LONDON - The rumors had been circulating for weeks that Mike Teti was going to be asked to come back to the U.S. men’s national team to coach the eight after it failed to qualify for the 2012 London Olympic Games at the world championships last summer.
Zach Vlahos, who had been on been a coxswain on two U.S. junior national teams, had won a silver medal in the under 23 eight, and was a national champion under Teti at the University of California, heard them too.
Even though Vlahos had stepped away from being a competing athlete in 2011 to work at the California Rowing Club, when the rumors became official news, he knew this was his chance.
He had thought about trying out for the senior team before and had even talked with U.S. men’s head coach Tim McLaren about it. But he was still in school and the timing was not right. But last fall it was.
“There were all these rumors going around that (Teti) was going to get to coach the boat and no one knew what was going on and then the official notice came down from USRowing and that’s when I went into his office and asked if I could try out for the camp, and he said sure,” Vlahos said.
That was nearly 10 months ago. This morning at the Olympic rowing course at Eton Dorney, 33 miles from London, piloting the United States men’s eight through a practice. His dream had become reality.
“I don’t think it has sunk in the entire way yet that this is the Olympics,” Vlahos said. “I try to keep myself pretty focused on the day to day, let's make this practice good, let's make this practice good, but as you get there, the intensity builds.
“Now we’re here and we’re in the Olympic Village and you see all the other teams from around the world. You go through team processing, and when I went through the men’s gymnasts where there too and that’s pretty cool.
“You see them on TV and then you’re right there next to them getting sized up and you’re standing next to someone famous and then you realize you’re at the same competition together. But I watched him on TV four years ago. It’s pretty special.”
It is special. And it is the Olympics. And Saturday Vlahos will be sitting on the line ready to help guide the U.S. men’s eight through the heats and hopefully into the final.
But that is getting ahead of the story. To get to where he was this morning, the 23-year-old Piedmont, Calif., native had to work through one of the most intensive selection camps ever held.
It began last November. Over 30 of the best rowers in the country and two very experienced national team coxswains reported to Teti at the University of California and began the process that would end with all but nine of them being cut.
For a kid with no senior national team experience, it was slightly overwhelming.
“It was definitely intimidating especially the first couple of weeks when the guys first got to the Bay Area,” he said. “For me, but it was a whole new level. These guys, without getting paid, are professional rowers. They’re not working, they’re training every day, twice a day and I had never experienced anything like that.
“They’ve been to numerous senior world championships and some had been to the Olympics before and it was pretty cool to see. Some of them were Olympic medalists. I didn’t want to say something wrong. I didn’t want to get them angry. I just wanted to make the right calls and make no mistakes. I was definitely quieter and maybe made fewer calls and then I got a little bit more comfortable as camp went on.”
What helped Vlahos were two important things - he has rowed under Teti at Cal his junior and senior years, and the other guys in the camp were helpful and welcoming. Everyone there, Vlahos said, just wanted to come up with the right lineup that could go to the Final Olympic Qualification Regatta and qualify the eight for the Olympics.
As time passed, the group changed, cuts were made and Vlahos learned what he had to do to stay in the mix. There were rumors about when the final cut would be made, but it came right down to the last day.
“The naming day was April 30. There were a couple of points there where we thought they would name it. Guys were speculating, but I felt the best thing to do was stay out of it, what’s going to happen will happen. The only thing you can do is go out and do the best you can do,” he said.
“They named the eight rowers and then there was a meeting between the coach and the eight rowers that were just selected for the boat and I guess they talked about coxswains and who they were comfortable with. I knew what I was up against. The other coxswains were tremendous coxswains and they had more experience than me. I had never even been to a senior world championships before.”
But when the meeting ended, Teti came out and told Vlahos he was the guy.
“Then we got on the water for practice. It happened pretty quickly once the meeting was over.”
What followed was a win in Lucerne, Switzerland to get the boat qualified for London. What followed that was more weeks of practice.
Today, Vlahos is a comfortable member of the crew and he has the confidence of his teammates and coach.
“He’s a little young, but he’s definitely been in some races,” said bow-seat David Banks. “He’s pretty confident in himself and he’s a pretty smart guy, so he’s able to pick up things pretty quick and learn from it. We’re all trying to work together and he’s one of the guys. All nine of us are all in this and we’re all trying to work together as a team.”
While he was the youngest, and least experienced in international racing, Teti said he knew Vlahos had the talent and intelligence to compete in the camp.
“I wanted to have competition all the way through, even with the coxswains,” Teti said. “And I thought Zach had been on the junior team, he was an under 23 medalist and a national champion in college, so I thought it would be good. Let’s invite him. We had three good coxswains and in the end, I wanted the guys to pick who they were most comfortable with and they picked him.
“He’s always wanted to do this. He talked to (men’s head coach Tim McLaren) three years ago. The problem was he had to finish school. He really couldn’t do it in 2011. His parents would have killed him if he hadn’t finished school.”
“He’ll be good on the calls and he’ll be straight. His major was organizational behavior. That will serve him well here.”
For more features on the U.S. Olympic Rowing team visit; http://www.usrowing.org/Pressbox/2012Olympics.aspx
Zach Vlahos