With all of this in mind, I left the camp after a few weeks
to go home to my club in Philadelphia,
Penn AC. I did not feel motivated to
continue in such an environment. Kris
was extremely unhappy to see me go, asking me what I possibly hoped to
accomplish at our club where the only thing we had to work with was a "fat",
out of shape, "old man" by the name of Bob Espeseth (but a three time
Olympian), and two young but headstrong first time national team members from
the year before, John Riley and Ted Swinford.
He told me we would get killed at the open trials and let me go. I admit, when I arrived in Philadelphia, I had a few of the same
concerns. However, we were being coached
by Ted Nash, whom I mentioned earlier in chapter one. Ted very quickly worked through the men he
had available and put together a four oared without coxswain crew consisting of
myself, Espy, John and Ted.
From the moment we put the boat together, we knew we had
something special. Rowing is a sport
that rewards synergy, possibly more than any other team sport. When all of the members of a crew are
applying power exactly together and allowing the boat to move under them with
relaxation and flow, the results can be extraordinary. Rather than relying on individual power and
toughness to bull the shell through the water, a crew that has achieved synergy
of effort finds the boat literally humming beneath them. We were fortunate enough to achieve that
feeling on the first day we rowed together.
It got better very quickly, also, as we adjusted to each other, using
our experience and focus to meld even further with one another. Our objective was to make the boat go fast,
first and foremost. But, it was also to
do the absolute best we could every single stroke we took.
A few weeks after we got together, we raced in the national
trials. The camp had entered a crew
also, and Coach Korzeniowski was confident of victory. Nevertheless, we prevailed by 15 seconds,
which in rowing is a significant margin.
It was a stunning victory, not the least because of how easy it looked.
The World Championships were being held in Nottingham, England
that year and when we arrived, we faced the same attitude we had just left in
the states. No one in Europe
knew who we were, and, of course, no one cared.
After all, in the long history of the world championships and Olympic
games, the United States
had won our event exactly one time, in 1960.
One of the members of that crew was Ted Nash.
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