middle of, well, uh a life and death situation?
SPEAKER_00Right. So I I'll go I'll go back a little bit. Um I tried out for the for the Olympic team. I didn't make the team for a very basic reason. I was too slow. Only a couple seconds too slow, but you know, at the Olympics, that's uh that's a big deal. So I was just flat too slow and didn't make the team. But I heard about this rowing race across the Atlantic Ocean, and I was like, oh, I may not be fast, but I can go forever. And so I signed up to do the Atlantic rowing race, and lots of things happened. It didn't quite work out. But I came to the attention of some sponsors who wanted to sponsor the first woman to row alone across the ocean. And I was like, okay, you're gonna let me get this straight. You're gonna pay to let me finish something that I started? Awesome. And so the original plan was I was gonna row east to west across the mid-Atlantic Ocean. The sponsor changed their mind and said, no, no, we're gonna sponsor a French woman to row the easy way east to west across the Atlantic Ocean. We're gonna sponsor you to row west to east across the North Atlantic. And I was like, man, I'm crazy, but am I that crazy? Turned out I was. And so uh the French woman did not make it. I left uh North Carolina bound for France. It was to be continent to continent. I rode 3,000 miles um for 78 days of that time. I I lost communications eight days from the start. So I went for 78 days with no human contact, um, or at least contact with anyone on land. I did talk to three passing ships in that period of time. But when folks talk about being lonely in COVID, I'm like, okay, I can relate to that. And I can also relate to the things folks are feeling in sort of the isolation of COVID is that roller coaster of up and down, that that, you know, bliss at one moment and despair at the next. I certainly felt that in those days of solitude. Um, but rode 3,000 miles and then I got hit by a hurricane named Danielle. Now I'd capsized a couple times before the hurricane arrived, but when Hurricane Danielle arrived, I, you know, I capsized probably, you know, honestly, there are lots of times where like, I capsized this many times. I really have no idea. Every time the boat flipped over, it would capsize three or four times, but I counted each one as an episode. So after the fifth or sixth episode of the day, I thought I can't take this anymore. I'm gonna get my distress beacon and set it off. So I crawled across the deck to get my distress beacon, which I purposely put as far away from the cabin as I possibly could on the bow bulkhead. So I would have to get out in the storm and get the ePurb. So I went out in the storm, waves were washing over the deck, it was doing this really annoying submarine thing. And I realized I could not ask another human being to come out into that storm to get me. I decided to go on the North Atlantic Ocean in a rowboat, and I had to take responsibility for that. So I tied the distress beacon to my life vest, I crawled back across the deck, went back into the cabin, and I went through five or six more episodes with a distress beacon tied to my life vest, not setting it off with my other hand to quantify it. A number of my capsizes were end over end pitch poles. One capsize dislocated my shoulder, and the next capsize put it back into place. Each capsize was more akin to a car crash than the notion of like a kayak flipping over. It was just so incredibly violent.
SPEAKER_01Jesus.
SPEAKER_00And I was really mindful of the notion that I had decided to do this and I had no right to ask someone to come out and get me. So I weathered that storm. And um, it was two days later that I actually triggered my distress beacon when a different storm hit me, wasn't nearly as violent. I didn't know it at the time because I'd lost communication, so I didn't know it was a hurricane the first time. But there was a second hurricane named Earl that passed well north of my position, but triggered a number of rug waves. The boat capsized four more times. I looked out, I thought the waves aren't nearly as big, the winds aren't nearly as strong, it's safe enough to ask for help. I set off my distress speaking at about 4 a.m. uh in the morning on September the 7th, and Hurricane Danielle hit me on September the 5th of 1998, and I was picked up that afternoon by a container ship named the Independent Spirit. You can't make that stuff up.
SPEAKER_01Um God, I'm kidding.
SPEAKER_00And they took me back to uh Philadelphia where I got off and then came back to Louisville, Kentucky, the home of all great ocean rowers.
SPEAKER_01So just to summarize, how many days were you in the hurricane? How long was it? Because it's not like they're short necessarily.
SPEAKER_00No, it was a full day, and the the storm was breaking up as it hit me. So I I weathered the first, you know, I was hit by the front of the storm and very consciously was aware of the eyewall coming through and then hit the uh second eyewall. And it's like, you know, imagine um stirring a pot of water in one direction for a long time and then suddenly spinning it the other way. That's what happens when the second eyewall crosses, and the ocean gets really confused and incredibly violent. And I used to think of turquoise as a great color, but I like turquoise now reminds me of hurricanes when the water just turns, you know, has so much air in it that it turns uh turquoise. The um the back half of the storm came through, and I was like, okay, it's over. I'm gonna, I'm gonna be okay. But there was, you know, a couple of bands of the storm had circled back and then um came across the boat a few more times. So it was a good probably 36 hours of very disturbed seas and really unpleasant um weather. And then when Hurricane uh Earl got involved, um, I was really beside myself of like, I I don't I don't know what I've gotten into here, but you know, I am out of steam. And I probably hadn't slept um had certainly hadn't had a night's sleep in a you know seven or eight days because the the ocean was just wrong. Um, but it was the sleep deprivation really that got me more than anything else, and then of course a pretty violent beating.
SPEAKER_01So two you know, two questions come to mind, and they they essentially revolve around survival. Um, very pragmatically, how did you physically survive the the violence of the storm? I mean, how did the boat survive? How did you put up with it? I mean, obviously, it sounds like you you definitely took a physical beating, I mean, from what was happening to your shoulder, but you know, what steps were you taking moment to moment, hour to hour, to think like, okay, how do I keep the boat from sinking? Because I mean, yeah.
SPEAKER_00So I so I built the boat, which was a real advantage. Um, I I built the hope built the boat with the help of friends. It was the same design as the boat for the Atlantic rowing race. So wooden um sort of marine plywood, mahogany plywood, uh very buoyant, um, quite flexible, um, great design. It was um um designed for a crew, too. So it was a big boat and a heavy boat, but it wasn't gonna sink. I filled filled every void with foam. It wasn't gonna go down, so I trusted, trusted the boat. It did get some cracks in it and and certainly was was leaky, but it wasn't gonna sink. And that gave me a certain amount of of faith and a sense of where I was and what I was about. I remember I was playing games with myself to convince myself not to set up the this the distress beacon because I really had a sense if if I asked someone to come out in that storm, they could die. And it would be okay if I died, but it would not be okay if I caused the death of someone else. And I remember thinking, okay, if the boat breaks apart and I'm out in the ocean and I still have the e-perb and I'm in my dry suit, I will set off, I will set off the distress beacon. And you know, if the boat breaks apart and I I die as the boat boat breaks apart, that's okay. If I drown, that's okay. But the one thing, like if I'm floating in my dry suit, I have the e-perb, I'm gonna set it off. It's because I was barefoot and I didn't want to be eaten feet first.
SPEAKER_01That's a very interesting thought to cross through your head at this time.
SPEAKER_00Like I, you know, anyone who anyone who knows me really well will tell you that I am tough as nails from the ankles up, but I have delicate feet. And the notion of being eaten feet first was something that really bothered me. So I was like, okay, if this one thing happens, I will give myself permission to set off the distress beacon.
SPEAKER_01Jeez, gotcha. Um, well, that all also almost kind of lends itself to my next question, which is other than physically surviving it, you know, boat surviving it, um, you know, obviously there's there's a good amount of videotape recording of you when you're in that moment. And you know, you like you said, there's a number of things working against you. The the physicality of surviving the the event, um, also the the fact that you're sleep deprived. What um how are you able to keep yourself emotionally going, you know, to survive it? Because it it's it's more than just you know, are you the are you physically there when it's done? It's also you know, are you are you mentally there? Are you mentally able to get through it? So what what were the things that were going through your head? What were the tactics that you're using to keep yourself moving forward?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so there's so many things you just need to do uh in a in a boat at sea that take a lot of time. And one of the sort of telling moments uh for me was uh when the the boat's completely submerged, but for you know, maybe a foot of um air in the cabin, uh floating at the surface, but but you know, sloshing around like a kid's waiting pool. And I knew that my desalination system, my the system that could turn salt water into fresh water had been submerged for a very long time. So I didn't know whether I could make fresh water. And so, and I also knew that my fresh water tank was also underwater, and I doubted that it would stay fresh, and it didn't. So the I'm I'm greedily drinking one of two water bottles that I had, and I'm like, oh, you better hang on to that because that that might be the only fresh water you have. And there was a moment of despair, and um I don't remember what it was that sort of triggered the sort of nadir of of my thoughts, but I remember wanting to cry and and convincing myself to stop because tears are a waste of water. Um, but that being hard-nosed with yourself about every element it takes to survive. Like, okay, I need food and water. I need the boat to get on the surface so I can keep breathing. Um, and there are so many. The the reason the cabin was so full of water was at the at the height of the storm, I had a sea anchor, a big parachute that hung off the back of the boat, which kept the boat uh perpendicular to the waves, which made it harder to flip it upside down. But as the boat pitch pulled, the um sea anchor got wrapped around the boat and was holding it sideways in the water. So I had to open the the main hatch to the cabin. And and to call it a cabin kind of glorifies the space. It was more of a double-wide coffin. I couldn't physically sit upright in um the boat I rode in 1998. I rebuilt the boat for my second row, 1999, and I raised the cabin roof by four inches so I could sit upright. So it was a small, tight space, but still flew around pretty well. But I had to open the hatch to reach out onto deck to cut loose that sea anchor. And when I did that, the cabin flooded. And so there I was, you know, waist deep in water for the rest of the rest of the hurricane.
SPEAKER_01Jeez, got it. Um well I have two questions for you, particular. Um, what are some challenges that you didn't expect to encounter that you did? Number one, because I would imagine there's a lot of planning that goes into this. Everything from, you know, like you were saying, the designing of the boat, um a desalinization system, you know, fresh water bottle, uh, um, the the beacon itself. There was probably a lot of engineering that went into it and thought that went into it in terms of how this is gonna work, how I'm gonna compose myself. What are some challenges that you didn't expect to encounter that you did? Obviously, other than the biggest one, which is the hurricane, but even that was probably calculated. Like I'm sure that a storm could happen. Um, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I knew that no one had ever crossed the North Atlantic Ocean without capsizing. So I'd read every book I could get my hands on about pitch bowling and capsizing at sea, and uh had a uh a mentor, Girard Debauville, who is a Frenchman who rode the Atlantic, the North Atlantic the hard way, and then he rode the Pacific. And um he he said, like, you can read all you want about capsizes, you never get used to them. When the boat is upside down, you never get used to the notion that the boat is upside down. And you literally look at the hatches and see fish. And it's like, this is wrong. This is so wrong. Um and and your mind is so occupied with what the next steps are, like get the boat upright. Uh it was a self-riding boat, but is it filled with water? You'd have to help it out to get it to turn upright again. Um and all the the little pieces, I can't, you know, time time. I mean, 24 hours or 36 hours of really violent storm, it's eternal and goes quickly at the same time in terms of what you need to do and uh the steps you need to take and bailing water and um and fixing things. So when you think about things I didn't plan on, so one of the things I didn't plan on was right before I left shore, lots of friends visited the boat, and it seemed like every person who visited the boat brought sand aboard. And that fouled my seat tracks. And and so I went through my first set of wheels really quickly, and I was terrified that I would run out of seat wheels. Um, and you know, if you lose that sliding seat, life is gonna be really unhappy. Um but but I was able to get the sand off the boat and get it all cleaned up, and I didn't wear out any more wheels. But that that, you know, cruising through my first set of wheels in two weeks was pretty daunting and scary. Um, but having having spares of things, and I don't think I ran into any challenge that I didn't anticipate. Um well that's not true. Losing communications was a uh was a bother. Um, because I was hoping to chase the Gulf Stream most of the way across the Atlantic Ocean, and when I lost communications, I lost the Gulf Stream, and when I lost the Gulf Stream, the boat just stopped. Because I was a little north of it and often caught in eddies going the wrong direction. And um, you know, you need currents to help and winds to help when you're you only have oars to to use. And we all know a boat traveling with wind goes faster than a boat going against the wind. And so the North Atlantic Ocean is not kind in that the winds and currents are not always with you. On the mid-Atlantic Ocean, they're almost always with you, and that is a beautiful um factor.
SPEAKER_01What about um the other thing I wanted to ask was what are some things that you learned out there, be it, you know, knowledge, experience, wisdom, however you want to think about it, uh, that you didn't expect to learn?
SPEAKER_00You know, like many people, I learn more from my failures than I do from my successes. And I returned home, as I've already said, to Louisville, Kentucky. And I worked for the mayor of Louisville, and he had to leave office because of a term limit. And I was asked if I wanted to take a job working for Muhammad Ali. Now, I'm not lacking intelligence. I said, yes, I want to work for Muhammad Ali. And um, Muhammad was someone who knew where I was. I had been knocked down on a worldwide stage, and I was feeling like a failure. You don't get to be the world champion three times if you don't lose twice along the way. So he knew where I was better than I knew where I was. And it was like every couple weeks when he was in town, he would like pop me in the arm. And it was his way of saying, kid, you gotta get up. Kid, you gotta get up. And it's that sense of, you know, a failure is not a person who falls, a failure is a person who doesn't get back up again. And to have Muhammad Ali being the person who's like reaching down to lift you up off the canvas is a pretty cool thing. But eventually he said, when he knew I was ready, he said, Tori, you don't want to go through life as the woman who almost rode across the ocean. And I probably would have gone back anyway, but having Muhammad Ali as my excuse was pretty good. Um I had to go back. But the second time I went the easy way, I rode east to west across the mid-Atlantic Ocean.
SPEAKER_01Well, it's still some wisdom coming from the first time, is you know, there's a lot of reasons not to do the other way. So I think that's fair. Um, well, that's interesting. You know, I was about to ask you, you know, why would you ever go back? Because it would, it's more than fair um for anybody in that situation to go, you know, this was for you know a uh you know, a sponsorship and and what you're like, uh I don't I don't know if it's really worth losing family and friends. And well, I mean, Muhammad Ali, I don't know if you can get a maybe a higher, higher, higher figure giving you motivation.
SPEAKER_00Well, and and you know, when I wrote my book, three probably three-quarters of the book, maybe more, is dedicated to the first row because that's where the lessons are. That's that's where I learned things. Um, the second row in the book is kind of an also random, but to this day, I get emails from folks who have reading the book, um, often from high schoolers who are assigned to read it in high school, and I feel badly for them. I didn't anticipate my book being assigned reading, but but um they write, how dare you go back? And uh, because they they you know weather the storm with me reading the book, and then I turn around and and and go again. And uh and yeah, I still get 20 years later, I still get angry messages from folks going, how how dare you try again? You you know, you just barely lived the the first time around. And it was really, you know, I would love to tell you that um I learned some magic that I would not have learned by just time and years. Um, but many of us are are wrestling with how to be the best human being we can be. And I was pushing love out of my life for very good reasons. I had things to do and you know, injustices to correct, and um, you know, I had I had read uh Plato and and Socrates and you know, um, both of whom say bad things about love and Shakespeare, I you know, 30-something plays, not a happy marriage in them. And and and I and I realized that you know love is love is bad, and and folks say it will wreck your ambition. And I fell in love uh between the first row and the second row. And it does wreck your ambition, and that's great because you know what? Um love conquers all in the end. But I had been pushing it out of my life, and it was really that hurricane that broke my um outer shell and allowed me to recognize. I mean, most women do not need to row a boat 3,000 miles to figure out that love and friendship are good things. When I talk to young people, I say I was a slow learner.
SPEAKER_01How was that? I mean, your um, you know, your significant other, how how did they how do they deal with the fact that, well, I'll see you in, you know, the better part of not three months. Um I'm gonna be on a boat. Bye.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So so right after my successful row, I was invited to give a speech at Smith College. And I wrote to the president and I said, you know, I'm I'd I'd love to come give this speech. It's a great honor. Um thank you for inviting me. May I please bring my husband? We just got married. And um, so of course the president said, Of course you may bring your husband in and put us up in kind of a private wing in the president's house. And we got snowed in. It was fantastic. We were snowed in with a chef, three full refrigerators, and the president of Smith. It was awesome. Um, but we we went to speak at a a I went to speak at a class. And I remember a student turning to my husband and saying, How could you let her do this? And my husband going, Oh my goodness, she went to Smith. Do you think I could tell her no? Um, and that the the best thing he could do is to um make sure I could do it as safely as possible. Um but I've been very fortunate um to have found the love of my life. And we, you know, so far 20 years of happily ever after, and we'll see how long that lasts.
SPEAKER_01How was the second trip different than the first one?
SPEAKER_00You know, when I was um writing the book, um, I had a great um reader who read the book. And, you know, I had this full treatment of the first row, the sort of purgatory in the middle, and then a full treatment of the second row. And she very astutely said, Tori, you had to row across the ocean twice. Your reader does not, and really invited me to lose about 70 or 80 pages of things that were repetitive. And what was different about the second row is I was a different human being. I was uh a woman in love and I wanted to get home. And it informed the way I saw the ocean, it informed the way I saw the world. Um and I remember wrestling with that because I anticipated writing the hero's journey from a woman's perspective. And women are not allowed to write the hero's journey in general. Women are supposed to write about romance. And so at this moment, I you know, I write Hero's Journey, Hero's Journey, Heroes Journey. At the very end of the book, it's romance. And as the book was coming out, I'm like, oh my goodness, I sold out. I gave into peer pressure, I turned my book into a romance. And then I watched the videos of me getting out of the boat literally into the arms of Mac McClure. And it's just how it happened. It's just how it happened.
SPEAKER_01Tori, if your closest friends could only describe you using three words, meaning three distinct adjectives, which words do you hope uh that they would use for you?
SPEAKER_00You know, I think one of the things my friends talk about is I have developed a certain omnicompetence. I like learning new things, and so that's something I really pride myself on, whether it's building a boat or running a running a university or whatever else it might be, of just diving in and not being threatened by the elements. So I I guess uh omnicompetence sounds totally arrogant, but um I can't dance and I can't cook. So there are lots of things I can't do. Uh comfort with uncertainty is another thing they might um pick up. And and something I really value, it's it's more than you know, that's more than three words right there, but something I really value is um I I'm a graduate of the National Outdoor Leadership School, and they talk about expedition behavior. And that's sort of your place as a citizen, or your place in a in a in a boat, making sure you're pulling your weight. And and expedition behavior is kind of ensuring that that you are a good teammate, that you pull your weight, that you carry your part of the boat, that you don't shirk any responsibilities.
SPEAKER_01Who is somebody, um, not necessarily the most per se, but who is someone that you admire in rowing and why?
SPEAKER_00Ah, well, uh Ernestine Baer, who was one of the women who really got opened the doors for other women. And the notion of people in the sport who open doors for others is really um that's a characteristic I admire. And um she was rowing with the national team, they invited her to, you know, sit in the boat. And of course they were taking it easy because I don't remember how old Ernestine was at the time, but you know, late 70s, early 80s maybe. And she said, no, no, no, please let me feel what it feels like to go as fast as you can go. And so they did, you know, 20, 30, 20 or 30 strokes with them at their their highest uh peak. And and what a joy that was for her to know that she had she had opened the doors for that to happen.
SPEAKER_01What is your favorite race course, and or maybe your favorite regatta?
SPEAKER_00Hmm. Yeah, Indianapolis is a short trip. Uh, if you live in Louisville, Kentucky, Indianapolis is a uh good course. Uh I don't know, it's interesting. Like there are lots of head race courses that lots of twists and turns. Uh when the head of the Chattahoochee was in Atlanta, that was always a great race because um lots of twists and turns and you could catch people and and pass them and do fun things. But uh Indianapolis holds um a warm place in my heart because of just the the folks I've raced with there. And um probably my favorite race was a race that I lost. It was a two-person race in Toledo, Ohio, and it was really storming. There were supposed to be a dozen people in the in the in the race, but it was a um I was gonna say it was a head race, but we went off at the same time. So anyway, the it was super rough, and everyone else dropped out because it was raining and it was nasty. And but two of us ventured out onto the course, and the poor referees had to watch us, and and the um my competitor uh false started, but they didn't call us back. And so she just had to jump on me from from the moment of the start. And we I passed her and she passed me, and I passed her, and she passed me all the way up the race coach. And why it was my favorite race is there was a high school team that I was coaching that was watching this race. And when we crossed the finish line, she was, you know, half a stroke ahead of me. So I lost by, you know, inches. And I came off the course just beaming. And these young men I was coaching were baffled that I could be so proud to have lost. And I said, you don't understand. If she and I had raced six times, she'd have won three, I'd have won three. That's the best kind of race you can have. Is that's the best kind of competitor you can have where you're evenly matched and it's just the luck of the draw. And uh, and I saw the other woman uh minutes after the race, and and of course she had the gold medal, and and she goes, I know I false started, and I said, I know you did too, but that's all right. You know, it was all part of the game.
SPEAKER_01Gosh I'm cool. Um what are your top three favorite rowing drills and why?
SPEAKER_00You know, I think a good old pick drill and rowing square blades and rowing with my feet out of my shoes. Um pick drill, kind of because it reminds you of the pieces. Uh it's easy to get lost in the rowing stroke and not really think about the elements of it. Um rowing square blades, um you know, on the Ohio River, that's an achievement because it's pretty bumpy out there. And uh rowing with my feet out of my shoes, I um I am a perennial slide racer. I I confess my worst sin. I race my slide, rush my slide. And um, so feet out of my shoes uh tries to temper that evil, evil part of me.
SPEAKER_01Gotcha. Um Tori, what's the most challenging workout in your memory that you've ever done?
SPEAKER_00This is gonna sound crazy, but uh I was um training with uh my rowing partner in a double skull, and we had uh uh a trainer who gave us this workout that seemed so simple. It was nine one-minute pieces, but we had to achieve a particular heart rate. You know, it was like over 200 in those days. And it took us, it seemed like it took us half a day to finish those nine one-minute pieces where both of us had our heart rates, you know, kind of hitting max. Um, and we were dead afterwards. Um, so nine one-minute pieces doesn't seem very, very tough. Uh, there was another sort of weightlifting workout where I got into a debate with my rowing partner about how many squats we were supposed to do, and I was misreading the instructions and making it some astronomical number, but I made us do this astronomical number of squats. And the our trader, when she heard this story, was just just killed herself laughing because it was not what we were supposed to do. It was probably 10 times what we were supposed to do, but I just misread how she was outlining the workout.
SPEAKER_01Gosh, how many did you end up doing? If you can remember the number.
SPEAKER_00I don't remember, but but it's you know, it's been 20 years, and and our trainer is still telling that story about, oh yeah, Tori turned that into blah blah blah blah blah. Yeah, she knows it. I I don't remember. I just remember I was sore for weeks, it felt like. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Who was your trainer?
SPEAKER_00Um, it was uh she wasn't even a rower, she was a strength, uh strength and conditioning coach, uh Marilyn Todd.
SPEAKER_01What's the most out there thing that you've ever done in pursuit of rowing?
SPEAKER_00You know, probably it doesn't feel out there, but uh my my rowing sisters, this group of women with whom I row, they're all about 20 years my senior. Um I'm the youngster in the in the group, and I coach them in rowing and they coach me in life, and it is a very good deal for me. And there were four or five of us. Um one of us has passed away now, and um I bought a quad skull in Philadelphia, beat up, rudder broken out of it, just nasty boat, but it was cheap. So I I bought, I went up and bought it, and I rehabbed this boat in the backyard, and I, you know, stripped it down to bare fiberglass, and there was a storm that came through, and I and we named the boat boat the Judith, which is uh for our rowing sister who's no longer with us. And there was a storm that blew through town, and I wrote to my rowing sisters, I said, Don't worry, I've tied Judith naked to the fence. She's not going anywhere. Um, but I we built this boat and my friend died of cancer, so we painted it hot pink. And we would row, we rode in Indianapolis once in our hot pink jackets and our hot pink boat, wearing black Stetson cowboy hats in honor of Judith, and it was good fun.
SPEAKER_01What is the most energy that you ever put into a rowing project that had the least impact? And then on the flip side of that, what is something that you spent far less energy on, but gave you far more back?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I spent days and days when I was coaching um designing what I thought was the perfect dockside rower. You know, this is just gonna be the best dockside rower ever. And and I never got it, never got it quite where I wanted it to be. And it just never did what I wanted it to do. And and probably the best piece of coaching advice I ever got in terms of the not a lot of in, but a whole lot out was um, I guess uh this being a podcast, we have to call it the manure sandwich. But that notion of giving someone a compliment, you know, your your catches are really great today, commenting on that one thing that they're not doing well, and then commenting on something they're doing well is such a revelation in terms of young rowers being willing to listen to what it is you have to say. And I was in a uh master's of fine arts and writing program at at Spaulding University, and they had this sort of similar rule of when you were critiquing someone's work, you had to find something you admired in the work before you could tell them what you really thought. And and I remember, oh, just skip past it, just skip, skip past the compliment. I can yeah, I want to get to what I need to improve on. And I realized the more on target someone was with what they liked about my work, the more willing I was listen, the more willing I was to listen to what they didn't like about my work. And so you can't just say, hey, I like the way you tie your shoes. You've really gotta find something in each person's stroke that is admirable before you can say, you are losing so much of your power mid-stroke or whatever it might be, that um that that you've gotta the the compliments have to be sincere if you want the criticism to to find its way home.
SPEAKER_01If you could offer one piece of advice to each of the three people, these three people, what would you say to a rower, to a coxswain, and to a coach?
SPEAKER_00Ah, well, you know, I'm an educator, so it all falls back to do your homework, do your homework, do your homework. And with rowers, I've never seen that to be a problem. It's uh people are willing to pay their dues in the sport of rowing because if they're not, they they wash out in the first two weeks. Rowing rarely, you rarely find that person who really just gets it day one. And often the great athletes wash out in those first two weeks because they don't have the patience, they don't have the comfort with uncertainty to learn the basics and get past that flailing duck phase of rowing. That willingness to pay your dues, that willingness to do your homework makes all the difference. And as I have progressed through life and watched the folks who reach the highest echelons of of government or academia or whatever it might be, the characteristics they all share is a willingness to do their homework, the willingness to put in the time.