There is synergy at work here, and not just on the water, but in time, in the wonderful way that remarkable people come together to make opportunities real and attainable for others.
[This contracted piece appeared in the Fall '09 edition of Penn Charter Today, PC's alumni magazine. Click here for the magazine clipping; only for fast connections.]
For more than a quarter-century the waters of the Schuylkill River and the docks of Boathouse Row had been tantalizingly out of reach for Penn Charter students, a curious anomaly for a school so close to the water and one with a remarkable crew connection.
Over the past few decades, how many Penn Charter students, parents, and alumni have run, walked, or biked along the busy artery known as Kelly Drive, passing without stopping or much noticing the statue near the crew pavilion finish-line of John B. Kelly, Sr., “Jack” to most, the three-time Olympic gold medal champion in crew? Forever he sits in his single scull, a few meters from the finish line, his face the calm strength of innumerable rivers rowed.
How many can recite the details of Jack’s humble beginnings in Philadelphia in the early 1900s, his rise to fame as a world-class athlete, arguably the greatest oarsman in history, and his meteoric rise as a respected businessman, “Kelly for Brickwork,” and the legacy of his four children, two with household names—Grace Kelly (yes, that Grace Kelly) and his son John B. Kelly, Jr., “Kel,” OPC ’45?
Under the guiding hand of Jack and his son Kel, a remarkable squad of rookie Penn Charter oarsmen cut the River in practice and competition, many continuing to row long after graduation, including Kel, who went on to win (twice) the prestigious Diamond Sculls at the Henley Royal Regatta and then his own Olympic medal. For more than a quarter-century, the campus has remained strangely quiet about competition on the water, while crewcuts and J. Crew have plied the choppy hallways. But the sculls have come back to Penn Charter.
This past year, Penn Charter fielded its first official crew team since the late seventies. Instrumental in getting the boats back on the water was a serious interest on the part of a substantial group of students and parents, lead in part by J.B. Kelly III, father of Nick Kelly, currently a senior at Penn Charter, and grandson of Jack. Mr. Kelly found a strong advocate in Head of School Dr. Darryl Ford.
Both men used their considerable influence to get the community in synch with a new crew team. Dr. Ford expressed his desire firmly to the athletic department, and Mr. Kelly threw his weight into securing use and space at the Vesper Boat Club, the very club his grandfather rowed for at the start of his remarkable career, a hundred years ago.
While these conversations were brewing, the search for a crew coach was underway. A few months prior to the summer of ’08, Hanne Gradinger was elevated from a substitute role and offered a full-time art teacher position at Penn Charter’s middle school. The oars were finally in place.
In high school in Kansas City, Mo., Ms. Gradinger belonged to a crew club, then went on to the University of Colorado, where she was the stroke-seat rower in the Buffaloes’ lightweight eight. Before taking the helm at Penn Charter, she coached the novice female rowers at the Shipley School. Her assistant is former Ithaca College rower Emma Morrow. Both women enjoy sharing their passion and knowledge about the sport to young people.
“I love coaching mostly because I love the sport of rowing,” offers Ms. Gradinger. “I love watching my athletes embrace the fact that rowing is the ultimate team sport, and once they start to understand that, it creates a very strong bond within the team. Rowing develops honesty, responsibility, and reliability in a person. What better time to instill those qualities than in high school?”
Practices for the rookie team, initially granted junior-varsity status, began last March when the weather was still so cold that even runners on Kelly Drive were rare. For the first few weeks, the coaches worked with Penn Charter students in the classroom and on the docks, a steep learning curve for many, that included first learning a new vocabulary—what is an erg, a gate, a rigger?—then learning proper etiquette and equipment care.
Getting the boats down from the racks and onto the water requires technique and teamwork, to say nothing about actual competitive rowing maneuvers on the water. Penn Charter students took to the program quickly, the coxwains’ eyes clearly focused on the finish line and on gaining varsity status as soon as possible, possibly this upcoming spring.
Practices for the inaugural season were held five-days-a-week, from 3:30—6pm on the River, and also two mornings a week in the weightroom, from 6:45 to 7:45 am. Generally Sundays were reserved for competitions with storied names like the Manny Flick Regattas, the Dr. Robert White Regatta, and the Stotesbury Cup Regatta. Penn Charter’s roster consisted of 23 rowers in 9th through 11th grades, 5 boys and 18 girls, and they usually competed in two doubles, one quad, and one eight (four rented boats in all). This spring Penn Charter hopes to own at least one boat and a set of oars. Work is already underway on designing the school symbol and colors for the blades of the oars.
For a typical practice, training consists of a series of drills that work on different aspects of the stroke—how to apply pressure, when to apply pressure, and how and when to pause, the whole effort geared towards synchronizing body and blade movements. The practices for the week build up in intensity and duration and then taper approaching race day. Some practices involve the repetition of “steady state pieces,” continuous rowing, or aerobic exercises, where the workout is equivalent to a runner’s long-slow-distance workout.
Other practices are focused more on prep racing, like a runner’s training intervals, where students practice the starting race sequence as well as strategies for when and how to effectively “power through” a race. Each rower, or team of rowers, yearns for the “swing,” that hard-to-define feeling when near-perfect synchronization of motion occurs in the boat, the feeling of cutting through the water and leaving friction, that enemy of racers in all sports, almost in the wake.
A typical practice on the water is an exercise in individual-boat coordination and whole-team coordination. Synchronization is the best word to describe it, for on the water there is no place for the lone ranger. “Everyone has to work together, which means that the boat is like a person,” offers Maggie Faigen, current 11th grader at Penn Charter. “The entire boat has to think as one,” concurs Dylan Smith, 11th grader. “Bow through coxswain, we all have to help each other, not work against each other.” Once launched from the dock, rowers congregate on the west bank and “weigh enough” (stop) for all PC boats and coaches.
The River is marked by physical landmarks, such as the Girard Train Bridge, Girard Ave., Columbia Bridge, Strawberry Mansion Bridge, the Island, the Wire, and Gillin Boathouse. With often more than 20 high-school crew teams on the water at once—and an occasional non-competitive dragonboat clipping the water with its small army of paddles—circumnavigating the Schuylkill is a remarkable exercise in inter-school group work. Only rowers get a unique view of the city’s skyline. The busy commute on all sides is strangely out of earshot, and there’s a stillness on the water that is almost palpable.
“I like how diverse and intricate crew is,” explains Susannah Bonn, current 10th grader. “At times it seems like a team-oriented sport, staying together and pulling your weight. But sometimes it’s all about you, your stroke rating, your 2K time, or your layback at the finish. I also like the intensity of some practices. I never ran four-plus miles on a Saturday. I don’t like ordinary sports, and crew was something that I’d never thought about. It was a really rewarding experience.”
There is synergy at work here, and not just on the water, but in time, in the wonderful way that remarkable people come together to make opportunities real and attainable for others. Crew at Penn Charter can be traced back almost a hundred years, with short-lived explosions of interest.
Almost 65 years ago, Penn Charter, organized its first complete rowing team, with local legend John B. Kelly, Sr. as the head coach and Kel, his son, as the captain. The rest of the 1945 athletes were completely inexperienced. Many members of that magnificent team went on to respectable rowing careers in college, and many continued to row competitively and recreationally throughout their lives, passing the joy onto their children, and eventually to their children’s children. The sculls have come back to Penn Charter. For a new generation of student-athletes, the journey begins anew.
[Mark Franek served as an English teacher and dean of students at Penn Charter from 1999-2007. He is the academic dean at the Rock School for Dance Education.]
NOTABLE STUDENT QUOTES:
“I enjoy going out on the water everyday with people I like being with. I have grown to really like our team and how we work together. Crew is more than a team sport. There is no one person scoring a goal. Unless the entire team has the same power and stroke, we won’t go anywhere.”
—Alixandre Azizi, 11th grade
“I actually started crew a little later than everyone else. The reason I joined was because I wanted to do a spring sport, and my sister, who was already on crew, told me they needed a coxswain. I wasn’t sure what that was at first but when she told me it was a short person who gave orders, I decided that crew was the perfect sport for me.”
—Julia Binswanger, 10th grade
“I wanted to try something different than I’ve never done. I really like crew because it’s not only a team sport but a family sport. My parents claim to watch me when I play soccer when in fact their heads rarely look up from their PDAs, but with crew they bond with the other parents and spend the whole day watching. I also like getting shirts for each race. It’s nice having a reminder of what I’ve done. Also, you can never have too many shirts.”
—Liz Binswanger, 12th grade
“I love the sport of rowing because it is a true team sport. Rowing requires you to row in synchronized motion with the rest of your team. If anyone is not rowing in tandem, the whole boat gets off balance. Equally, dedication is essential. If someone can’t make practice, nobody from their boat gets to row. The boat requires 100% participation and will not move for less.”
—Billy Wagner, 12th grade
“The reason I enjoy rowing is the ‘zone’ I feel moving in unison with other people, the feeling as the boat is heaved forward by four people working together. I love the feeling at the finish. I am too tired to think but I can row. Rowing is a part of me.”
—Alex Brown, 11th grade
“The first time I was in a boat I was not happy. It was raining the whole time. When I got off the water, I looked at how much I had improved from just that one practice, and I looked up and down the river knowing that we were one of the only teams to go out in the rain, and we rowed the whole course. I felt a lot of gratification. I also realized that I survived the cold rainy weather, knowing conditions couldn’t get much worse. My first race was on a beautiful sunny 80 degree day. There is nothing better than spending a day like that on the river.”
—Christy Chollak, 12th grade
“The feeling of moving through water is almost a spiritual experience, especially the feeling of moving in unity in a quad or an eight. Crew rewards hard work and determination on both an individual and group level. Whether you’re a natural, or just average, if you put the time in to train properly, you will get better. You will see the water going by faster.”
—Nick Kelly, 12th grade