THE SPORT OF ROWING Teti: “I’m a little bit different than most people. I don’t believe that rowing is the world’s greatest sport, like some people say it is. I think that rowing’s a sport, a little bit different in some ways from other sports, a little bit similar in other ways, but I don’t like the fact that people say it’s the world’s most grueling sport. “Come on! Don’t tell me it’s more dif- ficult than boxing. Don’t tell me it’s more difficult than some guy whacking you in your face in the middle of the ring. “Don’t tell me you train harder. Let’s call it what it is. “Carl Lewis [9-time Olympic Gold Medalist in track sprints and long jump] came and talked to our guys before the final in Athens, and the first thing that he said was, ‘Damn, like you guys are athletes!’ and I laughed said, ‘Carl, you’re an athlete. That’s why we’re all rowing, because we’re not athletes!’ “I mean what high school rowing pro- IOC 2004 Olympic Games, Athens Matt Imes, the late Emil Kossev, several trainers and a few others. “I think ‘04 was proven in part in Plov- div, Bulgaria (one of Emil’s homes). We trained there prior to Athens, and it was a key move toward greatness. “Once there, the crew was loose, happy, fit. Even after a few accidents and the ever- present guards with loaded machine guns, the crew didn’t clutch. Mike was superb there. He kept direction but without any whip. Dan Beery once said to me, ‘This is so fun. Can we stay in Bulgaria and race it off here?’”8250 8250 Nash, personal correspondence, 2010 gram in the United States has the best athlete in the school rowing? Probably zero. So we can’t ignore that. “People may call moves in the middle of a race a power-10. We call them commit- ments, and so in the past whenever we’d have these commitments, it was always ded- icated to someone. So when we were for- mulating the race plan in Athens, deciding how we were going to row the final, some- body asked who we were going to dedicate the commitment to, and for the first time Bryan goes, “We’re not going to dedicate it to anybody. It’s the Olympics! We’re tak- ing that move, and we’re going into the lead, and it’s going to be all over, and we’re going to win the Gold Medal! That’s what it is!’ “I walked up to Bryan, and I kissed him and said, ‘Bryan, I’ve been waiting for sev- en years for you to say something like that.’”8251 8251 Teti, op. cit. 2310
