I row for the crew team at The University of Chicago. Since the organization is a club sport at the university, I'm able to with them as a graduate student at the GSB. Every year the team heads down south for spring break to train three times a day to get ready for the spring racing season. In 2004, the team went to Austin, Texas, which is where they've been going for the last few years. The weather was nice, but not as warm as I thought it would be.
This shaky picture is the only one I took while actually on the bus to Austin. Yes, I said bus. It wasn't fun, and was very long. The Tulsa Greyhound station is an interesting place in the middle of the night. Needless to say, I actually flew back home after desperate calls to Erynn to cash in some frequent flyer miles.
On the way down, we had a few bus drivers. Of course, none of them talked to each other so we ended up eating at five McDonalds along the way. We felt pretty special when we stopped in Vinita, Oklahoma off I-44 at the world's biggest McDonalds for our 4th meal of the trip. However, we all swore that we had been in larger McDonalds and that the label "Worlds Largest" was probably true in 1972 when it was built.
To make the trip even more fun, the women's novice coach, Antonio, felt the need to make his athletes do squats whenever the bus stopped. This bout of calisthenics was at our 5th McDonalds of the trip in Dallas, Texas.
In Austin, we stayed at the Holiday Inn right on Town Lake where we rowed. It was so nice to be only a 5 minute walk from the boathouse. However, to save money, we stayed four to a room, which proved a bit cozy. Lucas, Dave, Victor, and I had a great week together even if it got a bit smelly.
We spent the week rowing out of Austin Rowing Club on Town Lake. Town Lake is a beautiful stretch of water right in the heart of Austin. I think the lake is used for the city's water supply so there were no speed boats. Eventhough there wasn't any speed boat wake, the windy spring weather sure made some outings exciting.
And here's everyone on the front steps of the erg/locker room at ARC.
After every single morning practice, we ate at IHOP. Unlike McDonalds, IHOP for breakfast every day is a good thing. It's a really good thing. Free Martha!
One of the great things about having a great coxswain is the chance to throw them in the water. They are light and they float. What more could you ask for? Check out the hang time on Jody (a.k.a. Cosmo).
The bad thing about throwing your coxswain in the water is an overzealous novice men's coach also throwing you in the water. As Mike found out, you never get too close to Eric when there are airborne coxswains and water around. Thankfully, Motorola cell phones are the bomb, beacuse they dry out and work after a day or two.
The other source of amusement for the week was Victor "The Chipmunk" and his "Granola Drawer". Chew man, chew! I've never laughed so hard. If you're wondering.... he was hiding them from Min.
Before:
After:
Before:
After:
Mike,very cute
In a strange land, with only rowing to occupy our time you can imagine the trouble some people got into. Besides the rowing, we pretty much ate, slept and drank the entire week. Some more than others. I'll just put a couple of the photos up here and let you draw your own conclusions. All I can say is that the White Man means "go", and the Red Man means "stop". shhh...secret
One afternoon, a few of us went over to the University of Texas to look around the campus and buy some souvenirs. The picture on the left is in front of the main tower on campus (from left to right: Maris, Mike, and Victor). This is the same tower where a guy went nuts and started shooting people in 1966. He wounded 45 people and killed 15. Aside from that weird factoid, the campus was beautiful. The right photo was taken on the tower steps toward the state capitol.
Upholding the stereotype that U of C students are anti-social... We saw this guy on the UT campus wearing a University of Chicago sweat shirt. What are the chances? Well, after a little prodding, my companions had absolutely no desire to introduce themselves. I've never even seen a person wearing a UofC shirt in downtown Chicago so I thought introducing ourselves would be fun. Well "Guy Wearing a Shirt From Our School That No One Else Has Heard Of" if you ever see this web site: "Hello from Mike, Maris, Victor, and Doug!" Sorry we never met you.
One night we decided to take the advice of the desk clerk at the Holiday Inn and try out a steakhouse "right across town". Well after walking for almost an hour, we still needed to take a cab ride to get the rest of the way. Anyway, Maris, Chris, and Min decided to go for the 2-pound steak option. The meal was nearly one of the most expensive I've had, but it was tasty and the boys were able to finish their $40 steaks. I still hate the desk clerk at the Holiday Inn.
All good things must come to an end. Spring breaks in Texas are no exception. Here are a couple photos of the team de-rigging the boats for the journey home.
Here are the coaches discussing whether they could get enough insurance money to buy the team new boats if they crashed the trailer on the way back. In the end, they decided that they could get actually get enough money, but Vespoli would probably:
1. Deliver the boats the day after Vails
2. Deliver the boats promptly, but paint them purple because they thought Northwestern ordered them
3. Did everything on time and perfect except deliver them to someone else
4. Invoice someone else for the order and claim we never paid.
5. Upon delivery break one of the riggers and not replace it. BTW we're still waiting and it's been 6 months.
So in the end, the coaches decided to transport the boats home safely. If you're wondering, I've had variants of all those scenarios happen to me over the years when dealing with that company.
shhh...secret
© 2004 Doug Rathburn
