THE SPORT OF ROWING win] – and I’m thinking, ‘This guy’s a god, and I don’t even know how to row this thing.’ “So Sy said, ‘Are you having trouble in that single?’ “‘Well yeah, I don’t know how to row.’ “‘Well, how did you rig it?’ “‘What do you mean . . . rig it? I bought it from a guy who was rowing it. I took the riggers off. I drove it down here. I put them back on.’ “‘Well, how’s it rigged?’ “‘I don’t know what you’re asking me.’ “We were out on the float at the time, so Sy said, ‘Maybe I’ll just take a couple of strokes and see if I have any suggestions for you.’ “So he shoves off in my single . . . and almost flips. “So he starts to show me how to rig, and I get back into the boat and go, ‘Oh . . . ‘ “That was step one. I might never have become a sculler if I had never talked to Sy Cromwell. “Step two was applying all that I had learned at Cornell. What Stork and Carl Ulrich taught us in an incredibly focused way was to catch without missing water, to learn to catch perfectly and also control your slide. It’s simple to say, but all of us know how hard that is . . . but they really meant it. “We didn’t have ergs in those times, so all of our off-season rowing was in the tanks. So these guys would kneel down about two feet from the tip of your blade, and they’d say, ‘That’s not bad, Don. You’re missing about half an inch of water. . . . You’re missing about a quarter of an inch of water. . . . You’re getting better. . . . You’re not there yet. . . . ‘ “So I spent my freshman year learning how to drop it in, and of course one of the things that great coaches do is they know what they want to have happen, and they think about great ways to communicate it. “What Stork and Carl said was, ‘Think of the catch as the last part of the recovery and not the first part of the drive.’ So it’s [demonstrating with his hand] recovery, recovery, recovery, drive, but most people start diving in the air. “So I really knew how to do that . . . as a sweep rower. There are other things, but it’s the blade work, and it’s also slide control. “So when Sy got me rigged, I started going out for workouts. Now everybody who’s strong knows how to pull hard, so I knew how to pull, and I knew how to work, but Sy would say, ‘Don’t try to pull too hard.’ A lot of people told me that, but it’s hard to restrain yourself. “Sy gave me that advice at the beginning, and nobody else ever looked at me. I disciplined myself, and I would think all the time about the last part of the recovery. I knew how to do it this way [demonstrating pullthrough]. I was determined I was going to learn how to do it this way [demonstrating end of recovery]. And that’s basically all I thought about in the first month or two on the water. “I was entirely by myself on the Hunter Island Lagoon. Sandy Killen and Fran Sulger were the hot NYAC scullers, and Sy was the king, and they were out there duking it out, doing 500s and steaming up and down the course while I was out there kind of plodding along. “After about a month and a half, I remember I was starting to pick up the pace a little bit, feeling like I could move the boat, and they were doing 500s. I was paddling down the course in a different lane, and they were just starting a 500 about three or four lengths behind me, so I said, ‘Well . . . what the hell.’ “When they caught up with me, I pulled as hard as I could and I kind of stayed with them. I thought, ‘They’re doing six 500s. I 1046
