Raging Back: An Up Close and Personal Look at the Navy Heavyweight Rowing Team's 1984 IRA National Championship

Episode Transcript
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Karl (00:14):
Hi everybody, my name is Karl Darden and I'd like to
welcome and thank all of you forjoining us today on Navy Sports
Central.
I'm your host and this is theofficial podcast of the Navy
Sports Nation where we take adeeper dive into Navy sports.
Spring break is about a monthaway, which means the mids will
finally be emerging from thedark ages.
The Star Series has tightenedup considerably, with the mids
taking four straight lastweekend to take a big chunk out

(00:35):
of Army's lead.
But the Black Knights are stillahead 9-7 and remain in the
driver's seat with 10 conteststo go.
There are three more stars onthe line this weekend in men's
and women's basketball andwrestling, so we'll see if the
Mids can continue their comeback.
And the women's lacrosse teamjust got its season underway.
We will check in with them tosee how that went, and we have
got a great deep dive segmentfor you in addition to our

(00:55):
question of the day andmid-watch segments.
So don't go anywhere.
All right, it's great to haveyou guys with us.
Thanks so much for dropping in.
I really appreciate you takingthe time.
It is great to be back aftersome unplanned time off.
And before we get started, Iwanted to mention one thing.
Thanks so much to all of myclassmates and those of you in

(01:18):
the Navy Sports Nation for yourprayers after my father passed
away.
As some of you know, we losthim two days after Christmas, so
January was kind of a roughmonth for all of us.
I truly appreciated your kindwords.
Anyway, let's go ahead and jumpright into things.
Up until last weekend, army waslooking like they were going to
try and settle the Star Seriesabout as quickly as Navy did in
2022.
That year, the Mids won their13th star before February was

(01:41):
even over, and that set a recordfor the earliest time the
series has been won since thenumber of competing sports
surpassed 20.
This year, the Black Knightsjumped out to a huge lead and
when they took both starts andswimming back in December, they
put themselves in a position topretty much win it all.
Last weekend, they went into itwith a 9-3 lead, so taking four
sports would get them to 13,.
Basically putting things out ofreach.

(02:01):
If they managed to do that,army would only need to win one
more sport to take the seriesand, by the way, the magic
number is now 14, since men'sand women's rugby were added a
couple years ago.
But the mids weren't ready toconcede anything.
And last Saturday morning therifle team got things started by
beating Army.
For the fourth straight yearthey took seven of the top 10
spots, including the first three.

(02:22):
Isabella Baldwin led allcompetitors with an aggregate
score of 1,185 points out of apossible 1,200.
Marlee Duncan and Ryan Weefinished right behind her.
The mids won by a score of4,709 to 4,668, which is a
pretty decent margin when youconsider that last year the
difference was only five points.
Next up was the Navy IndoorTrack Team.
Both the men and the women wereriding five-year winning

(02:42):
streaks.
Going into this meet was theNavy Indoor Track Team.
Both the men and the women wereriding five-year winning
streaks going into this meet.
Getting to six meant having todo it in hostile territory up at
West Point, but they did getthe job done.
Barely a month after footballseason ended, nathan Kent showed
he's in great form as he tookboth a 200 and a 400.
Gia Anderson won the 60-meterhurdles and finished second
behind teammate Annie Lemelin inthe 60-meter dash, and both the

(03:03):
men and the women dominated therelays.
So when all the dust hadsettled, the men came away with
a 99-82 win, while the womentook their meet by a score of
94-87.
Now the only sport left to bedecided on Saturday was
gymnastics, and that one was anail-biter.
The mids were behind by alittle over half a point through
three events, but Isaiah Drakeled a comeback over the last

(03:23):
three rotations to sew up aseventh straight win for Navy,
and they did it on the road too.
The mids totaled 314.6 pointsto 311.9 for Army, so now the
Star Series stands at 9-7 infavor of the Black Knights, and
things have gotten a whole lotmore interesting.
The fact is, army is still in apretty good spot.
They only have to win five ofthe remaining ten sports, while

(03:45):
the mids have to come away withseven Ws.
The next three stars on the lineare in men's and women's
basketball and wrestling.
For Navy to have a legitimateshot at winning the series this
year, I think they're going toneed to grab two out of those
three.
A few weeks ago, the men'sbasketball team beat Army up at
West Point, but the women gotoff to a slow start and never
recovered.
Up at West Point, but the womengot off to a slow start and

(04:06):
never recovered.
The star games are being playedat home, so my thought is that
the fans can provide a littleextra energy.
That could prove to be thedifference.
The wrestling team has beencompeting very well this year,
despite having lost a number ofkey seniors.
Coach Kolat has always been bigon developing depth by front
loading the schedule with a lotof invitational meets.
Now that they're going into thedual meets, the strategy looks

(04:30):
to be paying off.
The mids are currently 4-0,including wins over Lehigh and
Bucknell, and those were twoteams that beat Army recently.
While I'm not saying the midsare locked to win, especially
since they will be wrestling upat West Point, their confidence
has been building over the lastfew weeks and it's just a matter
of staying focused in themoment when they take the mat
against Army.
So the different scenariosfollowing these next three
contests are Army increasingtheir lead to 12-7.
If they win all of them, thatwould be a very strong position

(04:50):
going into the spring.
Even an 11-8 lead would be atough one for the Mids to
overcome, but if Navy can takeat least two out of the next
three to close the gap to one, Ithink they have a reasonable
path to winning the series inthe spring, and it could all
come down to the women'slacrosse game, and this was the
one team, besides football, thatI was most excited about this
year.
Last May, they took Loyola toovertime before falling short

(05:11):
12-11.
And when the NCAA selectioncommittee failed to give them an
at-large bid, despite the midsbeating two ranked opponents,
many, including me, thoughtthey'd made a huge mistake.
This year, the women's goal isto leave no doubt, and that
means winning their firstPatriot League championship
since 2018.
To secure that automatic bid,the team is led by Emily
Messinese, who is one of thetoughest players I've ever seen
put on a Navy jersey, and shehas a boatload of support as

(05:33):
well.
Tori DiCarlo, Ava Yovino andAlyssa Daly are all back, while
incoming freshman Alyssa Chunghas had an immediate impact.
In the mids home opener againstSt Joseph's, messonese had four
goals and one assist.
Jovino added a goal of her own,while Daly won seven of nine
draw controls.
Meanwhile, chung made hercollege debut by scoring a hat
trick and picking up an assist.

(05:53):
The final score was 16-9.
Navy and just to be clear, StJoseph's has an excellent
program.
They've made it to the Atlantic10 championship game in each of
the last three seasons, winningit all in 2022.
Next, the Navy women will takeon Villanova as they make their
way through a challengingnon-conference schedule, and
they should be battle-tested bythe time Patriot League play
begins in March.

(06:13):
Okay, that gets you all caughtup on the Star Series.
Our Deep Dive segment is nextand, trust me, you're going to
want to stick around for thisone.
Joining me will be a couple ofNavy Athletics Hall of Famers

(06:41):
who will give us an up-close andpersonal look at the last
national championship the Midswon in a sport that has been at
Annapolis the longest.
Stay with us.
There are 36 varsity sports atthe US Naval Academy, but none
of them have been around longerthan rowing.
That would be 155 years, andduring that time the program has
had some terrific success.
In this edition of our Deep Divesegment, we're going to take a
look back at one of the bestcrews the Naval Academy has ever
produced, and to do that, I'mgoing to welcome a couple of

(07:05):
guests who also happen to be myclassmates.
First up we have Andy Bigelow.
Andy came to the Academy fromSault Ste Marie, michigan.
He competed in basketball ontrack while in high school and
then transitioned to rowing.
After arriving at Annapolis,andy was named a team captain as
a senior and also competed atthe 1984 Olympic Trials along
with our other guests who I'llintroduce next.
He received his commission as aMarine Corps pilot following
graduation and flew both theUH-1N helicopter and the AV-8B

(07:28):
Harrier.
Andy's been with UnitedAirlines since 1997.
He is a first officer on theBoeing 777 based out of San
Francisco and is closing in on18,000 flight hours.
Andy, thanks so much forjoining us on the show.
I really appreciate it.

Andy (07:42):
Thank you.

Karl (07:44):
Our other guest is Chuck Melcher.
As you'll learn, chuck waspractically born with an oar in
his hands and he was recruitedto row at Annapolis.
Following graduation, he joinedthe nuclear submarine community
and he's currently working fora private equity firm investing
in nuclear supply chaincompanies around the United
States.
Chuck's wife, tracy, was a Navyhelicopter pilot and the former
commanding officer of HC-6.

(08:04):
They have two sons and twodaughters.
In fact, both of his daughtersrode in college and they were
their respective team captainsat Wisconsin and MIT, and to say
that Chuck and Tracy try tostay active is probably about as
big an understatement as thereis.
They have climbed MountKilimanjaro, dove into Galapagos
Islands and biked from Berlin,germany, to Prague in the Czech
Republic.
In fact, andy and his wifeSarah teamed up with him on

(08:26):
those last couple of trips.
Chuck, welcome to the show.
Thanks for taking the time tobe with us today.
Yeah, looking forward to it.
Okay, to get the conversationstarted, I was wondering if you
could both share the time whenyou were first introduced to
rowing.
It's not exactly a mainstreamsport and I know that Navy is
known for taking really goodathletes and developing them
into elite rowers.

(08:47):
So, andy, let's start with you.

Andy (08:50):
Well, my first exposure was probably like a lot of
athletes who come to the NavalAcademy at least back then was
when I got to the Naval Academy.
I really did not even know whatcrew was when I received a
recruiting letter, and that'snot an uncommon story.
I've heard many of ourclassmates and others while we
were there say the same thingand I looked at it as another

(09:16):
avenue to getting preference, tomaybe getting into the academy,
and I knew that I wanted to dosomething sports related and I
had played basketball in highschool and a little bit of track
cross country, but I knew thatI didn't have the ability to
play college, especiallyDivision One college basketball,
although I told myself for ashort period of time that maybe

(09:39):
I could.
And really after I got there Irealized that that rowing was
probably what I should be doingor would be best suited to do,
and I didn't really have a.
I didn't have any otherbackground than that.
And what was encouraging wasseeing all the athletes and

(09:59):
hearing about all the stories ofathletes before us who had who
had come under the samecircumstances they had, they had
been high school athletes, butthey were not rowers in high
school and they were able tobasically be transformed into
pretty decent rowers by the timetheir four years were up.

Karl (10:18):
Okay.

Chuck (10:19):
Chuck, how about you?
Yeah, mine was a very differentstory.
Combination of good timing andbad judgment on my part.
My grandfathers both rode.
My father rode, all my olderbrothers rode, so I was going to
row and I can tell you with100% certainty I would not have

(10:45):
gotten into the Naval Academy,where Dreyfus is not on the hunt
for anyone to help him row, andso you know, I don't know how
that works in the background,but I'm sure that didn't hurt
any.
And you know I tried everyother sport football, soccer,
cross-country, cross-country,skiing and crew.
And if Andy sees me run, so heknows how my cross-country
running career was.

(11:06):
And there's not a lot of snowin Maryland, so that was out and
so it was rowing or gosomewhere else to school.

Karl (11:15):
Okay, so now you live in Chicago now, but where did you
live when you were applying tothe academy?

Chuck (11:20):
Boston.

Karl (11:21):
Boston.
Boston Got it, which is why Ididn't apply to.

Chuck (11:23):
Harvard, because we still dislike those guys.

Karl (11:28):
Right, right, okay, so I wanted to transition from there
into a discussion on how a crewactually gets put together.
I had a good conversation withSean Bagnall, who's the
lightweight rowing coach, and hewas sharing with me this flow
that started with hitting acertain benchmark on on the erg

(11:48):
machines uh, the concept, tworowers, and then that was
basically.
He described that as basicallylike you know, um, the, the job
interview or whatever, and thenthat gets you the seat in the
boat and then that's really your, your second interview, which
you really got to kind of proveyourself and so forth, and then,
depending on how that goes, you, you get assigned a seat in one
of the shelves.
So I was wanting to hear itfrom like the oarsman's

(12:13):
perspective, right, I mean, whatwas that experience like?
And when you were going throughit, did you just go?
Okay, am I really making theright choice here, or what?
What do you think, andy?

Andy (12:26):
Right, yeah, that's an interesting concept.
You know, really, when we wererowing and we showed up in 1980,
the ergs were just not asavailable as they are now.
We didn't have all the concepttwos.
Those actually came while wewere there but we didn't have
anywhere near the numbers thatthey have now in any rowing

(12:46):
program.
You just see rooms full ofthese Concept 2 or other brand
rowers.
We had these big they calledthem East German rowing machines
.
They had a big flywheel on themwith weights they would put on
it, depending on your weight, tocompensate, and they looked
like torture machines.
I mean they really looked likethey looked like torture
machines.
I mean they really did, andthey felt like torture machines.

(13:07):
And so so I remember showing upand seeing these things and
that like the darkest, dirtiestcorner of the boathouse and
thinking, oh okay, at some pointI'm going to have to sit on
that thing and go for it.
But I guess my when we showed up, you know it was with Coach Ken
Dreyfus as plebs and youweren't allowed.

(13:27):
I don't know, I guess now it'sdifferent, but at the time you
weren't allowed.
It didn't matter how great youwere, even if you were a legacy
like Chuck Melker, coming from aprep school or rowing
background, you could not row inthe varsity, it wouldn't matter
how great you were I think thatmay be different now but then
you had to row on the freshmancrew, which I guess there's pros

(13:50):
and cons to that, but anyway,ken Dreyfuss' way of introducing
us to rowing as well as fitness, as well as sizing us up for
whatever he was looking fortoughness, resilience, maybe
probably the biggest things, Ithink, at that level, and then
some level of athleticism.

(14:13):
He couldn't expect too much outof most of us, but some level
of athleticism so that wewouldn't screw the boat up.
And so I guess, from myperspective, it was mostly about
just being fit and not, and not, um, you know, giving in to, to
fatigue.
And then also we were being, wewere being measured all the
time.
It didn't matter if it was hillsprints or an ergometer or a

(14:36):
run or pull-ups or whatever.
Everything just seemed to be upto me, and again I was the.
I was truly a novice.
Everything just seemed to be ato me, and again I was truly a
novice.
Everything just seemed to besomewhat of equal weight.
And I think we saw as we wentalong where we were stacking up
in that regard.
And then you, finally, you know,you get in a boat and row and

(14:57):
you're, you know the boats areall over the place, you're
smacking water, you're tipping,you're thinking, wow, is this
really what I want to do?
They're long, hard practices.
In fact, I will add that I cameand rode Plebe Summer like
everybody did who was recruited,I guess?
And at the end of Plebe SummerI decided I don't think this is

(15:21):
what I want to do.
I think I'm going to make a runfor see if I can play
basketball.
And so I said earlier Irealized I wasn't think this is
what I want to do.
I think I'm going to make a runfor see if I can play
basketball.
And so I said earlier, Irealized I wasn't good enough to
play D1, but maybe I could makeit on the JV team, who knows?
Next thing, you know I'm playingon my company basketball team
because I wasn't good enough toplay at the intercollegiate
level and unfortunately, ourcompany team won the brigade

(15:45):
championship.
So I was all enthused aboutthat.
And then I quickly realizedthat that was a fluke.
It wasn't because of me that wewon the brigade championship
and and I was convinced to comeback to rowing after Christmas
break, I believe year.
So I kind of, I kind of I leftfor a semester, came back and
decided if I came back I wasn'tgoing to quit again, and and

(16:09):
stuck with it.

Karl (16:09):
So it was.
It was a gone.
Well, thank you, that's nice.

Andy (16:13):
Chuck.
I mean, I came back and sawwhat these guys have been doing
and said, well, that was a nicebreak, but it's time to get back
to work here.
And yeah, that was.
That was my experience from afitness standpoint.

Karl (16:25):
Okay, All right.
So, Chuck, I wanted to you know, given your much longer history
, starting in seventh grade andso forth, when it comes to
rowing, I wanted to have alittle discussion on the
differences, if any, in theresponsibilities for the
different seat positions.
I mean, I think everybody who'seven remotely connected to

(16:45):
rowing understands theimportance of the stroke seat.
But we can talk.
I definitely want to talk aboutthat, and but also the others
too.
So I was wondering if you couldshare your thoughts.

Chuck (16:54):
Yeah.
So I want to add one other stepto your previous question,
though.
Okay, the first step, beforeeven the erg and all that, it's
just about not quitting.
Right, right, right.
If you just don't quit andyou're just barely good enough
and I put myself in thatcategory despite my long years
of rowing you're going to have ashot, and I think you know,

(17:20):
andy.
I think about guys like JenGoff, who I truly don't remember
hearing about.
I can't picture him until oursenior year, and then he ends up
in the two-seat of the nationalchampionship-winning boat Great
example.
Yeah, and there are many others.
He just refused to quit.
He was down.
I couldn't even tell you howhis ergs were or what his runs

(17:43):
were Not that I saw anybodyrunning, but nonetheless.
And so that's the first step.
Yeah, now people get on an erg,and and there's 30 of them or
40 of them in a room, we hadfour, and you know they do make
some cuts.
But even my daughter, who wroteit, wisconsin was literally at

(18:05):
every cut through her freshmanyear, she was the last one they
did not cut, literally.
They started with 120.
She was 79 of 80.
She was 39 of 40.
She was 24th and she ended upcaptain of the varsity boat and
stroking the boat in her senioryear, just like your dad, just
like your dad, so, but it's,it's just about not quitting.

(18:28):
As far as the seats, we make alot, we make a big deal about
that in the boat, I mean everyday, you know ports are better
than starboards because becausethe way the thing is rigged and
so starboards have a leverageadvancement.
So ports have to be stronger.
You know, they think they haveto keep.

(18:48):
They're behind us because theyhave to keep an eye on us,
because we slack off and theyneed to push us.
You know, the middle four guysare billed as the strongest.
We call them the engine room.
They're the strongest guys.
Of course that's where you knowShrek, down there on your
screen, you know, sat for hisfour years rowing.

Andy (19:09):
Out of necessity.

Chuck (19:12):
Really, because the boat's narrower and a guy as big
as Andy just can't get in therein the stern.
You don't want a guy like Andyin the bow diving the bow into
the water, so you put yourlightweights up there.
The bow into the water, so youput your lightweights up there.
But guys like Goff and Piercyand Coker would take real
umbrage at that and I rode thetwo seat in my junior year.

(19:34):
I was the other end of the boatin my junior year and it's a
completely different experienceto your question.
You're really when you're inthe engine room, andy, I imagine
or I never rode the middle ofthe boat, I was never strong
enough to be in that position,so I was either in the stern
pair or the bow pair, always.
Um, when you're in the sternyou really feel like you are,

(19:56):
you know, part of a just thismachine.
When you're in the bow, youfeel very alone.
It's literally just you.
There's nobody to talk to,nobody gives a crap that you're

(20:20):
up there, you know, you knownobody's watching you.
So, assassin, because at 190pounds or whatever he was, he
kicked all our asses on the ergall the time.

Andy (20:32):
The last thing I wanted to support was to seat race Pat
Piercy ever.

Chuck (20:35):
Admiral Piercy, by the way.
Admiral right three-starAdmiral Piercy.
So yeah, generally speaking, Idon't know about the middle end
and you can talk about that, butI always felt a very close
kindred with the guy who thestarboard, who rode behind me or
in front of me depending on howthe boat is rigged.
So Jim and I, you know, I think, became very close friends

(20:58):
because he and I were the guysthat talked to each other
throughout the race.

Karl (21:03):
This was Jim Schofield.

Chuck (21:05):
Yeah.
And the bow.
You know, I talked to thebowman, but nobody else.
I don't know.
Andy, maybe you can talk to howthe middle feels about life,
but that's just my experience.

Andy (21:14):
Well, I almost felt the most comfortable in the middle
seats in the engine room andthat was in many ways yeah,
that's, I always joke that, butit's true.
You could I always joke that,but it's true you could pull
hard but you could also hide alot of technique mistakes, and I
had plenty of them.
So you could get away withmaybe not the best technique
sometimes in the middle of theboat, as long as you were

(21:34):
pulling hard and not screwingthe swing of the boat up as much
as possible.
In practice we used to andrightfully so we would put into
the stern seats of the foursespecially and I just remember
just not enjoying rowing in thestroke seat on long rows that we

(21:56):
do, especially in the fall in afour it just felt like I just
couldn't tell where we weresupposed to be.
My timing never felt great.
I just couldn't tell where wewere supposed to be.
My timing never felt great.
And the best part about beingone back for the stroke even is
you can at least see what thetiming is, see where the blades
are.

(22:18):
And then for me, in the middleof the boat, all I had to do is
just keep either focus or justhave a side view of Jim
Schofield's starboard oar goingin and as long as I was matching
that or thinking I was matchingthat, I felt better about my
rowing.
And then the same thing thatChuck was saying in the bow
those guys are the magicians ofsort, just trying to not mess it
up, trying to help keep theboat balanced.

(22:38):
And you know, being the I wouldsay sort of the artists in the
boat, those of us in the middle,we were just, you know, being
that, I would say sort of theartists in the boat, those of us
in the middle, we were just,you know, we were just hammers
and doing our best to pull hardbut not mess things up.
And that's how I saw it.

Chuck (22:54):
Right right.
The nice part about those bowguys is they can.
The problem you have up thereis you can see everything.
So the cocks can see everythingand the bow guys can see
everything.
The Cox is empowered to coach.
The bow guys are not.
The Cox doesn't?

(23:15):
I mean, he knows what'shappening but he doesn't know
what it's like.
He's never rowed.
When you're in the bow, youdesperately want to tell Andy
you're late every stroke oryou're leaning out and you can't
.
So, you've got to shut up androw Not a good thing for me by
the movie Into the Stern, whereI couldn't see anybody.
But yeah, those guys really domake all the difference because

(23:40):
if they're out of whack the boatbow tends to bounce and that
slows you down.
Every time it's like throwing aweight out.
The middle guys and the sternguys can get away with a lot of
errors, but the leverage up inthe bows 80 feet of lever arm
that can really jack you up.

Karl (23:55):
Right right.
Now, you mentioned Coxman there, chuck, and I was kind of
curious and I meant to ask CoachBagnall this question the last
time we spoke and it just kindof slipped my mind.
But what does that selectionprocess look like, you know,
since you you know to your pointthat they did they've not rode.
I mean, I imagine they werecoming from a background, from
some sort of rowing background,am I right?

Chuck (24:16):
no, almost never we.
We actually had two came fromphiladelphia.
Okay, uh, they were 83 guys.
Uh, you know, joe Nangle wasone.
I think Griff had coxed in highschool.

Andy (24:28):
He had.
Yeah, thank you, and Weiner.

Chuck (24:33):
He coached Father Judge or something, right, right, but
we had three or four guys whohad never coxed.
It's something you can learn,it's.
It is not rocket science.
It's not easy to coach a groupof, you know, dog panting rowers
, right, but it's.

(24:57):
You have this rudder that'slike six inches by four inches
steering a boat, that's, youknow, by four inches, steering a
boat that's close to 100 feetlong, and so if you move that,
all eight of those guys arepulling differently, so the boat
just wants to kind of go allover the place.
And so it can be learned.

(25:21):
It's not trivial, but if the guyis, the limit now, I think, is
up to 120 pounds, but in our dayif you were less than 115
pounds you had to have sandbagswith you.
So that was even.
We had one cogs who made nobones about being 130, right,
that's an extra 15 pounds.
You don't want to be draggingthree miles or whatever, 2,000

(25:42):
meters over the races.
And we had another guy whocouldn't miss a bridge.
It didn't matter what thebridge was, he just couldn't
miss it.
And so ultimately, you know,john Steckle emerged in all
three of those categories as theguy who could sort of manage
that and, importantly, manage meat the end there and he and I

(26:04):
still have a love haterelationship and that's 40 years
later.
We still get together, giveeach other a hard time about our
experience.
Um, but yeah, it's that, it'suh.
It's obviously less about thephysical uh merging and it's
much more about the personalitymerge.
I'm sure clothierier put him inthere because he was confident

(26:27):
Clothier would stand up to me.
I'm sure that's what Andy.
You jumped in, you were thecaptain, you talked to Clothier.
I never spoke with the man.

Andy (26:36):
Yeah, no, I think John was .
You know, it occurs to me nowthat how much tougher that job
is than what I appreciated,because when you're working out
every day and you're in thecoxswains and many of them, and
John included, did work out withus, but you know, it just was
on a different level and andthey did that, I think

(26:57):
rightfully so as a way to to bepart of the team, to ingratiate
themselves.
But really, what a tough job.
Like Chuck said, you don'trealize that I've never tried to
steer an eight-man shell withall that weight in it.
I can only imagine how tough itis on some of these courses.
And then the other side, sothere's a technical.

(27:19):
Then the other side is theleadership side and trying to be
an amateur psychologist in theboat, especially dealing with
the personalities in the boat,especially dealing with the
personalities.
And you're looking at thatstroke war right there as you're
simultaneously trying tomotivate him and not get in the
way.
It's not about the coxswain,it's really not about any
individual in the boat, it'sabout the boat itself.

(27:40):
But that coxswain has to bestrong enough to be able to
critique on the run and to coach.
What a tough job.
I never really appreciated howtough it was when I was there.
So, yeah, john was a great fitfor us.
Joe Nangle the year before.
We just all respected the heckout of him because he had coxed

(28:03):
in high school in Philadelphia.
Very good friends with ourother classmate, tom Beck, who
stroked the boat our junior yearand, yeah, we respected the
heck out of Joe because of that.
John was a different coxswain,but I he was.
I think he was equallyeffective, right.

Chuck (28:22):
The nice part about Joe was A he was equally effective,
right.
The nice part about joe was, uh, um, a, he was very affable.
Two, he was very philadelphia.
Right, he had, he had an edgeon him and a bit of a mouth on
him and which which was, whichwas refreshing.
Um, to some degree, and in fact, you know when, when he is uh,

(28:46):
accusing the other crew, who'sthree seats ahead of you, of
having parents that have nevermet one another, and that sort
of thing.
You know that that that goes along way when you're when you're
about to die, right.

Andy (28:56):
And uh, so yeah, no, we, we liked him as well, he was a
good guy to have on your side.

Chuck (29:00):
Yeah, so yeah, no, we liked him as well.

Andy (29:02):
He was a good guy to have on your side.
Yeah, yeah, exactly that'spretty good.

Karl (29:08):
Okay, so now I want to start kind of getting into the
state of the team as we all cameback for our senior year.
When you look back and youthink about the members of the

(29:30):
class of 83 who were on therowing team, how much of an
impact did them graduating haveon the makeup and the construct
of the?
You know the one boat and the.
You know the first and secondboats and maybe even the third
one, I don't know in terms ofjust you know depth moving on
and you guys and the coacheshaving to replace it.

Chuck (29:50):
Chuck, you want to take that Sure.
So rolling the clock back ayear before that, when all of us
except Andy, who had to makethe varsity boat as a youngster
the rest of us in 84, I guessAndy and Trevor McIntyre made
the varsity boat.
Trevor stroked the varsity boatas a sophomore, which is almost

(30:13):
unheard of.
They missed winning the EasternSprints by I don't know less
than half a second or something.
It was really an incredibleyear.
The rest of us were together inthe JV boat, with one first
year and one 83 guy, and so thatexperience, I think, set a tone
that, even though Andy andTrevor weren't in the boat,

(30:36):
gelled us as a class in a waythat was really unique, because
that generally doesn't happenyou generally spread out and
that boat would often beat.
Often would probably 30% of thetime beat the varsity boat in
practice, which annoyed Clothierto no end.
He refused to call us a JV andeven today, our picture in the

(30:59):
boathouse says second varsityrather than junior varsity.
You know we went undefeated andwon all the championships by
multiple open water.
So I think my feeling and Ihave great respect for Dino, as
you can imagine, who was theteam captain, dino Avalace, who
went on to be assistantsecretary and secretary of the

(31:22):
Navy for a bit, I think, andsome other guys in there brian,
regal and regal was yeah, forexample, um, but I think we were
waiting.
I was, let me say this, I waswaiting for our chances at class
to get into that boat, relivethe sophomore year with andy and
trevor back in the mix, um, uh,and, and see what we could do

(31:45):
at that level.
So for me, I missed those guys,but I was eager for what we
were going to do as seniors.

Andy (31:53):
Yeah, and Carl.
The other thing that I remindedour fleet coach, ken Dreyfus,
of recently was he didn't knowthis or had forgotten it.
He said you know our classbecause he was telling us how
talented the class of 82 was.
And they were.
They had four guys from thatclass who rode on the national
team.
I mean, they were really,really talented as a class.

(32:15):
No class ever had that manyguys.
Yet we beat those guys whenthey were seniors.
We have to start the springseason out.
It's kind of a fun thing, butit's a very competitive thing.
They're called class day racesand, uh, we as plebes had I
don't know we were second orthird and we didn't know we were
flailing, but as sophomores, asyoungsters, we won that race

(32:37):
against and we beat the seniorsand these.
This is a group that had fourguys go to the national team
that following summer and and wenever looked.
I think that's when it sort ofhit us.
We really do have a strong, deepclass and, as Chuck said, most
of the class ended up rowing inthe JV boat that year and those

(32:57):
of us the few of us that were inthe varsity we knew that coming
up all the way that we weregoing to be strong as second
class and strong as seniors asfirst class, and so really it
was sort of a feeling of lookingforward to this, really looking
forward to our class dominatingthis varsity boat in numbers.

(33:20):
And then we pulled up somereally talented guys from the
class of 85 who ended up rowingwith us, who had had lots of
success as well.
So yeah, like Chuck said, asmuch respect as I had for the
guys in 83 and they were a goodgroup I think we didn't feel

(33:40):
like we were going to fall downat all our senior year.

Chuck (33:43):
Okay, all right, very good, carl.
That experience was one of thefirst moments, early real
leadership experiences that Icarried with me throughout my
Navy and then and now privateindustry career, which is, hey,
when the people you think youcan't live without somehow
depart the pattern, someone isalways waiting in the wings to

(34:07):
fill that gap and probably willdo it better, right, guys like
Beach and Piercy, specificallywalter, certainly.
I guess walters was the yeah,walters was the assassin.
Sorry, I may miss that up,anyway, um, and so I mean, make
no mistake, I only made thevarsity boat because the three
senior, the three ports ahead ofme, all quit right to my

(34:30):
earlier point.
Sometimes it's just got to bethe last guy standing, but you
know, mcintyre hurt himself, tomBeck had a really tough junior
year and was emotionallyexhausted, and Earl Panico, I'm
sure he found his 15thgirlfriend and didn't have time
for us.
Had those guys, had those guysnot quit, I would not have made

(34:57):
the boat, I certainly wouldn'thave stroked it, but I would not
have have made it.
And so then those three guysmade way for walters and and
piercey and goth and beach, yeah, um, who frankly, were probably
more willing to die with us.

Andy (35:11):
Yeah, chuck's being modest though I, I you would have
certainly made the boat.
We were actually very fortunateto have you in the stroke seat.
So yeah, no, we lost sometalented guys, but no, we were
lucky to have you.

Karl (35:25):
Right, right.
So I wanted to talk a littlebit about the season itself, and
I know that you got a fallsession and then you know the
bulk of your season is in thespring.
I was looking at the schedulefor both teams this year and
noticed that the lightweightshad three races in the fall,
while the heavyweights only hadone.
Was it like that back then, ordid you guys have a few more

(35:47):
that you did?

Andy (35:48):
No, it was.
Things have changed.
For one thing, the Navylightweights are a lot more
prominent now than they werewhen we were rowing.
They are sort of the primoprogram in the boathouse right
now, I would say, and they havebeen for a while.
They've been very successful.
It wasn't that when we werethere we glommed on.

(36:09):
We were lucky enough to come inat a time when the Navy
heavyweights had won the 1980IRA championship.
We had a couple guys that hadgraduated, who, one guy in
particular, who was made that1980 US Olympic team, but of
course they didn't row becauseof the Moscow Olympics.
And so there was a strongfeeling of that bonus.

(36:29):
And certainly we, we were thepremier program.
You know, we were the ones thatwere given all the most of the,
the emphasis and the resources,I would say the heavyweights.
And so starting in 19 the fallof 1980, we went to the Navy
heavyweights, all of us went tothe head of the Charles and the

(36:50):
head of the Schuylkill regattasand they won it.
We were pleased they won it in1980.
And then when we were there,well, the whole four years we
were there, we won the what'sthe event called Chuck
Championship Eight, championshipEight.

(37:11):
So that is the highest levelrace at both of those regattas,
and the Navy heavyweights won itfour years in a row.
In fact, they may have won itthe fifth year I don't remember
after we left, but five yearsyeah.

Karl (37:24):
Five years in a row yep.

Andy (37:26):
And we won both those races.
Well, one of them we weredisqualified.
Chuck can talk about that, butwe ended up.
The jv ended up winning.
I think, I don't know, it was,uh, the head of the school
calling yes, we did which waskind of a funny story, but
anyway, that was the strength of, I mean, we.
Those things for us were a bigdeal.
I'm not sure that all therowing colleges took it as

(37:48):
seriously as we did maybe not,but we took it very seriously.
And, um, it didn't want to bethe first crew to not win the
thing.
You know, it became a kind of auh, a weight, almost uh, a
motivator, but also a little bitof a weight, and and so the
fall was a big deal and I don'tremember what the lightweights
rode in the fall, uh, or thewomen, but um, they did okay

(38:12):
they went yeah and I justcouldn't remember how many.
But things changed over theyears and then I just know that
this year I'm not sure aboutthis, but maybe this is the
first fall that the Navyheavyweights have not rode at
the head of the Charles and andI in a long time but I don't

(38:33):
know.
So that was a big deal.
And my understanding, yeah, ina long time Maybe, since before
we were there, but I don't know.
Yeah, so that was a big deal.
And I my understanding aboutthat was a new coaching staff
and he felt like he had he couldbetter use his time and
resources not going.
So, yeah, it'll be interestingto see, right, right.

Chuck (38:52):
Carl, when you think about that race it, it played to
Navy's strengths, right.
So, all right, you had theoccasional guy like me that had
rowed before and needed torelearn everything, and then you
had six or seven guys like Andythat you know were chomping at
the bit, who were learning torow or were in their first four
years, right.
And so Clothier's strategythrough that period of time is

(39:16):
we're just going to out-rowother colleges, we're going to
put more miles in to catch upfor what all those prep school
kids did when they were in highschool.
And so we would go to the headof the Severn, which is 12 miles
each way, you know, on aregular basis and do stuff like
that.
So we put a lot of miles in inthe fall, probably faster than
any other crew out there.

(39:37):
I would think, Andrew, maybe youmight know different, but and
so when you come to the head ofthe Charles on a three mile race
, which is a bit unique, it'sdifferent.
You know, we, we were justalways ready for that race, and
the good news is, if you win,the first 15 guys out of 40 that
are in each event get to startin the position they finished

(39:57):
the year before, and so all fiveof those years we started first
, which makes all kinds of gooddifference, right, Because you
don't got to pass people onturns and get people slowing you
down and fight for bridge space, and so you know, our senior
year, we, you know, we justliterally saw nobody the entire
time.
Harvard started second.
I think they finished 36seconds behind us, which is just

(40:21):
an incredible distance.
Flatwater, good conditions, Imean it was.
If we needed reinforcement forwhat Andy had said earlier, that
race was hey, we might be okay.
This year we're going to have ashot.

Karl (40:35):
Right.
So it must have been prettycool to have a result like that
to get to thinking about yourpotential as a team.
Okay, my next question isrelated to the Eastern Sprints
and then how that raceinfluenced you guys' performance
at the IRA.
So I had to kind of look up theresults here.
It looks like Brown won theEastern Sprints and then Penn

(40:55):
was right behind them and thenyou guys were third.

Chuck (41:00):
You're killing me.
This is.

Andy (41:02):
Chuck's albatross right here.
He unfairly takes the load onthis one.
That's not unfair.

Chuck (41:10):
Enjoy it.

Andy (41:13):
A man's got to know his limitations.

Chuck (41:19):
So yeah, we had gone undefeated and raced everybody
except Brown by the time we gotto the Eastern Sprints.

Karl (41:25):
And.

Chuck (41:25):
Eastern Sprints, you know they happen on the Saturday
following our finals and peopletypically get out of finals on
Wednesday.
And you know, you know so wewere.
But some of us are pullingexams up to, you know, so it's
not a great mental time.
That's.
That's my excuse for whathappens next.
Um, so we get there andeverybody's ranked and we have a

(41:47):
very good heat and won thatgoing away.
So we're in the pole positionbest lane.
So we're in the pole positionbest lane.
And I just let it get away fromme.
You know it went to my head, Ilost focus and we rode that
normally back in the day.
It's changed now but we wouldrow at 36 to 37, maybe 38

(42:11):
strokes a minute in the bulk ofthe race.
Now crews are rowing 39, 40, 41, but they have different
equipment in different boats.
It's different equipment indifferent boats, not to take
anything away from them.
And we went off.
We were ahead after the startand we rode 39 to 40 the entire

(42:32):
way down the course and at aboutthe 1500 mark, you know, the
gas was just out of everybody'stank and, and Brown and Penn
said see ya, see ya guys, andwent by us in the last 500.
And, and, and, and, and.

(42:53):
So you know I do mean this.
I don't think Rick Clothier saidit wasn't a hundred words to me
personally in my entire fouryears of the Naval Academy, andy
, andy was the captain.
He spoke with the captain Idon't know if he's I'm sure he
spoke with Jim Schofield,probably but, and the Coxons,
but never a word to me.
Um, the three of those wordscame after that race.

(43:15):
You know what were you thinking?
Like four words, right, um?
And then I'm pretty sure he hada piece of john steckel for
which sounded, probably soundedlike why did you let him get
away with that, right, um?
But, andy, I'm sure you talkedto clothier after, so you may
have what his view is.

Andy (43:36):
Yeah, I don't remember him .
You know, to his credit, hedidn't come to me and say, yeah,
we, we wrote.
Well, I know he said we, wedidn't roll the race you wanted
to.
Obviously we were, we were toohigh, but you know I took it
more as a boat failure.
Uh, I, I don't.

(43:56):
I don't remember being a greatrace for me either.
I remember, you know, probablyfeeling a little too amped up
like we for whatever reason.
The eastern sprints was just uhwith.
We never won the thing.
And I mean, I remember sittingthat 82 boat and we went out and
flailed and just, you know,just did not row our best race
and we seemed to 83 was similarand at 84 we were ranked one
going into it and thought thisis our year and I think that

(44:18):
just sort of added to thepressure and a little bit of the
over-excitement.
So, but no, the biggest thingabout, okay, we didn't win it,
we were expected to win it.
It was a disappointment, to saythe least.
But I think the best lessonfrom that whole experience was
the way we came out of it.
And I just remember personallythinking, all right, we can

(44:43):
never get this back, it's over.
And I remember we were riding inthe bus to where we stayed in
New London.
We stayed at the BOQ in NewLondon before we went home after
that and we talked about itafter the rest of the team got
off the bus, just the varsityeight.
We said you know what?

(45:04):
We are good enough and we arefast enough.
That was a fluke.
We will be back for the IRAs,which really, from the of the
program, the IRAs were moreimportant race anyway.
And we, we will come back andwe will win this thing.
And, and and.
Chuck, I think you were the onethat came up, maybe, with the

(45:26):
phrase raging back.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, and so that and that wasthe attitude in the boathouse.
It was.
It was the most focused I'veever.
Ever remembered for years.
They're the most focused that aboat could be heading into the
IRAs and it was.
It was a very yeah, it's a very, it's a great memory.

Chuck (45:47):
So, yeah, not, the Eastern Sprints weren't a great
memory, but we did the rightthing from it, we learned from
it and really, really becamecohesive because of it and
interestingly, carl, it wasn'tall doom and gloom I mean it was
for us personally but thefreshmen surprisingly won the

(46:08):
eastern sprints after I don'tknow I think I don't know if
they won a race all season, butthey came together at Eastern
sprints and won, going away in areally surprising change.
And so you know, for me thatthat was a you know okay.
You know I screwed this up, butthe program isn't dead.

(46:28):
Look what's coming behind us.
And those guys could be anotherus right.
When maybe freshmen win a race,that's a big deal, because it's
all a bunch of novices really.
So there was some.
You know, okay, how do we sendthe program forward.

Karl (46:45):
Yeah, shout out to 87,.
Yeah, I actually interviewedSean Coughlin about a year ago
and he was actually one of myplebs.
I was his plebs summer squadleader.

Andy (46:56):
Is that?

Karl (46:57):
right.
Yeah so we had a greatconversation about a year ago
and it was a lot of fun talkingto him.

Chuck (47:03):
I recruited him.
He went to my high school oh isthat right?
Okay, yeah.
And Clothier or Dreyfus calledme and said hey, when you're
home for Christmas, I want youto go back to your high school
and take this guy, sean Coughlin, out to lunch.
He's considering coming here.

Andy (47:19):
I need you to push him over the edge, and so the rest
is history.

Karl (47:24):
Yeah, yeah, ok, we're going to go ahead and take a
short break now, but before wedo that, I did want to give you
all a couple of ways to stay upto date on Navy sports.
The first is to join the NavySports Nation group Facebook
page.
I've got a link to that in theshow notes.
Just click on it, answer acouple of questions and you'll
be good to go.
The second way takes even lesstime.
Just hit the follow button onwhichever platform you're

(47:45):
listening to this podcast rightnow.
It can be Apple Podcasts,spotify, iheartradio, it doesn't
matter.
Once you do that, every episodewill be downloaded to your
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So please consider becoming amember of our group and you can
actually tap that follow buttonright now to show your support
for the podcast.
I'm looking forward to havingyou join us.
We'll be right back.
Thanks for staying with us onNavy Sports Central.

(48:23):
Karl Darden here with you, andwe are continuing our
conversation with Andy Bigelowand Chuck Melcher, two members
of the Navy heavyweight rowingteam that won the national
championship in 1984.
Okay, now let's get into howthings played out at the IRA
championships.
But before we start, Andy, Iwanted to, for the record, have
you mention each member in thatVarsity 8 boat, from the number

(48:45):
one seat all the way back to thecoxswain.

Andy (48:48):
Right.
So Jan Goff was our bowman,class 84.
And, like Chuck mentioned, justnever gave up, never gave in,
doesn't say a lot, didn't talk alot.
Jan's a pretty private guy and,yeah, he just worked his way,

(49:08):
just worked hard and won.
And you were asking earlierwhat allows you to get a seat in
a boat.
What was really important then,and I'm assuming still is, are
seat races.
So not only is it your fitnesslevel and your ERG scores, but
it's the coach watching peoplein the boat how they're rowing.
But then it comes down to okay,how do you compete with one

(49:30):
another?
And he will flip guys.
In practice He'll flip one guyfrom one boat to another.
Do you compete with one another?
And he will flip guys.
In practice He'll flip one guyfrom one boat to another.
During in the middle of thepractice.
You literally pull the boats upnext to each other and swap
seats.
And Jan I don't rememberspecifically, but he must've
been winning seat races and I'msure he was pulling good org
scores.
So Jan was our bow man.
Then Admiral Pat Piercy was ournumber two class of 85 and 85,

(49:53):
and just a tough, tough guy, youknow, a great personality, just
always positive, great guy tohave on the boat.
You know, just strong, strongrower.
Number three, our classmateBruce Coker, was a three-man and
that's what I would call thestart of the engine room the 3C,
and that's what I would callthe start of the engine room,

(50:14):
the three seat and Bruce hadbeen in those really good I mean
fantastic second varsity boatsfor the two years prior.
Just a strong, strong guy thatwasn't going to give in and rode
very well.
And then in the four seat wasJohn Beach, class of 85.
John had rode in high schoolfrom Florida, as I remember, and

(50:45):
very strong, a calm guy.
It was good to have anothercalm guy in there in the middle
and could pull hard and knewwhat he was doing.
I was in the five seat wherethey could hide me as best as
anyone could tell, not a greattechnique at all, like Chuck
said, he and the coach, I don'tknow, they probably got tired of
telling me you're late, you'relate, you're late, you know, at
the catch.

(51:05):
But, I pulled pretty hard and Iwon a lot of seat races.
In fact, I think the only seatrace I lost that I remember was
to Jim Schofield, our classmate.
He beat me my senior year andthat was tough to swallow.
But on one hand it was tough toswallow, on the other hand I'm
like good, okay, I know thatthere's somebody else in here

(51:26):
who's pulling at least as hardas I am, so Jim was a great guy.
Right in front of me in thesixth seat was John Walters,
class 85.
He's the guy.
We actually called him Psycho.
That was a nickname given tohim by Jim Engle the coxswain
from 83.
Joe called him Psycho becauseJohn was just tough and never

(51:50):
said a word.
I mean almost to the point hewas a little worried.

Chuck (51:55):
Yeah, tough is an understatement.
Yeah, tough is anunderstatement.

Andy (51:57):
Yeah, tough is an understatement.
This guy would you know we'd gothrough two-a-day practices
during spring break.
We're all wiped out and I lookout my window at Bancroft and
there's John out there runninglaps around the field, you know,
on his own time, just to, forwhatever reason, just to get the
energy out.
John ended up rowing in the 88Olympics the one guy out of that

(52:20):
boat who made an Olympic teamand he did, though I think he's
done at least one bike raceacross America.
He's just a stud, phenomenalyeah, phenomenal athlete and a
real gentleman physician now, Ibelieve.
And then in the seventh seat wasJim Schofield, our classmate,
and Jim and I had kind of tradedspots ever since our youngster

(52:44):
year.
We had traded spots back andforth, both roads, scarborough
side, both fairly about the samesize.
Jim definitely put on someweight and muscle by our senior
year and he and I were tradingerg scores, trading races, and
Jim was a great guy to havebehind Chuck in the stroke seat
because he was a better rowertechnique-wise and you needed

(53:07):
that down there behind Chuck.
And of course Chuck stroked theboat and, like he said, we'd
had other guys stroking the boatfrom our class actually, but we
felt like we were deep, and boywere we ever deep, seeing Chuck
come from the year before,coming from the two-seat, and
all of a sudden he's strokingthe boat and doing very well.
We had a very obviouslysuccessful senior year or so,

(53:32):
and then John Steckle, of course, was our coxswain and he did a
fantastic job.
I admire him more and more asthe years go by for putting up
with the personalities and thestress of that job.

Karl (53:45):
Right, right.
So, chuck, now I wanted to askyou, since you were in the
stroke seat, the overall raceplan for that day, you know, is
I actually I got thisinformation from Scott Gordon a
little bit, but then, when, and,by the way, I did watch the
video that you submitted to Road2K about five years ago, so I
got a sense for how the how therace went, seemed like the

(54:07):
conditions were fairly good, butwhat was the overall race plan?
And I'm asking this because I'mtrying to get a sense for how
much of a race plan is scriptedversus you guys reacting to
what's going on around you.

Chuck (54:20):
Um, no, that's a.
That's a really good questionand the answer to that is the
whole thing is scripted um atthe start, so everybody knows
what to anticipate.
Start, so everybody knows whatto anticipate.
But there are some game day,game moment changes that can
happen Not usually, but thattends to be where the stroke and

(54:42):
coxswain get across swords,because sometimes the stroke can
feel things that need to happenand the coxswain sometimes can
see things that need to happen.
But we had a race plan and therace plan was very simple.
We're not doing anything likewe did two weeks ago with the
Eastern Sprints.

Andy (55:01):
I mean, that was the race plan.

Chuck (55:02):
No kidding.
And so you know, the EasternSprints had a very complex race
plan.
Not that it was unusual, it was.
You know our start is going tobe you know, half stroke,
three-quarter stroke.
You know our start is going tobe, you know, half stroke, three
quarter stroke, half stroke,full stroke, 10 at, you know, 44

(55:26):
, something like that, 10 at 40,down to 36, you know, 10 or 20
in the middle, and then sprintfor home.
Right, I mean, it's a littlemore complicated than that
Clothier's comment was.
I'm not letting you do anythingAt the start.
I want you to take three fullstrokes and then do a 10 stroke
start period and I don't wantyou to go above 38 for that

(55:49):
stroke rate.
And then I want you to getright on 36 and not screw with
it and stay there.
And I just want you to hammerit out.
And I don't know how Andy feltabout it.
I'm not thinking that's crazytalk.
You know these crews are goingto go off at 44 for 20 to 30
strokes.
You know we're not going to beable to see them or hear them by

(56:11):
the time that's done with ourlittle measly three and ten.
But you know again, clodierdidn't ask me for my opinion.
I'm sure I told Andy my opinionI'm sure he patted me on the
head and said shut the hell upand get back to work and
ironically it went south fromthere.

(56:33):
Really it went south from there, really it went terribly from
there.
So the only thing we'd had thatwe'd come up with, that I
really enjoyed doing, even inthe middle of the race.
Andy, I'm interested in yourthoughts.
We had this routine where inthe middle of the race we would
just jack the stroke rate up ashigh as we could get it for 20
strokes, just jacked the strokerate up as high as we could get

(56:53):
it for 20 strokes, and we aimed.
The plan was to do that becauseyou can hear everybody.
Right, it's flat water, you'reclose, so you can hear when
these crews next to you aretaking their moves.
Right, everybody takes a moveof 10 or 20 strokes where they
don't really raise the rate, butthey really want you to dig in
and see if you can break thewill of the other guy.

(57:14):
Our plan was, when we hear themreally dig in on their own, when
we start hearing them say eight, nine, 10, just uncork the
bottle and jack the stroke rate.
So as they're coming off, we goup and just so.

(57:35):
Now they're exhausted and wesuddenly move out and sort of
break their spirit.
That was the emotional work.
We went off the start and I'mgoing to blame Andy, but I have
no idea who it was, because Icouldn't see anybody.
Somebody completely missed thefirst stroke.
I mean completely washed out,jammed the boat over to.
I think it was Starboard and wewere at a dead stop after

(57:57):
stroke one.

Andy (57:58):
I mean Andy.
That's the way I remember it.
It might have been me, becauseI've blocked that out.
I don't remember that.

Chuck (58:06):
And so you know, it took us a couple of strokes to get it
back together.
Then we did our 10.
And at the end of the 10, wewere dead last by a lot, by like
a length, a lot, and I'm surePenn was next to us and Brown
was on the other side.

Andy (58:24):
We're like here we go, Beat him again.

Chuck (58:26):
We already ditched those guys it's beat him again, and I
remember thinking, and then I'llshut up.
Oh hell, no, not this time,this one is ours.
I remember having that thoughtaround stroke 10, and that was
the beginning of everything thatcame next for me.

(58:46):
I mean, I'll shut up and letAndy relate.

Andy (58:49):
You have a much better memory than I do.
I think I must have been oxygendeprived.
I don't remember bringing theprobably oxygen deprived from
bringing the stroke rate up inthe 40s, but no, at this rate.
That race I just remember.
I do recall that we faltered atthe start, that we had that we

(59:10):
missed something and it was notthe way we wanted to get going.
We missed something and it wasnot the way we wanted to get
going, but again, we had.
I think we had told ourselves,we convinced ourselves, and
rightfully so, that we were thebest crew out there and we
weren't going to let this oneget away from us.
So it was a, it was a minorsetback, but we, I just remember
thinking the whole way with alittle bit of doubt.

(59:32):
You always wonder, you knowsomething could happen, but the
whole way just thinking no ofdoubt.
You always wonder, you knowsomething could happen, but the
whole way just thinking no, weare going to win this, we are
going.
I remember telling myself that,uh, three days before, two days
before, on thursday, when, uh,we had, we had wrote in the, uh,
the heats that set you up forthe finals, and we, we walked
away with that.
I just remember thinking wewere too strong to get beat

(59:54):
again.
Even with a nervous flutter atthe start of that final race.
We got back into it, then wejust walked away.
It was, like Chuck said, and, toCoach Clothier's credit, it's
sort of like that boat, the boysin the boat, the Washington

(01:00:15):
boat that you hear about, youknow, they would just beat
people with a much lower strokerate just rowing through them.
Of course, they were rowinglonger races than the three mile
races, but we did somethingsimilar to that.
I think we were just strongenough at a, at a, at our sweet
spot, which is probably 34 to 36strokes a minute, and um, and
we, we, we caught them and we, Icould just see boats out of my

(01:00:38):
peripheral vision.
I could just see boats, just,you know, getting further and
further back.
And then it was.
Then the nerves started to kickin.
Oh God, don't, let's just notscrew this up.
So that's that.
It's sort of like the footballanalogy of you know, ben, but
don't break, uh, you know, don'tgive away the big one, don't
catch a crab and stop the boator something.
So, so no, I, I just rememberthinking we're going to win,

(01:01:01):
we're going to go win, we'regoing to win, and uh, you know,
and, and then, of course, whatwe did, it was a.
It was a for me personally.
I think for for everybody, butfor me personally it was a.
It was the culmination ofeverything that I'd been
dreaming about for four years.
So yeah, it was a.
It was a huge relief to winthat race.

Chuck (01:01:21):
One, one interesting point which I should have
mentioned, carl, was since wefinished third at the sprints.
Thursday we were ranked third,when we went to the IRAs and the
unique sit and and Brown wasfirst, penn was second, we were
third and there were two heatsback in the day, and so that put

(01:01:42):
us in the heat with Brown right.
So the only race we've hadagainst them we had lost, right,
because we don't race themduring the regular season.
And so we're like, and only oneboat goes through on that first
day.
The second day they come backand there's repressions, and so,
like, geez, now you know, maybewe're going to have to get to

(01:02:03):
the go to the through therepressions on this, you know,
which is an extra race if youdon't win your heat, which never
is good, and we just stompedthem into the dirt Like it was.
It was surprising to me.
I mean, it was two lengths andthey'd beat us by a length and a
half.
We beat them two weeks later bytwo lengths and I didn't know

(01:02:24):
this at the time.
But ironically, gladstone, whowas their coach, who's now the
Navy coach as of this fall, toldCloier after the race that he
knew we were going to win theiras after we beat his boat in
the heat um he said, and he andhe even went as far as to say he

(01:02:46):
had started to soft pedal aloss with his crew over the
intervening two days, because hewas trying to soften him up a
little bit for what might becoming Right.
And so, um, a unique, I meannone.
None of us knew anything aboutthat.
We just knew we'd put thehammer down on them.
But we still didn't know aboutPenn.

(01:03:07):
Right, penn was in the otherheat.
Their time was similar to us.
Never makes a difference whatyour times are wind, wave, water
, whatever and you know we, bythe 500-meter mark, we were, if
not second, tied for second,behind Penn.

Karl (01:03:25):
Okay.

Chuck (01:03:25):
And so we'd come through.
As Andy said, you can see theseguys sort of begin to reappear
in your peripheral vision.
And Steckle was almost insanebecause he was having trouble,
he was struggling.
I could still see it in hiseyes.
He's struggling.
Do I tell them that they'recatching everybody or not?
Because I don't want him tostop pulling and I'm like so.

(01:03:50):
But but eventually you, youcan't help but notice.
I mean, the guys that are sixlanes away maybe are harder.
Um, as a matter of fact, I'msure penn's time in the heat was
faster than ours because theywere the lane to the right, so
they had our.
Their time was faster, so westill had that concern.
Um, and then, by the thousandmeter mark, we heard pen do

(01:04:11):
their their 10 or 20, whateverit was, and and steckle just
growled into the mic don't givethem a seat.
And so through their 20 strokeswhere they're really, you know,
giving a, giving 100%.
We might have actually takenhalf a seat.
And then as they're coming offit.
Stecco calls for this flutterwe used to call it.

(01:04:35):
We went from 36 to 42 for 20strokes and took probably
three-quarters of a length.
So here these guys are, having,just you know, gone full bore,
lost a seat, come off it lostthree quarters of a length.
I mean, the die was cast inthat moment.
As long as Andy's point, wedidn't give up or screw it up.

(01:04:55):
And in my senior year in highschool, 10 strokes from the
finish, leading by a length anda half, my three men caught a
stroke and we came in third.

Andy (01:05:08):
So this was very much on my mind not repeating that
nightmare.

Karl (01:05:14):
So yeah, and to your point , chuck, the video that I had a
chance to watch yesterday picksup at about the thousand meter
mark and the guys doing thecolor commentary I can't
remember the guy who wasactually calling calling the
race, but the guy doing thecolor commentary was phil gaines
, who apparently was a strongrower at syracuse a few years
before, but he was navy was hispick to win based on what he had

(01:05:36):
seen, to your point, in theheat races.
He said, man, they've beenclose for so long and this just
looks like their time, you know,and that was right about,
because the video picks up rightabout the thousand meter mark,
and which is when you guys madeyour push and he said, man, they
, they're bringing it.
And it just you could just seeas time went on, you know the,
the bows just kind of you knowbeing even for a spell, and then

(01:05:59):
just you guys just jettingright on past Penn to to finish
going away.
So that's pretty, that's prettyimpressive on past Penn to
finish going away.

Chuck (01:06:07):
So that was pretty impressive.
The year before Carl, in thefinals of the IRA we'd won our
heat, we were in the finals, wewere in the premier lane next to
Brown again and the 1,500-metermark.
We were half a length, maybe alittle more than that,
three-quarters of a length up,and we went on to lose that race
to Brown.
So that's also in our psycheand you know that was not an

(01:06:32):
insignificant motivation for allof us in the boat, I'm sure
Right right, at least for me.

Karl (01:06:37):
You guys were definitely motivated.
I'm going to test your brainshere.
Do you remember your time inthat race?

Chuck (01:06:42):
Yeah, it was terribly embarrassing.
It was 550, which at the timewas lightning fast.
Now to make the finals in theIRAs you have to row a sub 530.
Yeah, wow, okay.
And the Olympic crew in 1984,the guys that won, I think, were

(01:07:04):
the Canadians, and they wrote a535.
Now you don't, you wouldn'tmake the finals at 535 in the
iras.
I mean, the tulip order is gone, the chopper or is in the boats
have lost 50 pounds, thecoatings, are sleeker.
Um, you know, the bows arebetter designed.
All of that the the orlocks areare are two pin of three pin,

(01:07:26):
so there's less water resistance, less wind resistance, better
leverage, everything is betterbut they're also fitter, they're
also foreigners About a bunchof farm boys from the Midwest
who show up to Rome the firsttime.

Andy (01:07:42):
They're highly recruited athletes.

Chuck (01:07:44):
In 1984 I I'm probably misremembering, but there were
two serbian guys.
They were both there.
I think they were twins and Ithink they were in the brown
boat.
I could be misremembering that,um, but that was it in 1995 ish
that in the in the ira finalsthere would be, of the six boats

(01:08:07):
, eight guys, 48, half of themwere foreign nationals Serbia,
bosnia, germany, dutch, you nameit.
Today, of the 48 guys, 80% ofthem are foreign nationals in
the finals right, and that'snothing against them if they are
the best rowers in the worldand they come to the best rowing

(01:08:30):
place in the world to row inthe most competitive scenarios
in the world.
It makes gladstone's job really.
You know, he's never not won achampionship at a college.
He's coached at yale brown,stanford, I think, maybe
someplace else, yeah, you wantto never not want cal.

(01:08:50):
Um, he hasn't won every race,but he's always won in one of
those colleges.
Um, but he was the guy thatpioneered this.
Go go to serbia and find thetwo crazy twin brothers at six
six and put them in your boat.
Mentality it's going to be andhe's a phenom, right.
So we'll see.

Karl (01:09:10):
Yeah and yeah to your point, and I remember speaking
on this several podcast episodesago and I was talking about how
, when you look at all thecollegiate sports, by far rowing
is the most international ofthem all.
And then I went on to citestats similar to what you just
mentioned, chuck, about whatpercentage of rowers, both on
the men and women's side mostlythe men but how many seats were

(01:09:34):
occupied by somebody fromanother country.
So it really does let peopleknow that, hey, if you're on the
Navy rowing team and you'rerowing in one of the shells, you
are competing against the bestin the world at that age,
because that's exactly whatyou're seeing.
Yep.

Chuck (01:09:51):
I, uh, Andy and I both went onto the Olympic camp after
graduation and I rode in a pairwith a guy from Harvard.
Roll the clock ahead 35 yearslater I'm standing on the on the
Thames river in London, upwatching the Henley on Thames,
which is north of London, andwithout any planning, I'm

(01:10:13):
literally standing next to StevePotter, like hey, I know you.
And I said hey, so who are youhere to watch?
I'm here to watch my son.
He rose for University ofWashington and University of
Washington just comes down.
They went on to win the entireEnglish Royal Henry Regatta in
the championship division,championship men's division,

(01:10:34):
which is Olympic teams and all.
And I said, wow, your son rosein the varsity boat at
Washington.
That's impressive.
He goes oh no, that's the JVboat.
The varsity boat went home torow in their national boats that
are here too.
That's their JV boat.
So Washington's JV boat won theinternational competition at

(01:10:57):
Royal Henley, right?
And so that's kind of it's justa world apart right.
And the women, their women,went on, but that's only because
their varsity was was allinternational crews who had gone
home to their own respectiveteams.

Andy (01:11:07):
So they're.
They broke up the varsity to gorow for their country.
Yeah.

Chuck (01:11:12):
Yeah, yeah, right Right.

Karl (01:11:15):
Okay, so I got.
I have two more questions leftand, um, one of them, uh, has to
do with, say, you're the IRA,commissioner, or whatever the
governing, you know, whateverthe title is for the governing
body of collegiate rowing.
Are there any changes you wouldlike to see, as it relates to
how either the regattas are runor and you guys have talked a

(01:11:38):
lot about technical innovationsand I don't know if there's any
left to be made but anythingalong those lines, whether how
things are organized orequipment and that sort of thing
.

Andy (01:11:48):
You know, carl, honestly I don't have.
I haven't been to an IRAchampionship in a long time and
as far as the way I do know, thebig difference now is that they
and I think this is good isthat they've the IRAs vary from
year to year, either West Coastor East Coast.
They used to always be an EastCoast event and so we would

(01:12:10):
often not have West Coast crewsthat were pretty good, like our
year.
Unfortunately, the Universityof Washington did not come out
and race in the IRAs.
Cal did, but Washington did not, and I wish they had, because I
would have liked to have beatenthem.
There's some disagreement aboutwho the national champs were
that year, but I think we wouldhave beaten them.

(01:12:31):
I really do.
So that's a good thing.
I think it's either Sacramentoor Tom's River.
New Jersey now, I think, is theEast Coast site.
You know, I don't have any realknowledge, so I don't have any
opinions about what they couldbe doing better or different.
Maybe Chuck may be more in tune, especially since his daughter
was rowing.
Both his daughters rowed,actually in college.

Chuck (01:12:53):
Yeah, so a lot has changed.
So the men Division I men arenot in the NCAA, right, and so
that's a good thing in my view,for reasons that I'll talk about
.
But the women are NCAA athletesand the sport among women is
extraordinarily competitive.
You know, I finally had a kidthat went to a Big Ten school so

(01:13:15):
I could root for a Big Tenschool.
She went to Wisconsin, but you,you know, going to the women's
regattas and it mirrors the IRAsand the Eastern Sprints and
that sort of thing.
But those teams are justincredibly impressive.
You get around Ohio, michigan,texas, alabama.

(01:13:35):
Who's coming up hard on thescene?
Wisconsin, of course, these arejust tall, strong, fit.
These are just tall, strong,fit, impressive women, right,

(01:13:58):
and we would have.
They would have given us thosewomen with their training and
their equipment, would havegiven us a race for, given us
hell to pay in our race with ourequipment.
Andy and I were the lastnational championship team ever
to win the national championshipin a wooden boat, right, and
that boat is in the boathouseand everybody's like that's
ridiculous, we're not asbeautiful as they are.
We're walking away from those,we're going to this lightweight
plastic stuff.
So it is that sport has reallyadvanced on the women's side,

(01:14:21):
and the Navy women are the creamof the Patriot league.
They've won the Patriot league,uh, seven or eight times in a
row, maybe more.
Um, and my, my older daughter,wrote in the Patriot league and
never beat Navy, not one time.
Um, uh at her at uh, she was acaptain of her, her team at MIT
as well.

Andy (01:14:42):
Slackers Chuck has a couple of slacker daughters,
yeah.

Chuck (01:14:54):
A couple of slacker daughters.
And so you know the times haveplateaued, if you take the
Olympic time of 535 in 1984 tothe IRA winning time.
I think the fastest one I'veseen is like 526, 528, something
like that.
For men.
Now, that is blazing fast.
That's a light year ahead ofwhere we finished at five, 50.5
or something.
Um, the Olympic times aren'tthat much faster than that,

(01:15:15):
they're you know five, twenties,right, and so it's plateaued a
little bit, um, but, as the youknow, I'm not going to be the
guy that says there's notanother technological
breakthrough out there that'sgoing to further lighten and
strengthen the boats, a betterhull design, um, and certainly
every time we say you knowsomeone, you know we've reached

(01:15:38):
the peak of our fitness abilityto train the human body.
People just laugh at us at thenext Olympics, yeah, yeah, look
at this.
People just laugh at us at thenext Olympics.
Yeah, yeah, look at this.
Um, I would really like to seeI'm sure you've seen boys in the
boat, which is, you know,highlights the second best
program in the nation atuniversity of Washington.
Um, um, the.
The movie doesn't do the bookjustice, by the way.

(01:16:00):
The book is so much better.
And if you haven't if youhaven't, if you haven't Googled
the, the movie, the video ofthem winning the Olympics in 36,
uh, it's worth your time.
It's just an incredible.
How the book describes isexactly what the Germans did to
him.
Um, you know, in every way tocheat, he just tried to screw
him every, every day, at everyturn, every, every which way.

(01:16:20):
But the thing that I think uhrowing is missing is the
Poughkeepsie Regatta, which isthe three-mile head-to-head
regatta with the train goingdown the Hudson for people to
watch, you know, with the standsall built in facing outwards.
It's just a whole different wayto watch a race.

(01:16:42):
Way to watch a race.
You know you go to the head ofthe Charles and it is one of the
most watched Olympic events ofall time ever each year.
But you know it's very much.
Oh, there they go, okay, right,on a three-mile race.
That's a.
You know, that's a,particularly on a train.

(01:17:03):
You see how the whole thingunfolds and you get a little
feel for it in the movie as well.
But that kind of race is is waydifferent than even a head race
, which is meant to be head tohead.
Right, it comes out of Britainthat you know, you're, you start
one behind the other 15 secondintervals.
You're really, you're reallyrowing against yourself in that
regatta.
You know, I would certainlylike to see that race.

(01:17:26):
The other thing, and, andy, youmight opine 2019, yes, 2019, at
the Royal Henley Regatta.
They did the 100-yearanniversary of the King's Cup
and in that boat.
the requirements for the boatwere you had to have two women
and two lightweights in thatboat.
The requirements for the boatwere you had to have two women
and two lightweights in thatboat.
And Navy went on to win thatthing against France, germany,

(01:17:54):
everybody else in the Senate,and the finals were against
Germany, which is ironic, andthe name of our boat was
Overlord which is ironic.
And everybody in the German boatwas a post-grad and we had
sophomores and juniors in thatboat.
A lightweight was stroking theboat, but next time you watch

(01:18:18):
that, just watch the two womenin the back in the bow.
Yes, it is just incredible tome.
I'm sure they could kick mybutt on the erg back in my
heyday, and so to me that'sreally an interesting format
that I wish they would do everyyear, because it fundamentally

(01:18:38):
changes, you know, to get thewomen in the boat, the
lightweights in the boat.

Andy (01:18:43):
That was very cool.
That was an amazing event.
Yeah, in the boat, thelightweights in the boat, yeah,
it was very cool, that was anamazing event.

Chuck (01:18:46):
Yeah, that's just my thoughts.

Karl (01:18:49):
I totally agree with you, especially on the mixed races.
And, by the way, I've watchedthat Henley event.
It's saved as one of myfavorites on YouTube.
I've seen it no joke at leasttwo dozen times.

Chuck (01:19:01):
Yeah, me too.
Just sit there and just watchit.

Karl (01:19:05):
Me too.
I believe I can't remember herfirst name, but her last name
was kind of like one of those,valencia Martinson I think
something like that.
But she went on to make the U23national team and then she was
a world champion at I think shewas in the women's eights boat
in uh in that race that was runsomewhere out in Eastern Europe
or something like that.
But yeah, pretty good stuff.

Chuck (01:19:34):
I met her at the.
I met they were both juniors inthat race because I met them
the next year at the crewbanquet in February and I, when
I was introduced to them, my twothoughts were you don't look
anything like the monster womanthat was in the bow of that boat
just hammering it out.
I mean, they're cut and justyou know, just crazy, you know.
And so I was reminded thatoutside, outside the boat, we

(01:19:56):
were all just kids really.
And here they are these eightmonster people in this boat
winning, you know, aninternational competition.
You put them in uniform and youclean us all up and we all look
like we're 12 again, right, youknow?
I don't know why that dichotomyjust struck me so dramatically,

(01:20:17):
but they're both very quiet,they're both.
Both those young women wereintroverts, in my opinion.
Maybe they just didn't want totalk to them.
You know the old white guy, Idon't know um, but but their,
their persona in the boat uh,sticks with me to this day, um,
just because it those two andthe and the stern to the two

(01:20:40):
lightweights yeah, the twolightweights, yeah, the true
lightweights of the stern yeah,um, because it was shattering
all of my you knowpreconceptions right right.
That race shattered so manyglass doors, ceilings, floors,
perceptions for me um that it itobviously.
It still sticks with me.

Karl (01:21:00):
I yeah, right, right, um.
So last question for both ofyou and uh, and you can go first

(01:21:21):
and then Chuck, and this issomething that I kind of it just
kind of was a self.
It was something I realized asI started.
Conclusion, after listening tohim and just watching the events
, that when you're together as acrew, I just think that over
time that the I mean athletesand teams form bonds right, I
mean from playing together andthat sort of thing.

(01:21:42):
But I believe that the bondsthat are formed among the
members of a crew might be alittle bit stronger, and I'm not
going to say why I think thatright now.
I want to hear what your takeis.
First of all, do you thinkthat's an accurate
characterization and why, or whynot, if you don't agree, or
whatever.
But I'm curious to get yourthoughts on this whole idea of

(01:22:06):
the bonds that you form withyour teammates, not just in the
boat but amongst the entire team, and how that compares to other
sports.

Andy (01:22:14):
Yeah, no, I would say that it's probably not always the
case.
There are certainly some othersports where the teams are very,
for whatever reason, are verystrong.
Football, the teams are very,for whatever reason, are very
strong football, basketball, youknow, baseball, whatever.
But I think in general, rowingI've you know it's an easy thing
to say and I think there's alot of truth in it that rowing

(01:22:35):
is the ultimate team sportthere's.
There's no, aside from maybethe stroke or there's nobody in
the boat, that is necessarilymore important than anyone else.
It's very much.
You basically all suffertogether.
There's no superstar we'retrying to feed the ball to Again

(01:22:56):
Chuck's being I know he's goingto be modest about this the
stroke war has a their on theirshoulders.
So, that aside, uh, and andeverybody has their own
responsibility to to not checkthe boat, to not mess things up,
to have a good attitude, notnot uh, you know and not uh, be

(01:23:18):
a cancer in the boat in training.
Because when you think about it,most of your, most of your time
, I forget what the ratio is.
It's some unbelievable ratio ofhours spent training to hours
spent racing.
It's off the charts.
I mean, I don't think there'sany other sport maybe some
running sports, distance sportswhere you spend as much time
training as you do for the fewminutes you get to race and

(01:23:42):
compete if you get to be in thatboat.
So to the second part of yourquestion.
One of the strengths of Navyrowing was we had a strong
program.
We didn't just have fastvarsity and junior varsity and
maybe even a plead boat, we hadguys, we had depth.
We won the team championshipsat the IRAs.
Every year it's called theTonight Trophy.

(01:24:02):
We won it four years in a rowand even when our varsity didn't
win, or maybe the JV didn't win, we'd still win that thing
because we were so deep.
I used to just marvel at theguys who would come to practice
and work hard every single dayand maybe not even get in a boat
to race that season.
They were there for whateverreason their personal reasons,

(01:24:26):
but I think a lot of it had todo with being part of that team.
So that's that speaks to theteam aspect of it and feeling a
kinship with those guys, for youknow, forever.

Chuck (01:24:39):
Yeah.
So to Andy's point, if you havean average crew, your total
race time over the course ofyour regular season is 24
minutes.
If you have, if you have a goodcrew or a great crew, your race
time over the course of aseason will be 23 minutes and 10
or 15 seconds, right, and youjust multiply that by the hours

(01:25:04):
that have gone in to that.
Three hours a day, six days aweek.
You know, going forward, there,there, there's no, there's no
quarterback, there's no pitcher,there's no coach's kid.
You know there's no sprinter,shot putter, it's, you're all,

(01:25:24):
you're all in there at the samelevel.
To Andy's point so I think thatyou know that dynamic of you
know we rely on X or X person orY person is is gone.
So you, you know that probablybuilds the, the team spirit, I
would say.

(01:25:44):
You know, I will say, as I cameto the reunion, you know I had
three groups of people that Iwanted to catch up with.
You know, first and foremost,the crew guys, right.
Second, my company mates.
And third, you know, the fellowsubmariners out there that you
know I, fellow submariners outthere that you know I'd run into

(01:26:07):
and we're, we're friends, theteam that.
See if there's one that rivalsus.
I would think you know I wouldlean towards somebody like
lacrosse, those guys you know,garland and Calabrese, and those
guys seem to have a really goodbond.

(01:26:28):
But it's a bigger team right.
There's 10 of us, I think, leftthat show up to these things.
Andy, maybe you know 8 to 10 inour class and we always get
together Everybody who comes.
Even Jan came out ofMississippi for this one to come
spend time with us.

(01:26:48):
So certainly the high level ofsuffer to the low level of, you
know, racing experience, I thinkbuilds a certain camaraderie
that lasts.

Karl (01:27:01):
Yeah, yeah, and I think my reasons for thinking this are a
nice blend of what the both ofyou said and specifically
speaking to what Andy mentionedabout no one person being more
important.
Right, and if you're on abasketball team and you're a
point guard, you run the offenseand everything like that.
If you are the two guard, youknow your responsibility is to

(01:27:30):
make sure that you can make openshots when you get them Right,
to kind of keep the team in thegame.
And then, of course, the frontcourt's got different
responsibilities.
When you got an oar in yourhand, you got one job, and one
job only, and obviously that'sto pull it through the water as
fast as you can, but at the sametime, as everybody can, to the
best of your ability.
And to me that's what makes itso special, because you are

(01:27:51):
doing one thing over and over.
That's right, and you're tryingto do it as perfectly as you
can to be able to, you know,take that, take that boat to, uh
, you know, across the finishline first.
So you know, that's the onething.
And, of course, to what Chuckwas saying, of course, all the
suffering and all the time youput in in order to accomplish.

(01:28:12):
That, I think, does to me makethings a little bit more special
compared to some of the otherteams.
Again, that's just my ownpersonal take, but I just think
that, you know, never having hadthat experience to be able to
sit in a shell with, you know,seven other guys with an oar
plus a coxswain, and just tryingto get yourself in sync to the

(01:28:34):
point where you're just going ashard as you can, 100 percent,
and you're just doing everythingas in sync as you can, as in
sync as you possibly can thatthat to me would be the ultimate
.
And for those of you listeningout there, I did want to mention
that, on the strength of thatIRE performance, you know that
1v8 boat winning, everybody inthat shell, is part of the Navy

(01:28:58):
Athletics Hall of Fame.
So I did want to mention thatto the folks who are out there
listening.
So congratulations to both ofyou guys and, of course, the
rest of the team.

Andy (01:29:06):
Thank you yeah.

Karl (01:29:07):
So that pretty much does it for the questions I have.
We've had a good discussionhere and it's been great hearing
all these stories.
Any final thoughts before wesign off, guys?

Andy (01:29:18):
Go ahead, Chuck.

Chuck (01:29:21):
No, no, I'm going to just relay this story, andy, and I
just apologize because I knowyou'll hear it over and over,
but it's my favorite story ofrowing.

Andy (01:29:30):
I know you'll hear it when it ends.

Chuck (01:29:33):
I just love this story.
It's everything about our crewexperience.
So we go up to Syracuse, wewent up at Syracuse, we're
driving back 81 or 80, what itis to the middle of nowhere in
upstate New York and we pull offto one of these roadside
monster McDonald's and back inthe day you'd get $10.
That was your per diem.
Right, go get your Big Mac orwhatever.

(01:29:56):
And so we go in and Andy'sbehind me and I order my Big Mac
and my vanilla shake and myfries, whatever.
And I hear Andy, yeah, I'd likethree Big Mac meals.
Uh, upsize the fries and andand three strawberry shakes.

Andy (01:30:12):
I'm like all right, well, you know he pulls harder than I
do before.
The movie supersized me too.
Yeah, didn't know any better.

Chuck (01:30:18):
Yeah, yeah so we get back , we get back in the bus and
we're probably 20 minutes awayand I'm probably midway up on
the bus.
On the right, andy in thecaptain's seat is all the way in
the back of the bus, In themiddle you know the most
comfortable, the cool kids, notlike the nerds right the engine
room.
They could beat you up if youwere back there.

(01:30:38):
And I hear this string ofprofanity just start emanating
out of the back of the bus.
God dang it.
And I'm like dude.
What is your problem?

Andy (01:30:56):
They forgot my third strawberry shake, oh man.

Chuck (01:31:04):
And so roll the clock ahead to Joe Pesci and you'll
get the immediate.
They always screw you at thedrive-thru, Exactly.
They never give you what youwant.

Andy (01:31:10):
Exactly.
You realize, Chuck, that thisis in perpetuity.
Now.

Karl (01:31:15):
That's great.

Chuck (01:31:17):
After we're both long gone, this story will be told.
It's my favorite story in allof my 10 years of rowing.

Andy (01:31:27):
Oh, I'm not sure that's how I want to be remembered, but
I'll take it.
Oh god okay.
So, Andy, you got the, you'vegot the last word well, I, you
know, for me personally I Mepersonally I can't think of
anything that exceeds theexperience I had being a Navy

(01:31:51):
crew member, being part of thatteam, being part of that lineage
, but specifically the years Iwas there, we were very
fortunate to come in as theprogram was on the upswing and I
think we had.
We had outstanding coaches,both coach dreyfus and certainly

(01:32:12):
coach clother.
We had, uh, reasonably goodfacilities and and equipment,
and, and more so, we had a realuh.
We were following some reallegends from guys 30 years
before us, the, the great eight,which may be the best
collegiate rowing crew of alltime.
I, I could be wrong, but Ithink they are um, yeah, and and

(01:32:36):
then and oh, by the way, I'vetold this story too but, uh, we
were back for our 30th reunionand I, I got up and I was
presenting a trophy that wasbeing put in, that was going to
be put in as part of the AdamsCup, which is Navy, harvard and
Penn every year, and the trophyis a Clothier trophy, named
after our coach, rick Clothier,and it was a team points trophy

(01:32:56):
that we were adding.
Unfortunately, I don't thinkNavy's won it, since we put it
in 10 years ago, but regardless,I probably spoke way too long
at this thing, but I made thepoint that all these midshipmen
were standing there listening aswe're talking about you know,
thinking yeah, these guys, we'renot that far removed from them,
and I realized these are thesame.
This is the same difference intime, 30 years, as when the

(01:33:19):
grade eight would come back andvisit and as much as I was in
awe of them, I remember thinkingit's amazing how well these,
how well these old guys areactually going to get in a boat
and paddle a few strokes downthe college streets here.
Wait a minute, we are those oldguys.
Yeah, it's been an honor.
It was certainly worth everyminute of the effort, and it's

(01:33:43):
been an honor not just to bepart of the program but to have
the lifelong friendships from it.

Karl (01:33:48):
So yeah, yeah, no doubt.
All right guys, that's.
That looks like a really goodplace to stop, and I really want
to thank you for taking thetime to share your stories with
me.
I got a big kick out of it and,believe me, I could go on for a
little bit longer.
There's actually a fewquestions here that I decide
okay, let's not get too carriedaway, because we could go on

(01:34:08):
forever.
That's how enthusiastic I amabout the sport itself, so
thanks again for joining metoday.

Andy (01:34:13):
Take care.
Great Thank you, Karl.
Appreciate it.
Thanks for being such a greatpromoter of the Navy crew.

Karl (01:34:20):
Thanks guys, bye now.
All right, we're going to goahead and step away real quick,
but don't go anywhere because wehave our question of the day
and mid-watch segments coming upnext.
This is Carl Darden and you'relistening to Navy Sports Central
.
Okay, now it's time for ourquestion of the day, and before

(01:34:51):
we get to it, let's check outthe responses from our last
question, and that was way backin December.
So here's a question just torefresh your memory and remember
.
We're talking about Navy'srecord in bowl games.
Espn is predicting that Navywill play in either the Armed
Forces Bowl on December 27thagainst Miami of Ohio or in the
Military Bowl on December 28thagainst Boston College, and of

(01:35:14):
course, we know that the Midsended up playing Oklahoma in the
Armed Forces Bowl.
But anyway, the Mids' overallrecord in bowl games is 12, 11,
and 1.
What is their longest winningstreak in these games is 12, 11,
and 1.
What is their longest winningstreak in these games?
Is it A, 2, b, 3, c, 4, or D?
None of the above.
Now it turns out that the mostpopular response was B three

(01:35:35):
games, in fact.
Everyone who responded to thepoll went with that choice, and
it also happens to be thecorrect one.
The Mids won three straight bowlgames from 2013 to 2015.
You may remember that theydefeated Middle Tennessee State
in the Armed Forces Bowl, andthat was in Keenan Reynolds'
sophomore year.
In 2014, the Mids just barelygot by San Diego State when the

(01:35:56):
Aztecs missed a field goal atthe end of the game.
I think the offense lost fourfumbles that day, so the team
was very lucky to get the win.
And then in 2015, they rolledPitt 44-28 in the Military Bowl.
That was the game that Reynoldsset the NCAA record for career
rushing touchdowns with 88.
And again, I think I've saidbefore that somebody a running

(01:36:18):
back or somebody may come alongand break that record, but I
don't think a quarterback isgoing to.
So anyway, that one could bearound for a long time.
And just so you know, navy iscurrently riding a second
three-game winning streak inbowl games, following their win
over Oklahoma in the most recentedition of the Armed Forces
Bowl.
You'll recall that the Midsbeat Virginia in 2017, 49-7, and

(01:36:39):
then they took down Kansas20-17 in the Liberty Bowl in
2019.
The Mids won that game on alast second field goal by Bijan
Nichols.
Okay, so now it's time for thequestion for this episode, and
here it goes.
The IRA championship that theNavy heavyweight rowing team won
in 1984 was the Mids mostrecent.
How many do they havealtogether?

(01:37:00):
Is it A7, b9, c11, or D13?
You guys can think about thatfor a little bit and get back to
me.
You can answer by going to theNavy Sports Nation group
Facebook page or by sending me atext using the link in the show
notes.
Okay, we are down to ourmid-watch segment and, with the

(01:37:20):
winter and spring sports seasonsoverlapping, I thought it would
make sense to pick a couple ofathletes on the track and field
team to follow.
That way we can stick with themas they finish up the indoor
season before moving outsidenext month.
Let's start with the women'steam, and you guys heard me
mention her name earlier in thesports update.
We're going to be following GiaAnderson.
Gia is a junior from Wilmington, delaware.

(01:37:41):
She is a sprinter and hurdlerwho competes in the 60 meter
dash, the 60 meter hurdles thoseare the indoor events and she
also runs the 100 meter hurdlesoutdoors.
Gia is the two-time defendingPatriot League champion in the
60 meter hurdles and was amember of the four by 100 meter
relay team that took first inthe outdoor Patriot League
championships last year.
She also owns five of the 10best times in the 60 meter

(01:38:02):
hurdles ever run at the Academy,including the top four.
Her personal best is 8.41seconds.
Gia also stepped up to run the200 meters in this year's indoor
star meet against Army and wonthat with a time of 25.35.
It'll be interesting to see ifAnderson sticks with that
200-meter event outdoors inaddition to running the
100-meter hurdles.
That would add even more depthfor the women in the sprints.

(01:38:26):
Now on the men's side, we'll bekeeping our eyes on senior
Murphy Smith from Charlotte,north Carolina.
Murphy runs the 3,000 and the5,000 meters indoors and the
5,000 and 10,000 meters outdoors.
In fact, he won the indoor5,000 meters at last year's
Patriot League Championships.
He's also run the fastestindoor 5,000 and outdoor 10,000
meters in school history.

(01:38:47):
The Mids have a lot of depth inthe middle and long distances,
and Murphy Smith is one of thereasons why he has a knack for
coming up big when it mattersmost.
Take last week, for example, atWest Point against Army.
Not only did he win the 3,000meters, but he also broke the
field house record in theprocess, and if you're the Black
Knights.

(01:39:07):
That's got to sting a littlebit.
That's going to do it for thisedition of Navy Sports Central.
Thank you all so much forjoining us Now.
If you like what you've heard,please be sure to hit that
follow button wherever you getyour podcasts, and remember to
get the word to all the otherNavy fans out there.
Once again, I'd like to thankmy classmates Andy Bigelow and
Chuck Melcher from the NavyHeavyweight Rowing Team for
joining me today.
It was great to hear them recaptheir terrific senior season
that resulted in a nationalchampionship.

(01:39:29):
Our question of the daycontinues to be a show favorite.
You can get in on that byjoining the Navy Sports Nation
group Facebook page and givingyour answer to this week's
question.
You can also respond by sendingus a text.
All you need to do is click onthe link in the show notes.
And just a quick reminder theviews expressed on Navy Sports
Central are my own and do notreflect those of the US Naval
Academy or Navy Athletics.

(01:39:49):
By the way, the music used inNavy Sports Central comes to you
courtesy of Audio Jungle.
This is a great site forpurchasing the rights to use the
music from thousands of artistsaround the world and those
featured in the podcast will becredited in our show notes.
Talk to you soon, everybody.
Until next time.
This is Karl Darden.
Go, navy, beat army.

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Raging Back: An Up Close and Personal Look at the Navy Heavyweight Rowing Team's 1984 IRA National Championship