THE WORLD COMES FULL CIRCLE “It was a real amateur operation. We literally were on our own to figure things out, get fit, go fast, and eventually lead the eight as the stern-pair at the 2001 Worlds. The irony and the innocence of it all was that we were in the insipient stage of something really revolutionary. “Fortunately, when Kris Korzeniowski was hired [again] by the U.S. after Sydney, he brought a technical aspect to the team in Princeton that we didn’t have from ‘97 to 2000. Just before I left for Ohio, he would coach us occasionally in the afternoons, maybe a couple of time a week. It was al- ways a nice break because you would hear another point of view, and as Bryan and I searched for a direction in Columbus, I re- membered the things Kris stressed, things like pushing, hanging your body weight and trying to get momentum onto that oar han- dle. “I bought a Speed Coach®. We at- tached the impeller. We put on a new rud- der. I was calling my old college coach, Gavin White,8146 occasionally at 5:00 in the morning, to find out about rigging. “Bryan was trying to finish up school af- ter taking a lot of time off. We rowed once or twice a day on the Scioto River. In the mornings we’d train with the Ohio State women. We would do pieces with them. We felt like part of their team. It was very relaxed setting. ““Bryan and I trained hard, but it was smart training. We’d put in fourteen to six- teen kilometers a day and cross-trained in the afternoon because Bry had school. We had hard days, but it was fun. It was posi- tive.”8147 Bryan: “Just to see what it would do, J.R. and I began by exaggerating the hip motion, so it was all legs and then the back, basically the way most people row today in the U.S. 8146 men’s coach at Temple University 8147 Read, personal conversation, 2006 Susan Mallory Jason Read “For like a year we rowed like that. Ja- son called it Italian Style because if you watch the Italians, their legs are all the way down when their bodies are still all the way forward.8148”8149 J.R.: “We soon began discussing the importance of ‘pushing, always pushing’ and not ‘PULLING!’ as almost all of us were instructed to do throughout our rowing careers. James Tomkins,8150 and perhaps Korzeniowski to a lesser degree, instilled this value. “‘Just push the boat along, myte,’ [imi- tating an Australian accent] James would say. “We would check in with James every few days over the phone. He was coaching the coxless-four back in Princeton and also living at my house with his wife, Bridgette. He told us to keep it simple and focus on moving the boat by ‘pushing it along.’ “The fascinating part of this story is that we discussed and made the changes while chatting with James on the phone. We sent 8148 See Chapter 145. 8149 Volpenhein, personal conversation, 2005 8150 See Chapter 131. 2285