Even after a successful weekend, which saw the University of Wisconsin men’s rowing team win two out of three races over No. 16 Stanford, Monday afternoon, men’s rowing coach Chris Clark was looking for more assistance. He needed additional talent.
Who would have guessed that I, a rookie rower born and raised in between Times Square and Columbia University in New York City, more familiar with yellow cabs than yellow carp, would be the person he settled upon to bulk up his team’s frontline during the season's stretch run.
“Our front line is pretty big, which is important for rowing,” Clark told reporters Monday afternoon. “One of them right here is 6-foot-11 and about 210. I wouldn’t call him a freak of nature but it’s close. I just wish we had more of them.”
Immediately I perked up, anticipating that less than an hour later, I had the opportunity to be the so-called “freak of nature" Coach Clark was wishing for.
But wishes don’t always come true, and my 5-foot-10 ½-inch, 162-pound frame, coupled with my inexperience in the water, hindered the potential positive impact I could make in the water.
Growing up in New York City, I developed into a natural subway surfer, meaning I learned to balance on a moving subway car without holding a germ-infested poll for stops at time. I figured that my underground surfing acumen might help my balance and body control in the water, the place where surfing was invented. Shockingly though, it did not.
Much like with the sport of basketball, football, hockey and wrestling to name just a few, it didn’t take long for me to realize I wasn’t built for the sport of rowing.
Forget about being physically cut out for the sport, I wasn’t even dressed for the sport, and much to my embarrassment, I was forced to wear a white and blue Hawaiian shirt with matching navy cotton shorts as I voyaged across the sea.
Before even getting into the eight, (aptly named for the number of seats in the boat I practiced in), my potential teammates from the Wisconsin men’s and women’s rowing teams instructed me on how to insert the oar into the oar lock. I promptly made my first mistake.
Somehow while attempting a task that I later realized was the most basic of anything I did all afternoon, my footwork was incorrect. Who knew that there was a proper place to step on the boat when inserting an oar into a socket?
But once the oar was properly secured, I boarded the boat ready to test my endurance with a team I had spent many of afternoons watching from afar, traverse the rough waters of Lake Mendota.
I boarded the boat, surprisingly without a life jacket, and quickly learned the safety position.
And, with a mere push off the dock, my experience as a student athlete at the University of Wisconsin began.
Rowing is done primarily with ones’ legs, but I learned the hands and arms part first because as our coxswain, senior rower Brandt Roen, said, “kicking is easy.”
Little did Coxswain Roen know, for me, it was not.
I was initially referred to as number five, representing the seat in the boat in which I was sitting. But my times as a mere number were short-lived as my flurry of mistakes forced Wisconsin women’s lightweight rowing coach Dusty Mattison to ask my name from a nearby guideboat that trailed us for most of the “tryout.”
And with my identity fully publicized in the middle Lake Mendota, I quickly became singled out so frequently as a result of my struggles, that I felt as if I was ironically held out to dry.
I couldn’t grasp simple positions like “the catch” or “the finish.” Comparisons to other physical activities like a deadlift in the gym, not surprisingly, did not resonate either.
After forcing my blade in the water early in my adventure, a fellow teammate in the boat called back from seat number seven, “Ben, it’s easier if instead of looking at what everyone else is doing, you just look at your blade. It’s easiest then to think where you’re gonna go.”
But alas, it was not any easier.
When we began practicing “the kick” I succeeded, but after applying what was referred to by my coxswain as the “fun part,” my short-lived praise from Coach Mattison preceded a flurry of critiques.
At one moment in my “tryout” every member of the boat was instructed to put their arms perpendicular to the water or, in normal people terms, in the air, as a means to illustrate how the boat would float. My nerves inflated so much at that moment that had we fallen in, I think they alone would have kept me afloat.
Certain commands such as turning the boat were for “experienced rowers” only.
Safe to say, I did not partake in those, but instead rested in safety position.
I closely observed a sequence done by my “teammates” that involved a series of three-quarter and half-slide strokes that helped me understand just how fast the team rows when in competition. When the three-quarter and half-slide strokes built up to what was referred to as “the swing,” the boat felt like a roller coaster speeding through the water.
And, no, I do not like roller coasters.
At a high speed my male “teammates” said they can do either 46 or 47 strokes per minute, while my female “teammates” can do 45 strokes in the same amount of time.
I’m not sure I did 46 strokes the entire time in the water. But I do distinctly recall unpausing my tape recorder after I inadvertently turned it off while performing a swing-stroke.
“Ben, it’s too early to take a break,” my coxswain promptly told me.
Forgive me teammates, as at that moment I was probably thinking of the only thing I knew about rowing prior to this experience, a mere children’s nursery rhyme.
“Row, row, row, your boat. Gently down the stream. Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, Life is but a dream,” I sang in my head.
But let me assure you there is nothing dreamy about the sport of rowing. And after rowing at such high speeds, it became clear to me that the only way to flow gently down a stream would be to clone myself seven times, putting a Ben, (number five), clone in each seat.
What a scary thought on many levels
My workout lasted 60 minutes. Coach Mattison departed for shore before we even hit the halfway point. I guess it didn’t take her that long to make her evaluation.
Upon returning safely to shore, I exited the boat, with great ease and gusto knowing I had just competed alongside some of the best athletes at this institution.
Concurrently, though I realized that my dream of being a Division I rower at an elite program like the University of Wisconsin was not meant to be. But like any good team, my teammates encouraged me to keep trying.
“[You did] not bad, not bad,” Coxswain Roen told me afterward. “This is a tough sport, not a sport that people usually pick up in a day. What you did was very typical actually.”
“Not bad?” I laughed.
He must have gotten seasick. I couldn’t imagine being any worse.
