We learned early this morning that the great William "Bill" Stowe passed away on Monday, February 8, from a heart attack at his home (it was previously reported that he passed from injuries suffered in a fall, but the cause has since been discovered to have been the heart attack). He was 75 years old.
Service information (updated Feb 12): Calling hours will be held Friday, February 19th from 4:00 PM to 6:00 PM at M. B. Clark, Inc., Funeral Home in Lake Placid with an American Legion Prayer Service at 5:45 PM.
A Funeral Service will be held Saturday, February 20th at 11:00 AM at Church of St. Luke’s the Beloved Physician, 136 Church St. Saranac Lake, NY. The M. B. Clark, Inc. Funeral Home in Lake Placid, NY is in charge of arrangements.
Donations may be made in memory of William A. Stowe to Church of St. Luke, 136 Main St., Saranac Lake, NY 12983; the Rotary Foundation Polio Plus Fund, C/O Lake Placid Rotary Club, PO Box 1425, Lake Placid, NY 12946; or Nashville Rowing, 73 White Bridge Road Suite 103-311, Nashville, TN 37205.
Stowe was a legendary oarsman and coach; as a rower, he stroked and captained the undefeated 1959 Cornell frosh, stroked the 1962 IRA winning Cornell varsity, and stroked the 1964 US men's eight that won Olympic gold, in which his technique served as a model for the crew and countless rowers afterward. The crew became one of the iconic American crews of all time, showing up on the cover of Sports Illustrated, and holding the distinction of the last US men's eight to win gold at the Olympics until the 2004 crew won in Athens.
As a coach, he coached at Columbia University before starting the program at Coast Guard, where his crews dominated the Dad Vails for several years.
Stowe also was the color commentator for ABC's Olympics rowing broadcasts in 1968 and 1972.
Bill was a larger-than-life presence for many, and lived a varied and interesting life, including having led law enforcement through the tunnels under Low Library at Columbia University to end the occupation of the building by SDS in 1969. Here are some links with more information about Bill. The rowing community is pulling for his friends and family.
It is with heavy hearts that I make this post. Yesterday evening we were contacted by Barbara Stowe with the sad news...
Posted by US Coast Guard Academy Rowing on Tuesday, February 9, 2016
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02/26/2016 1:04:53 PM
"This is such a good book. There is a lot of talk and praise for THE BOYS IN THE BOAT by Daniel James Brown but I think ALL TOGETHER is better because William Stowe writes from first-hand experience: He was the stroke of the famous Vesper eight that won the Olympic title in 1964. He interviewed all the men in the boat forty years later and what an inspirational story he put together!
It is better. And I wouldn’t be surprised if Stowe’s book didn’t lead to the other. But as an oarsman before I was a tennis player I have to say that rowing even more than tennis is a tight community in which everybody knows everybody else. That said, I adore Brown’s best-selling book (now supposedly being made into a movie) which among other things is one of the best accounts anywhere of the American Depression.
I see immediate connection between any tennis stroke (since now I specialize in tennis) and any rowing stroke in that both are a cycle, not a list of details for memorization. Yes, there are a thousand details or none, twenty or two, thirty or three, any one of which can destroy the whole stew. This to me approaches a definition of art in which every detail is essential part of the organic whole, which means that if you remove a single brush stroke or half a word or dancer’s gesture you spoil everything.
I really was exposed to the cycle idea when one of the oarsmen I was coaching at West Virginia University related to me his experience of participating in a workshop with Bill Stowe during the previous summer. From that moment I tried to put the same emphasis on cycle that Stowe as superb coach at Coast Guard Academy, New London, Connecticut did. And I try to apply that same emphasis to full tennis stroke cycle as I work with myself. The cycle idea makes me think that any small tweak is major overhaul, so one might as well “take it from the top.”
In ALL TOGETHER, Bill Stowe cites the great crew coach before him Rusty Callow as saying, “I never met an oarsman I didn’t like.” Stowe then quips, “Yeah, but he never met the Amlong brothers.” The Amlong brothers were so difficult that their gold medal producing coach Allen Rosenberg had to place them far apart in the boat so they wouldn’t fight.
A confession here: I didn’t like Bill Stowe the one time I met him. He was visiting his prep school buddy Charlie Brainard in Fenwick, Old Saybrook, Connecticut. They both attended the Kent school and to me seemed too much of a clique—anyway, I felt excluded. And thought maybe the coldness had something to do with my crew, Brown, going by Cornell in the 1960 Intercollegiate Rowing Association Championship.
Stowe was the stroke—the key guy who sets the rate or pace and example for the other seven oarsmen in the boat—at Cornell. He had learned his beautiful stroke at Kent, just as the great stroke of our boat at Brown, Bill Engeman, learned his beautiful stroke at Washington and Lee High School in Arlington, Virginia.
But Stowe wasn’t stroking Cornell the day we beat them. He was under academic probation for stealing two figures from a Christmas creche in Ithaca and installing them in his fraternity.
Because of my poor impression from meeting him, I never wanted to read his book, despite knowing it existed. And in fact Brown University is not mentioned once in the book, not even in the index. But this month, February, I got to know Dick Bell, the head coach at Detroit Boat Club, who recommended it.
So I read the book and loved it then put the name Bill Stowe in a search engine, and learned that he died this month—in February—after a fall from cellar steps of his house in Lake Placid, New York that caused him to land on concrete with his head.
People in other sports might not want to know, in detail, exactly how one of their own died. But Stowe was such an important part of the tapestry of all of our lives that this information somehow mattered. And the later report was different from the first report. There just seems more dignity in a heart attack before one’s fall over a fall before one’s heart attack.
02/12/2016 5:01:36 PM