An Amazing Feat
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
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As reported by Coach Howard Runyon - Northwood's Senior 4+ consists of Justin Painter '08, Charlie Kidd '08, Hunter Smith '08, Marshall Greenland '08 and coxswain Molly Babcock '08.
The published results (Northwood 4th in B final, 2.06" behind Canisius's 1st, with Poughkeepsie and Upper Arlington in between-and Fordham only another .63" back, all five crews finishing in barely one length of a boat) don't tell the whole story--though they tell the story that the world will remember. Northwood raced very aggressively and led for much of the distance. As they approached the place where B. Runyon and I were watching with our older brother, Peter (another old oarsman, who visited from Georgia to see the racing), at about 250 m to go, they were in a very close three-way fight for first place and showed no sign of running out of gas. After seeing that, I ran down the outside of a line of booster-club tents to get to the finish and sight across the line. On my way there I had no view of the course. When I got to the finish I had a view across the line, but nothing else. So I waited, and eventually a tight cluster of bows flashed across. Northwood were 4th. We found out later that they'd had, only in the last couple of hundred meters, some bladework problems, which had led to steering problems, and that this had dropped them from what looked like a sure top-3 placing to 4th. As it was last year, the Senior Men's 4+ B final was a barnburner. That second-tier level of speed, the speed of the best crews who _aren't_ likely candidates to win the A final, seems to be home to the densest fraction of the field in this event at Scholastics. That means that in the B final you tend to get a lot of closely matched crews, and that tends to produce crowded, tight finishes. Both last year and this year, the B final was a spectacular race. Heartbreaking as it was (for them as well as for Ben and me) to see them race so courageously and not get it, I'm very proud of the guys and Molly for getting in there and being one of the crews that drew the race's profile. For at least three-quarters of the distance, they raced with abandon and with none of the technical issues (messy start, or erratic power application leading to veering, etc.) that had dogged them in the earlier rounds. But with so few races under their belts before Scholastics (one dual handicap race against the Mohawk homeschoolers' quadruple scull, and then New York States), they were still learning, day by day, how to race. Most of their opponents had been through that process some weeks earlier. And one of the lessons that this Northwood crew learned yesterday is that delivering a completely sound race in your fourth try over two days, when you haven't yet delivered a completely sound race anywhere, is a tall order that requires an awful lot of concentration and a certain measure of dumb luck.
They did a great job this weekend. I want all of you parents to know that Ben and I feel privileged to have worked with this crew. They've been-now I'll try to quote the little speech that I made to them on Friday morning before their heat, in lieu of a traditional pep talk- the easiest-to-work-with, hardest-working, lowest-maintenance crew that we've ever coached, including my four years at the U. of Chicago. They've been a coach's dream--patient, persistent, intensely focused, CHEERFUL, unflappable, and always ready (in fact, eager) to help with all the silly logistical stuff that comes with this sport (moving outboard motors and launches from dock to trailer for certain road trips, loading trailer, unloading trailer, hitching and unhitching trailer, toweling shell dry after a row, putting cover on shell, strapping shell down before leaving at end of practice, taking out dock in fall, putting in dock in spring when lake is still a bowl of ice water, etc.) Next year Ben and I will be trying to speed the next generation of varsity-level oarsmen and coxswains to athletic maturity; we both expect to miss these kids every day while we struggle with that long and complex task. I was going to say "You should be proud of them," but it seems you all are proud of them already. So I'll just say: Thanks for sending them our way. This has been an exceptional season for us.
 
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