Crew makes room for a 'slacker'

By Nicholas Pinkerton

There is a certain myth associated with Santa Clara crew.

How many times have you heard your friends say, "Those crew guys are insane" or, "Crew gets you so ripped"?

If you know a Santa Clara rower, and you've seen what he or she looks like after practice or at 5:30 a.m., imagine spending a week in his or her shoes.

Imagine dragging yourself out of bed and stepping out in 30-degree weather to spend 90 minutes pushing an oar through the water over and over again, while a relentless coxswain stares you down and barks at you like a guard dog.

Yeah, it didn't sound like the sport for me, either.

I live down the hall from two female rowers, and from my observations, I assumed that crew was a never-ending nightmare of physical and psychological torture.

This past week I participated with the men's varsity and novice teams, and though I'm still alive and breathing, I've gained an understanding of the commitment and the toll rowing and exercising thirty hours a day takes on one's body and mind.

That's right. This average Joe woke up at the crack of dawn four times that week, froze his butt off in a motorboat with coaches, struggled to stay awake in class and tore his hands open trying to keep pace on the rowing machines (ergs).

Little did I know that, despite my primary objective of writing an immersive story, I made a strong impression on the team.

"Please consider coming out for novice next year," one rower told me after I completed an excruciatingly painful 10k on an erg, a routine for all rowers during afternoon workouts.

Regardless of my performance, what I went through one week is what rowers go through every week.

I went into this supposed week of hell fairly physically fit, but I did not expect to stack up to these mythical warriors of Santa Clara crew, the true alpha males and females of the university.

I did not get a chance to actually row because the coaches did not have a space for me in their practice regimen, but I was able to accompany Varsity Head Coach Wieslaw Kujda and Novice Coach Matt Pinschmidt in a motorboat to see how they operate morning practices on the lake.

Kujda, a native of Poland, is an intimidating figure, standing an inch or two over 6 feet and weighing in at well over 200 pounds. His white stubble and raspy, heavily accented voice gives him the seasoned quality of a coach who has just about seen it all and can significantly impact a rower's performance.

My first encounter with Kujda, a former Olympic rower and national rowing coach, was a memorable one. I was expected to come to practice two weeks before, but a bout with the flu left me sidelined.

During my first day, I went up to Kujda after he had delivered a series of criticisms to the men's varsity team. I introduced myself and held out a hand, and he fixates his eyes on me in a stern expression and said in his heavy accent, "You're the slacker?"

There's no room for slacking off in Santa Clara crew, a program that, for the varsity men's team, includes 10 workouts a week, totaling over 30 hours of exercise.

Even ill rowers have no margin for error, and often force themselves to show up to workouts and push through the pain. Varsity rower Luis Manrique shared an instance where teammate Dave Stanton became ill during practice but continued anyway.

"He was so sick that the doctor ran a white blood cell count and his immune system was so depressed that his parents thought he had HIV," Manrique said. "It turns out he had exhaustion-induced immune suppression. Your body just can't keep up."

Now I really felt like a slacker.

The individual practices aren't the only aspect of crew that is daunting; it's also the harsh time commitment. Five days of the week, rowers wake up around 5:30 a.m. to drive to Lexington Reservoir.

Away from the commercial and financial areas of Silicon Valley, Lexington Reservoir lies in the middle of a series of windy roads adjacent to Highway 17, south of Los Gatos.

Fog and mist blanket the hills and creep above the water. Debris from the pockets of trees and moist earth floats along the water's surface, and the murky olive-green water looks like an unfriendly place to tip over. Yet what this location offers is practice grounds in a peaceful environment that helps rowers focus on the reason that they are out there five times a week.

"You go to the lake, you get in the boats, and you row away, and it's like you're walking away from everything. It's like solitude," said Kujda. "It's a great thing to have out here because it's so unique."

Unfortunately, rowers can't afford to look up at the circling seagulls or the sun ascending over the hills.

When rowing, they're constantly looking straight ahead at the coxswain, a man or women seated at the stern of the boat who dictates the stroke rate and yells commands during races like a drill sergeant.

If that doesn't sound like an intense, exhausting way to spend your first few hours awake, try tacking on another couple hours in the afternoon working on the ergs and running to keep your heart rate up.

I got my fill of physical tests with the team during afternoon workouts in Leavey Center, and this was where I saw the possibility of joining the team in the future as I kept up in workouts like a crew regular.

My first afternoon, I went with Varsity Captain Jimmy Shoven and a few other rowers for a five-and-a-half-mile run. It had been months since I had last run multiple miles, and my lungs communicated that to me about fifty paces in.

Our pace ranged between seven and a half and eight minutes per mile, and though I was not in my half-marathon or cross country team form, I gutted it out to keep pace alongside Shoven.

There I was, matching strides with the captain of the crew team -- crew's cream of the crop. There I was, hanging tough with one of the six rowers who had competed in a "half iron man" competition.

"I heard you dominated the run yesterday," varsity rower Josh Shumsky told me.

Although I did have distance running experience, when it came to hunching over an erg, I was a rookie, a novice, a newbie.

I had no idea what I was doing on the erg, nor could I feel the burning in my legs, back or arms.

"People think that you can come out and just row, and that won't happen," said varsity rower Ryan Carlton.

Once I got the hang of the rowing motions, I began to feel the burn. My back stiffened, and I could feel my biceps and triceps tense up every time I pulled the bar toward me.

I thought I would not finish the piece, a 10k, but after over 40 minutes of questioning in my head, (How much longer until I collapse?), I got positive feedback from some of the varsity rowers, including the captain himself.

"That ain't bad for not really knowing what you're doing," said Shoven.

No parts of my body cried uncle more than my hands, though. Gloveless and exposed, the rubberized erg handle ripped fluid-filled blisters and calluses that made it painful to grip my sweat towel.

"Rowing without gloves is one of the many sacrifices we make in order to be technically better rowers," said Manrique. "What we give up in bare hands we gain in the ability to feel what's going on with our oars and dedication to the sport."

Obviously, I can't consider myself dedicated to the sport, but now I know what it takes to be a Santa Clara rower.

These rowers are tough, physically and psychologically, and they dedicate countless time to training, time that would normally be spent sleeping or studying. They take on the challenge of going out to the reservoir with hardly any energy, and come out of afternoon practices at the end of the day smiling and joking, ready to take on the next activity. It sounds unrealistic, but, as Kujda told me, these rowers are out on the water because they have a passion for the sport.

I admire the camaraderie and rapport the rowers have with each other, as well as their willingness to take me under their wing in my first crew encounter. I sincerely thank them for that.

Based on my experience of waking up those four pitch-black mornings and pulling away on an erg with committed, passionate individuals, I would not be surprised to see myself out at Lexington Reservoir next year.

Contact Nicholas Pinkerton at (408) 551-1918 or npinkerton@scu.edu.