Mentors, Part II

I don't know when Justin decided he had something special going on in 1996. The group of guys he recruited for that class weren't big "names" in the rowing community. Hans had been on the US Junior National team, and I had been on the selecion list. I don't know how else one recruited rowers back then. Nobody from Yale ever came out and watched me row. Jamie, a former women's coach in Cincinnati then working with the Yale crew, had told Justin about my insane lifting habits. That was it. I have no idea how we were all found.

The personalities couldn't have been more different. Prep school boys, west coast dudes, a lunatic Yankee fan from New York, a Philly kid who acted like a surfer, an uppity Brit and some hick from Kentucky (me). The lightweight team had recruited two coxswains and Justin managed to get Steve to join us. Eight recruits and one perfectionist coxswain. Four different rowing styles.

Justin let us figure each other out before he really started working with us. His hands were full teaching the novice guys how to row, so we were tossed in with the returning varsity members. (Talk about being thrown into the deep end of the pool!) We spent some time together those first few weeks of school, getting to know each other and deciding if we could stand these guys. Steve and I were roomates, so we had to get along. The rest of us would go out once a week or so, and have dinner together every night after practice.

Justin was more of a big brother type. We nicknamed him the "gerbil on crack" (sorry) for his high energy level. He taught us, but with enthusiasm. "You need to really sit up straight, Skuban. You'll get more reach that way, saw real big logs through the water, really make that boat fly." Everyone had a different issue that needed to be fixed. I had been taught to row with my outside thumb on top of the handle, a habit that drove Justin nuts. All of our styles had to be broken back down and brought in line with each other.

I want to make something very clear: Justin's masterstroke was figuring our lineup early on and leaving it mostly alone. Alex was the tallest of us, but was a brilliant stroke. I think Justin figured that out by the second practice, and nobody else ever stroked the boat. Hans and I were the strongest ergs and were six and five. I grumbled to myself, wanting my accustomed seven seat, but Steve bluntly told me my technique wasn't up to that level yet. "Jimbo" the Yankee fan sat behind me in four, and we would growl at each other through rough practices, pushing each other along. The only change Justin ever made in the lineup was switching Quentin and Nathan from seven to bow. He also put a novice into two in the spring. The core of the boat never changed, and that allowed us to build "swing" over the endless miles of training.

We came in second at the Head of the Charles, behind Harvard. Justin had set us up with some knee-high soccer socks to wear in the race, calling them "full potential." I was annoyed to lose to Harvard, especially after we started so far back in the pack. It would take a few years for me to understand what an accomplishment that second place was. Perhaps Justin had an idea then.

That crew was built for real in the winter. Justin hung a huge poster up in the training room, listing every workout result we did. Hans and I started trash-talking about erg scores, the beginning of a friendship that brought him to my wedding as best man. Our technical issues were ironed out during hours of work in Yale's rowing tanks. Saturday "hell practices" found Justin throwing us against the varsity in erg relays and "vertical death" sprints up Payne Whitney Gym. (The info in that link says "nine and one half stories tall." Trust me, each of those "half stories" has ten foot ceilings and the stairs to climb.)

I think we figured there might be something about that crew after spring break in Tampa. Wednesday morning practices were 5x1500m. Our third varsity would get a head start, then we would start with the second varsity and the lightweight first boat. Then our varsity would chase us all down. We would beat the JV every time, and the lights 4 out of 5.

Princeton was the dominant crew that year, and the Yale-Princeton-Cornell race was in Princeton that year. Justin got us really jacked up the night before, and I didn't sleep well. Our victory there brought a cocky attitude. Justin did everything he could to keep us challenged during practice leading up to Eastern Sprints. That race went wrong. Really wrong.

Princeton took off, seven seats up, taking Brown with them. We didn't catch Brown until 8oom left, and I thought we would lose. Steve didn't let us give up, and we crawled back in. Steve started our sprint at 600m out, and I remember looking down at my legs and thinking "this is going to really hurt." We pulled even with 200 to go, and people later told me Princeton's two seat had checked out by that point.

That crew was not designed to come from behind. I don't think Justin ever considered that we would be that far back. What won that race was our belief in each other, forged over months in rowing basically the same lineup, and Steve's command under pressure. While Justin hadn't predicted how that race would unfold, he had prepared that crew by letting us row together for so long.

We could do no wrong after Eastern Sprints. Training for the Harvard-Yale race was Justin's opportunity to play. We learned a flutter, raced three miles with the JV (instead of the usual freshman two), and planned our trip to Henley, an honor awarded if we won. Steve planned to win big, and drove us like he stole the boat. Our time in England was Justin unleashing a bunch of lunatics. I got a stupid haircut, was quoted in the Yale paper later on and unleashed my most violent race in the semi-finals, when we faced the team that had eliminated my high school crew the previous year. Mark had whipped us up when he faced his high school nemesis earlier in the tour, and we all responded, despite a borrowed boat and no warm-up.

Justin gave us confidence, a belief in each other that couldn't be shaken by an "off" race or unexpected events. Allowing a crew the time to "find itself" isn't always possible, but we got that opportunity and made the most of it. The best Yale freesh crew ever couldn't have happened without Justin, because he was part of the crew, like a coach should be.

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