1. What inspired you to go to your first rowing practice; was there anything memorable about it?
My older sister Coleen rowed at St. Thomas in St. Paul. She’s three years older than I am, and she always said that I might be good at it, that I had the right body type. I didn’t give it much play, didn’t really think about it, but when I was moving into the dorms, my Dad saw a flyer on the wall and said "hey, you should check it out." I wanted to play basketball, but I knew the only place I could play would be in D3, and I had made up my mind I wanted to go to Minnesota. So, I needed something to do every day besides intramurals. That’s sorta why - not because I thought I’d really get into it, but really because I needed something to do every day - I decided to give it a shot.
What I remember from my first practice is this: we rowed on the Mississippi River, so there were river flats. So when I went down to the boathouse, there were ergs right next to the water. I was thinking "what are those?" They put us on those for about 10 minutes, then threw us out on the river in 300 lb eights made in 1970. I remember when we were out there, there were two things I was thinking. The first was "Why are we rowing with square blades?" I didn’t know then that that was what it was called, but I had seen pictures of rowing, and I had gone to one race of my sister’s, and I knew that you were supposed to, sort of, flop it over. So I was thinking "why are doing it this way?" I was trying to figure that out. And I remember actually that I did it a couple times, and the coach said "NO! keep it squared."
Then I remember thinking, you know, we’re on the Mississippi, and it’s pretty wide, and it runs pretty fast through there, because there are huge banks, at least 50 or 60 feet on either side. So you know it’s a pretty awesome atmosphere. Obviously, on your first row you’re doing a lot of just sitting there while you row by pairs and fours. So I remember just sitting there, looking around and thinking "This is incredible, I can’t believe this." Because here we are in this little skinny boat. And that, especially watching the barges roll by, and the speed of the river, I’ll just never forget it. It’s different when you go out on a little lake, as compared to a river that on average is about twice as fast as the Schuylkill, every day. (Ed.'s note: I asked who Mike's first coaches were: "There were two, one was a varsity rower at the time, Joe Wantschick; and then Rich Hawthorne, who had graduated a year or two before.")
2. Was there a practice, race or other event when you fell in love with the sport, or when you knew you might not be too bad at rowing? When you thought you could make the national team?
I would say without a doubt, and I’ve told people this many times, it was my first year when I came out to the Dad Vail in May of 91. I just couldn’t believe how many people were there watching. We had been to a couple head races in the fall, and maybe three regattas in the spring. All the regattas had at least 15 teams there, so there are a lot of people there, but there’s nobody watching. Then we went to Philadelphia, and the shores were just packed. Of course, that was the last year they allowed kegs on the shore (laughs)!
But that event did it for me. We were rowing in the novice four, and there was something like 45 boats in our event, and we took second, and I remember walking up and down the shoreline the rest of the afternoon because our race was at noon, it was so great.
3. Best race/practice, worst race/practice?
Worlds in 97 was the best race. Because we were such a longshot, and yet going into the finals we had supreme confidence, and it made all the difference. It is hard to pick one, but 97 will always stick out, because we really had no reason to be confident. Sure, we had a good bunch, but based on the racing we had done that summer – we had been here and there, and - but going into the final, we had confidence, and it made all the difference when you’re talking about less than a second. We were still down with 250 to go, we were down a seat or two. It was just a great race.
Any Practices in particular?
Here and there, yeah, but I try not to get too up or down about it in practice, because there are just too many of them.
My last college race was probably my worst, because I was in my fifth year, and I could only row in certain regattas, and we were a club often racing against other clubs, so they just wanted a race. But going into Dad Vails and IRA’s – you probably could have just done it, but I didn’t want to do that – and so my last race was the Midwest Cahmpionships in Madison. We would meet up with Wisconsin in the fours, and we always had good races with them, but we never beat them. We would always finish second, or sometimes we would get beat by both their fours, which was always really depressing. (laughs) but it wasays us fighting against Wisco, and that last year we had a really close race, and lost by something like 0.2 seconds, and I remember feeling terrible. Just because I knew it was my last race of my career.
When I was in HS, basketball was my sport. I played football, but I wasn’t a major contributor like I was in basketball. And our team was mediocre my senior year – we had a good team my junior year – and we lost in the first round of the playoffs. That was great considering we weren’t that good, but we were up by 23 points in the third quarter. So even if that’s good for you as a team, to have that be your last game ever, just sucks! I don’t think I thought about that when we raced Wisco, because I didn’t even know that would be my last race, but later when I found out it was, that was tough.
4. Best/Anything you've done in the sport no one knows about?
My easy answer is that I like to talk, so everyone has heard all my stories! But I’m not quite that modest!
5- Any/Most important advice for young rowers?
When you talk about HS kids – I was really serious about sports in high school. But – I still played three sports. And I think that’s important. Even if you’re the best rower in the whole country, I think it’s worth losing some seconds on your 2k erg to have some fun, play a different sport, get a stupid job. Sometimes I think young kids, some of them are so motivated that they burn themselves right out. I might not have had great success with all my teams in high school sports, but I had a lot of fun. And it doesn’t mean I was just messing around; I took it very seriously. But I remember even then there were some guys who said "I’m not doing anything but basketball, or football, because I have to focus on it" and I remember I thought even then that it was stupid. And the reason I say it for rowing is that it is so easy to get sucked into it. Everyone knows erg times are built up over months, not six weeks, but there are going to be those people who do it year-round. But I think it’s good advice for rowers to do other things, and don’t worry about ergs. Worry about that when you get to college.
I didn’t row in high school, but I think it’s a lot better to be a little more rounded. It also doesn’t hurt to run with some different crowds; if you run with the same crowd all the time, you can get a little sheltered.
College is a good age to throw yourself at a sport. You’re hopefully mature enough to realize that there are other things going on in your life like doing well in class, having friends and taking time to do things with friends, but I don’t see anything wrong with throwing yourself at a sport. I pretty much did that in college. We didn’t train twice a day or anything, but the rowing became my life after a couple years, and that was alright. It was a club team, and I became team president, and had all the logistical stuff to do; fundraising, all that stuff. I actually liked it, but it didn’t leave a whole lot of time for other stuff.
When did you decide to try for the national team?
That happened in 93, the first summer I ever rowed, after my junior year. I rowed that summer in Minneapolis, and thought wow, this is kind of fun when it’s warm! It’s raining and it’s still enjoyable to row! That was a really fun summer. Four of us were pretty serious rowers, though we were rowing maybe four times a week. and we went to the American Rowing Championships in Topeka. There weren’t that many crews there, but I came away from that thinking – here we are medaling against crews from Penn AC and NYAC, who we heard trained all the time. And we were able to hang with them, and that’s when I thought I might be okay at the sport, and thought about maybe trying for the national team.
And I do see those summer club settings as a real stepping stone. There has to be some in between, not everyone can go straight from their university to the national team. So for me it was a benchmark, and I realized I measured up fairly well. So that’s why the next summer I went out to Philly and Penn AC.
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