Once upon a time, the USRA was a very grass-roots organization, full of helpful information and expertise. I do not find the people there now to be any less friendly than they used to be, but I do sometimes wonder where things went wrong.
The articles that appear in American Rowing magazine these days (well, I always could have sworn it was called American Rowing – I just looked closely at the cover and discovered it is actually called USRowing) sometimes surprise me. I recently received the March 2000 issue, which has the first in a series of articles on the rowing program at the University of Louisville. The concept: development, vision, program-building.
This appears to be the USRA’s current view of how to go about things: throw enough money at a problem and you have a solution. They have been inviting folks to their annual conventions to deliver talks about program-building who come from newly-varsitied mega-funded programs. So, how do you build a program? Well, first you take several hundred thousand dollars, build a boathouse, buy a lot of boats, give out a stack of scholarships, and there you have it. This is sickening.
This month’s column is not meant to be an attack on Louisville. I only bring up that program because the USRA is using it as a glowing example. I wish Louisville luck, and hope it does not go the way of too many other newly-varsitied women’s programs.
Louisville is actually in a different situation than most newly-varsitied programs, in that there was no club team prior to the decision to make a varsity team. In other words, there was no interest on campus at all, and interest was manufactured by the athletics department. That sounds dangerous.
For a while there, I was getting worried about what I had heard about the program. I was reminded of an episode of that very clever British television series Yes, Minister, in which the Minister is confronted by the problem of what to do with a brand new hospital with no patients. It seemed that admitting patients was economically inefficient, due to the poorly managed system of socialized medicine. There was not enough money in the health budget to be able to afford to admit patients. But to close the hospital would mean admitting that building it had been a mistake, plus hundreds of doctors, nurses, administrators, and other staff would have to be laid off, and there would be other political ramifications and public outcry if the government closed down a hospital. So, the Minister was stuck with the brand new fully-staffed and fully-equipped hospital that had no patients.
Louisville started its women’s varsity program with a coaching staff, a boathouse, boats, and not one single rower. But the decision was made due to common misinterpretation of Title IX (see my previous tirades) – thus they were spending money on women’s athletics without the cost of actually having women’s athletes (how clever!). Thankfully, they decided to actually add rowers.
Somehow, the USRA wants to pass this off as visionary. What is so visionary about it? Give someone a lot of money and tell him to make a program? Well, I suppose it took a little vision to convince some quality high school rowers to go to a college with no rowing tradition. But the heart of collegiate rowing is in the novices, and it never ceases to surprise me how many places manage to comb the Freshman events and convince a bunch of random people who have never heard of rowing to give the sport a try, and then how many of them rise up to the pinnacle of the sport. The real test for Louisville will come not this year – with their hoard of recruits racing the novice circuit – but in upcoming years as they field varsity crews and race them against quality competition. Even so, I would hope they could leap-frog several layers of competition given the investment.
The point is, however, that the true visionaries are the people who have nothing and yet imagine something and then work to make that image a reality. At George Mason University about ten years ago, the students realized that if the program was to have any long-term success, it needed an endowment, something the University would not provide. They launched a fundraising campaign to raise $1,000,000. This was money that they raised in addition to what they were already raising in order to support the team’s basic operating costs. The students who raised this money saw none of it, and they were not there long enough to benefit from it. But they took on the campaign because they had a vision for the future of rowing at Mason. They are the heros, they are the visionaries, they are the ones with faith. With all due respect to these “new” programs, they do not even have a fraction of the character of the students who raised that endowment for Mason crew.
Bob Spousta, the long-time head coach at Mason, deserves much of the credit as their mentor. Bob has stuck with Mason for many years, and it is he who has inspired his students – not just on the water as rowers, but also off the water as human beings. Mason is a fine program, and the cornerstone of the Mid-Atlantic league.
Last Fall, I sent an e-mail to Bob’s assistant coach, Bob Stuckey (also a Mason alum) concerning another issue. I asked him to pass a message along to Bob Spousta (who does not use e-mail) congratulating him for winning his age group yet again at the Head of the Charles (Bob is still an amazing racer, currently in the 50+ age group but he could put most younger men to shame). Bob Stuckey replied, noting as well how proud everyone at Mason was to be associated with Bob Spousta and what an inspiration he was for George Mason rowing.
The thing is, Bob Spousta is an inspiration for far more than just George Mason. Without Bob, the Mid-Atlantic league would not be the up-and-coming league it is. Many of the programs in the region would not exist, or would not be competitive, without Bob’s example. I certainly relied on him, his program, and his counsel, in my time at William & Mary. Without him, I could never have developed the program at William & Mary. No, Bob has inspired more than just Mason – the guys at William & Mary watch Bob race in his single to gain inspiration and they have enjoyed racing Mason – Mason is always ready to give whatever it takes and to show class. Other coaches have told me that the same holds true elsewhere in the region.
If the USRA wants to spotlight a program and coach with vision, let it spotlight Bob at Mason. Or Gregg Hartsuff at Michigan. Or Kevin Sauer at UVA (especially prior to achieving varsity-status). These are people who came in to poor programs and made those programs believe that could be contenders. That is a far cry from taking a pile of money and buying a program, and a lot more lasting.
The problem with image is that it can be illusion and quickly fade. The difficulty is being able to stick around long enough to create substance behind that image. Bob, Gregg, and Kevin have done more than that.
The verdict will remain out on Louisville for several more years. Money does not necessarily buy happiness. And just as the Athletics Department made the odd decision to add rowing, it can change its fickle priorities yet.
UCLA once had a varsity-status men’s and women’s program, reasonably competitive at the national level. Then the University pulled the plug. Talk about illusion… despite its traditions, alumni base, success, the program collapsed. The team dropped the ball. The athletics department was apparently amenable to assisting with finding independent sources of funding for the team, and there was no reason for a total collapse. I very much noted last Summer, when a UCLA rowing alum, who gives enormous amounts of money to his alma mater, decided to make a donation to the club-status crew program of his choice: he gave $1.28 million to the team at UCI, where he had no connection, because it is a fine and ambitious club team worthy of the money, and his old team was obviously not. And why did he give it to UCI crew: Duvall Hecht, the UCI coach, is a man with vision who can inspire others to believe in his vision.
Again, I stress no ill will towards Louisville or its coaches. They have come under the gun because the USRA seems to think that their story is one of inspiration and vision. But it has been many years since anything the USRA has done, or has written in its magazine, has inspired me.