THE LESSONS OF 200 YEARS And yet, over and over in history, the coaches who found renewed success late in their careers were those who remained students of their sport and kept learning . . . from other coaches, from their own athletes. Rusty Callow, Al Ulbrickson, Joe Burk, Harry Parker, Harry Mahon and Mike Spracklen among others come to mind. Each had a resurgence after decades of coaching when new stimuli relit their fires of enthusiasm. Still, it is my experience that most rowing coaches have closed minds. From time to time when I have even gently suggested to people that history and/or science and/or experience and/or some team halfway across the world just might suggest that there exists a viable alternative to their own set ways of thinking or doing, I have been greeted with genuine hostility. Gilbert Bourne: “It is as dangerous to criticize the style and shape of an oarsman as the style and dress of a pretty woman. The resentment aroused is as certain and acute in the one case as in the other.”8346 The above quotation must be as true today as when Bourne was an Eton wet-bob one hundred thirty years ago. I must admit that I began the seven years of research that produced this book with some firm beliefs of my own concerning technique. Some have been solidly confirmed by the lessons of history. Others most certainly have not. Did I start out as reluctant to listen to the voices from the past as some of my fellow rowers and coaches? Yes, I did! But those voices from the past soon won me over, and now that you, too, have reached page 2349 of this book, perhaps some of you have also gained a little perspective. 8346 Bourne, Memories, p. 3 The American comedian Stephen Colbert8348 said it all when he announced: Reality has a well-known liberal bias.8349 Those readers without the willingness to learn will dismiss with a simple wave of the hand 200 years of historical photos, film and first-hand accounts as surely untrustworthy; 8347 Fairbairn on Rowing, p. 258 8348 Stephen Colbert of The Colbert Report (All “t”s are silent) is a comedian who plays a conservative television pundit on the cable network Comedy Central. 8349 Colbert, White House Correspondents’ Dinner, April 29, 2006 But I must also admit that I am not entirely confident, for one of the strongest characteristics of the rowing community worldwide has always been remarkable imperviousness to new ideas, even if they really are old ideas, very old ideas. Steve Fairbairn, speaking of the rowers in his adopted country in 1930: “The English mind is very apt to go back to the old parrot cry of tradition. I sincerely hope it won’t, but the English mind is very stubborn and hard to move.”8347 Little has changed in eighty years, and Fairbairn’s observation is equally relevant across the entire globe today. For virtually all of rowing history, there has existed a cold war of words and ideas between orthodoxy and self-styled free thinkers, between Leander and Tom Egan in the 1830s, between English Orthodox and Fairbairn in the early 20th Century, between Modern Orthodox and Classical today. In the insular world of rowing, questioning the status quo and learning from experience, learning from other athletes and coaches in other times and other places, has always been a profoundly revolutionary concept, and so I predict the message of this book will be strongly resisted by the orthodox and conservative amongst us. 2349