Following is an excerpt from Karl Drlica's book 'Bitten by the Rowing Bug - Challenges of an Untamed River,' about "the struggles of a rowing coach against both an unrelenting western river and University administrators." You can purchase the book here.

Pair-oared shells seemed precarious to me, since they were rowed with only two oars and I would have to trust the other rower not to catch a crab (failing to get an oar out of the water cleanly). A crab could cause the boat to tip over, because the crab itself would tend to pull the boat down on that side. Nevertheless, these boats were wide enough for oarsmen to think they could balance the shell without the oars.

Overconfidence led rowers of a pair-oared shell to attempt an exchange of oars while in midstream. I suspect they'd been in a hurry to leave the dock and had locked their oars into the wrong sides of the boat (the blades were symmetrical, unlike the modern hatchet-shaped blades). They flipped over a mile or so downriver. They swam the boat to the riverbank, pulled it into the brush, and ran for the boathouse. One oarsman lost his way while running through the fields in the dark, but after an hour he came to Highway 34 and followed it to the boathouse. The other oarsman ended up in a blackberry patch and had to fight his way out. Neither had shoes, since shoes were always left at the dock before stepping into a racing shell.

I had a similar experience while double sculling. One rainy night Terry Parker and I were struggling to get our double scull back to the boathouse. I was teaching him how to scull, and we had pushed off the float into a swift, February river. We had paused at the float for a few minutes, wondering whether the river was too fast for us, but I'd had no trouble the day before. Moreover, we didn't see much drifting debris to worry about. Off we went.

Our push had been upstream, and with a few port-side strokes we were soon midstream, scooting across tricky eddies before turning downstream. The current grabbed us, and within a few minutes the dock was out of sight. We sculled smoothly, together and with good power. Perhaps too smoothly, as we turned around farther downstream than we should have.

The sun set as we began working our way upstream, now several miles below the boathouse. It soon became apparent that I had misjudged the current. Each stroke seemed to move us only a few feet relative to the trees on the bank. We had gone only a half a land-mile before a light drizzle soaked us.

I was sculling in the bow; it was my job to watch for debris. I felt that we needed every advantage I could squeeze out of the river, so we were hugging the bank on our right, keeping about 25 feet out to avoid the many snags stuck along the bank. I must have been looking over my right shoulder for a snag when the weight shift gave us a pair of port-side crabs. Over we went. The cold water instantly sucked the air from our lungs. We soon came to the surface and grabbed the boat, choking on river water. As was customary, rowers never wore life jackets; the boat was our flotation device.

My first thought was to save the seats - they were the only items not fixed to the boat, as the oars were locked in the oarlocks and the stretcher boots were bolted in place. The seats were still on their tracks: we wouldn't have to search for parts.

As the current whipped us past the shoreline bushes, it was clear that we had to get out of the water before we crashed into a snag and broke the boat. Moreover, every second in the water meant that getting home was becoming more difficult - and the cold water was beginning to stiffen our muscles.

The shell had rolled upright after dumping us, but we couldn't climb back in without damaging the fragile wooden boat. Terry didn't argue when I shouted to swim the boat to the riverbank.

I don't remember how long it took us to side-stroke the shell to the bank, probably only a few minutes. We were lucky and found a spot about ten feet wide that was free of brush. Terry climbed out and carefully lifted the bow out of the water and set it on the bank. He quickly freed the oars while I struggled to gain a foothold in about three feet of swift water. He lifted the bow, and at the same time I lifted the stern, turning the boat over and emptying the water.

Launching the shell from the bank would be difficult with so much brush in the way, and we were beginning to shiver. I suggested that we leave the boat and run back to the boathouse. There must be a farmer's field on the other side of the trees and bushes lining the river. Since we'd gone around a bend, that field would offer a short-cut to the boathouse.

Terry agreed.

I knew that the brushy tree line along the river was usually thirty to fifty feet wide, not far in daylight. But the trees blocked the weak light reflected from rain clouds. We wouldn't be able to find an animal track through the brush and berry vines. Moreover, our shoes were back at the dock. The socks issued by the PE Department were always loose, and I'd lost one in the river. I don't remember whether Terry had his.

We had to go directly to the field. If we accidentally paralleled the river, we might never get out of the brush. We put our backs to the river and stepped gingerly over fallen branches, occasionally running into an unseen tree. Scratches were ignored. Since it was winter, poison oak was also ignored, but our tender feet suffered until the cold numbed them.

It took us ten minutes to emerge from the tree line. The field was mud and corn stubble mixed with little stones. The light rain had little dampening effect on us, as we were already soaked. No light was visible, but we knew the boathouse was somewhere off to the right. Our numb feet ignored the stones and stubble as we ran for a hot shower. The boiler was working that day, and I still wince when recalling the prickling pain as feeling returned to my feet.

I don't remember collecting the shell. Carl Bower must have taken a launch downriver with several oarsmen and found the boat with a spotlight. They would have picked up the boat, loaded it onto the launch, and driven it back to the boathouse.

Terry and I didn't consider whether anyone knew where we were. In those days, kids ran free; college students were even freer. I'm not surprised that the archive contains no record of the incident. In retrospect, I wonder why my dad let us scull, unsupervised, under those conditions. But at age eighteen or nineteen, I saw no danger.