Casselberry, FL
2991 Red Bug Lake Road
Casselberry, FL
January 27, 2001 was an historic day for the Winter Park High School Crew Team. We dedicated the new boathouse and a new men's varsity eight boat. We honored several people and families that have given so much to the Crew Team effort. We paid tribute to the many people who have been essential to the success of the program over the years.
Not only that, but we had a great turn-out by the alumni and
friendships were born and re-kindled in a relaxed atmosphere and over
lunch. Current rowers showed off their rowing skills. Current
parents got a taste of the legacy of this great crew team. Everyone
present was impressed by the wonderful new facility. Hats and t-shirts
commemorating the event are still available at $15 each from trconinc@cs.com.
The following is the dedication speech delivered by Jonathan Rich:
Boathouse
Dedication and Alumni Reunion
I would like to begin our ceremonies by calling on
the Winter Park High School ROTC Color Guard for the presentation of colors.
[Presentation of colors]
And now, I’d like to call on Reverend David
Judd, who has kindly consented to provide an invocation. David is a member of the Winter Park Crew Boosters and the
Associate Pastor of the Winter Park Presbyterian Church.
Invocation
Thank you, David.
We’re very fortunate to have had with us
today the Winter Park High School ROTC Color Guard.
Please now honor them, and the colors they have presented, by standing
and joining in the Pledge of Allegiance….
“I pledge allegiance, to the flag, of the
United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation
under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”
Thank you.
Now, let’s give a special thanks to the Color Guard, for joining us and
making this event a truly special one.
A great sports team can only come from a great
school. As you all know, Winter
Park High School is universally regarded as one of the finest high schools in
the Southeast and in the country. We’re
honored to have the school’s president, Bill Gordon, with us.
Our community is very fortunate to have a leader of Bill’s caliber at
the head of Winter Park High. In
only a few years, he has demonstrated capability and commitment fully
commensurate with the school’s longstanding reputation for excellence.
If anyone can burnish that reputation further, Bill can.
We’ve asked him to greet us with a few remarks this morning, and he has
agreed to do so.
Remarks by Bill Gordon
Thank you, Bill.
I would like now to offer a few thoughts about
the sport of rowing and about this team and about our reason for being here
today.
Rowing stands out among sports.
First, it is a hard sport. It is exacting, even painful. It requires the utmost in dedication and selflessness, but it also demands that the athlete push the outermost limits of physical achievement. Consider this. A kilocalorie of energy is the amount of energy it takes to raise a kilo of water one degree centigrade. As David Halberstam explained in his book, The Amateurs,
“Someone
brushing his teeth produces roughly one kilocalorie of energy a minute.
Someone walking through a parking lot to a car uses about four to five
kilocalories a minute. Someone
jogging at a slow pace produces about six to eight.
A cross-country skier produces roughly thirty kilocalories per minute.
But an Olympic class rower produces thirty-six kilocalories a minute.
No sports activity produces more.
Oxygen
– and the ability to process it – is the key to aerobic energy.
Anaerobic energy comes into play when less and less oxygen becomes
available. But anaerobic energy is
only one nineteenth as efficient, and it produces as by-products lactic acids,
which cause immense pain. Thus, at
the end of a race, when a rower finds her normal supply of oxygen depleted, it
is replaced by a source that is far less efficient and a good deal more
painful.”
Rowing is a hard sport.
There is a second reason why rowing stands out.
In this country, it is not a paid, professional sport.
It may, in fact, be the last true amateur sport.
Rowing is not closely covered by the media. And so, to many, it is not
very well known or understood. Some
parents have joked that the reason our sons and daughters love crew so much is
because they have finally found a sport that we have not engaged in and cannot
understand! There is some truth to
this. Most of us have played
tennis. Most of us at least have
played a backyard game of softball, soccer, football or basketball. We may not play those sports competitively, but we have some
glimmer of what it may be like to do so. But
rowing is not a common sport. It is
an insular sport, and its practitioners live largely in a world of their own.
They like it that way.
There is a third reason why rowing stands out
among sports. If you can raise the
funds necessary to support it (an important “if”), it is especially well
suited to high school. Why?
Why is it well suited to young men and women?
First, there are 100 athletes on the Winter Park Crew Team.
Virtually all of them will row at the regattas that start next month.
That’s about five to ten times the number that might be able to
participate in competition in many other sports.
So it is a sport that allows more athletes to participate.
Second, it is a sport in which the use of drugs and alcohol – a problem
for many young people, as it is for people of all ages – is scarcely
conceivable. Drugs and alcohol, in fact are prohibited for the team,
during school, during practice, during weekends, and at any time.
In fact, when we christen the new shells in a few moments, we’ll do it
with bottled water! The third
reason has to do with why this used to be known as “the gentleman’s
sport.” (Of course, it would now
be known as “the gentleman’s and lady’s sport.”)
It is not a sport whose most visible players are on trial for murder or
for drug use or for betting. It is
not a sport whose most visible players flash about in furs and sports cars.
It is a sport that teaches commitment, discipline and – perhaps above
all – responsibility. Here are a
few words from the Winter Park Crew Handbook that I think may give us some
insight into this. These aren’t
bad prescriptions for all of us:
“Have you got
what it takes to be a team player in rowing?
Here are
some things to think about:
Keep
your word. Only promise what you can deliver. If you promise to meet your group at a certain time, be five
minutes early.
Carry your fair share of the load. Both on and off the water the term “pulling together” is very appropriate. Don’t expect others to pick up the slack. Everyone has bad days, but if you make it a habit, others will resent your not doing your share.
Be
a friend. Take other teammates’
best interests to heart. When asked
for advice, give it, but don’t give unsolicited advice. Be a good listener.
Never
make a fellow rower look bad. There is no need to point out problems in public.
Talk in private with your coach.
Do
something extra. Deliver more than you promise.
Volunteer to help out the team. Your
fellow rowers will be there when you need them.”
That’s a set of principles that would improve
most people, isn’t it? It
suggests, I think, that rowing elevates the character and spirit, and demands as
much in those realms, as it improves and demands of one physically.
Having spoken a little about rowing as a sport,
I would like to talk about Winter Park Crew.
Specifically, I’d like to touch on its past, its present, and the
possibilities for its future.
Winter Park Crew began with one hand-me-down
shell 39 years ago, in 1962. There
was no team property on a lake. There
was no team boathouse filled with shells. The
group (I don’t think we could call it a “team” yet) had no non-profit
corporation or organized group to support it.
There were just enough boys to fill the one shell.
There were no girls, and the girls’ participation would not begin until
more than a decade later.
The team rowed from the Rollins College
boathouse, which is significant. Rollins
was the first college to introduce rowing as a collegiate sport in Florida.
When Winter Park emulated Rollins starting in 1962, it became the first
high school in this area (and we believe in the state) to begin a rowing
program. This illustrates a pattern
in this sport (maybe any sport) that is worth noting: as go the colleges, so too
will go the high schools. Therefore, if you want to see what high school rowing may
look like in a few years, look at what is happening at the colleges.
I spoke with a man named Tim Bassler by
telephone this week. He is a
gentleman in his fifties who lives in Tampa.
He rowed three seat in that first boat in 1962.
He wanted desperately to come over from Tampa to be with us today, but he
and his sons were scheduled to be in the Gasparilla Parade, so, unhappily, he
had to decline. He told me how that
first group of rowers was formed back in 1962.
Don Ogilvie wanted to put a group of high school boys together to row.
He had rowed at Rollins in the 30’s.
He had the support of Mr. Brewster, who was a member of the North Orlando
Optimist Club and owned a ladies’ clothing store on Park Avenue.
They put a notice up at the school and some boys came out.
There were only nine of them that year.
No alternates, just the nine. The
Optimists bought them a junk boat from Rollins.
Rollins had received it from Yale, so it was a true hand-me-down.
It was an old wooden Pocock shell, that somebody had later coated with
fiberglass, apparently to extend its life and make it stronger. The fiberglass also made it heavy, absurdly so by today’s
standards. It was so heavy that the
nine could barely lift it! They
called it “The Barge.” They
rowed against the Rollins j.v. team and against collegiate j.v. teams that
visited Rollins. They were
undefeated. They never rowed
against a high school team. There were none in the area, and travel was not even
considered. They rowed only on Lake
Maitland from Kraft Azalea Gardens, using the old small, wooden boathouse that
Rollins had before it built the one that stands there today.
It was a “fluke” that the group was formed, Tim Bassler said.
There was no expectation that they were starting an institution, or a
lasting tradition. When I told him about today’s program, he kept saying “Oh
my… incredible… I can’t believe it.”
Imagine how daunting it would have been for
that first group to see the team’s future.
Imagine how intimidating it would have been to know that more shells
would need to be acquired. That, in
order to expand, the team would eventually need to buy more equipment.
That, in order to grow, the team would need regular access to lakefront
property. That coaches, shells,
oars, launches, motors, uniforms, docks, ergometers, trailers, and a boathouse
would be needed to raise the team from an improvised, shoestring operation to a
full-fledging rowing program. Imagine
how astonished and pleased they would be (or are, since some of them are here)
to see this property, this boathouse and this equipment.
Yet all that progress happened because the most dedicated among team
supporters, each year, found a way to take the program as it was inherited from
past supporters and make it better.
Today, for that reason – because every year
there have been advances – Winter Park Crew is the best it has ever been.
This team has won the state rowing championships for ten of the past 11
years. And for most of the years
before that. Probably no team (at
any level) in the City of Winter Park’s history has been so dominant so
consistently. The team is in fact
one of the most competitive high school crew teams in the nation.
It consistently wins gold, silver and bronze medals at the national
regattas. The Stotesbury Cup Regatta, held on the Schuykill River in
Philadelphia each May, is the most celebrated and historic of the youth rowing
regattas in North America. One
hundred and thirty schools from the U.S. and Canada participate each year.
How does Winter Park Crew do at Stotesbury?
Well, in 1994 alone, this is what the team brought back:
Womens Lightweight 8, bronze medal (that boat, by the way, won silver the
following year, and then gold the next). Mens
Mid-Weight 4, silver medal. Womens Senior 4, silver medal. Mens Senior 4, silver
medal. Womens Freshman 8, gold
medal. Womens Junior 4, gold medal.
That was all in one year. The
tradition continues. Last year, our
Mens Junior 4 brought home the gold medal from the Stotesbury Cup Regatta, and
then won the silver medal at the Scholastic Rowing Association’s National
Regatta, which was held at St. Andrews School in Delaware.
The team’s support, also, is the best it has
ever been. Consider a few things
friends and supporters have accomplished just in the past year. The team’s support organization, the Winter Park Crew
Boosters, has raised the money for the largest annual budget in the team’s
history: $140,000. We are, in fact,
ahead of budget. That $140,000 is
not a capital campaign for long term assets.
That is simply what it takes to run Winter Park Crew annually.
That is what it takes to purchase boats and oars, travel to regattas, and
pay the costs associated with ownership of this land.
All of it is raised through work done by team members and their parents.
The team does not, and cannot, receive financial support from the state,
or the county, or the school system. And
so the financial support is raised through auctions, dinners, car washes,
erg-a-thons, parent rows, gift wraps, ad book sales, raffles, t-shirt and hat
sales, plant sales, and work, work, work.
And this is one of crew’s best secrets.
At a time in their lives when young people generally grow away from, and
do less with, their parents, this volunteerism to support the team provides
something they can do with their friends and with their parents.
It bonds parents and their daughters and sons with a common purpose, and
helps teach the rewards of community service.
Like rowing itself, supporting the team is hard work.
But rewarding. Being out
here together on a Saturday morning, clearing brush, laying bricks, scrubbing
down the erg house, or installing pvc pipe, or spreading mulch, or planting
shrubs, is something meaningful, something worthwhile, that team members and
parents can do together. Winter
Park Crew teaches men and women of all ages, rowers and parents alike, the value
of working together toward the betterment of a team, of youth, of a community.
In the past months, the team, the coaches, and
the parents have done these things together.
We have received a wonderful gift from Tony and Lacy Gray of a new
Vespoli Millenium shell for the boys. With
team funds we have purchased a second Millenium shell for the girls.
The shells are displayed over there, and they are some of the finest
shells made. We have laid down the brick floor that you see in the
boathouse. We have shored up this
end of the foundation of the boathouse, and put in erosion resistant water
drainage. We have put in
landscaping, mulch, and laid in a pvc irrigation system.
We put in the ligustrum hedges (all 240 plants!) just last Saturday.
We have completely renovated the home that you see on the other side of
the boathouse and rented it to a family. The
rental income now offsets some of our expenses.
We have connected the home to city water for the first time.
We have successfully requested designation of our driveway as an official
Seminole County road, and it now has its own street sign with a name designated
by us: Crew Cove. We have trimmed
overhanging tree limbs and encroaching bushes and weeds from the driveway, and
filled in its potholes. We have,
through the efforts of Larry Hames and Mike Chambers, cut our property taxes in
half. We have held some of the most
successful fundraisers in the team’s history.
We have, thanks to Preston Richmond, established an excellent web site, www.wpcrew.com. You can log in there and see how the team is doing.
You can also shop – at Amazon.com and many other sites – by starting
at our web site. If you do, you
won’t spend any more, but some of your shopping dollars will come back to
support the team. And, for the
first time, we have compiled an alumni list, a list of the names and addresses
of former Winter Park Crew rowers. The
list is not free from errors, but it is being corrected and improved.
The invitations for this event were sent to that list. It was the largest mailing ever made by the team.
The alumni list and the web site will put the team in touch with its
alumni for the first time. That is a historic step, of which we’re very proud.
And finally, we’ve held this dedication and reunion.
And we’re very proud of that, too.
They say that if you want to get your house in order, schedule a party!
It worked pretty well for us.
Team spirit, team accomplishments, and parent
involvement have never been better. Truly
we have reached a high water mark in the team’s history.
We have much to be thankful for.
Where does Winter Park Crew go from here?
What does the future hold? Perhaps
the future, once we see it, will be as surprising to us as today’s program
must be to those who began almost 40 years ago.
I have no better a crystal ball than you do, but let me suggest what
might happen. And offer a few
thoughts on things that need to happen.
We must accomplish three things.
We must continue to build our financial strength. We must elevate the
profile and visibility of the team. And we must cultivate the support of alumni
and friends. Those are worth
repeating, I think. We must continue to build our financial strength. We must
elevate the profile and visibility of the team. And we must cultivate the
support of alumni and friends.
How do we build financial strength?
First, we must finish growing into these new facilities.
The honorees who are here today, Cathie Coleman, the Chambers, the Hames,
the Delaters, the Strongs and the McAllisters, have given us great gifts.
Gifts of time, service, assistance, leadership, vision, hard work and
generosity. But by raising this
program’s physical facilities to an entirely new plateau, perhaps their
greatest gift has been the challenge to other supporters and friends to maintain
what they have started. And even to
build upon and improve what they have started.
Our most important task is a large one, but we
are equal to it. We need to raise
money to pay down our $300,000 mortgage loan.
This land was acquired for that amount – a very good price - in
September, 1998. At that
time, Larry and Jane Hames and some of our other honorees formed The Millenium
Rowing Association. The purpose of
the new corporation was to obtain financing and to purchase this property. The construction of the boathouse, which of course occurred
after the purchase of the land, did not require additional borrowing.
Instead, construction of the boathouse was made possible through the
generous contributions of several of our honorees.
So no additional borrowing for construction – or any of the other
improvements that I described earlier – has been necessary.
In fact, we still have some of the original money that was borrowed. We also have begun receiving gifts that have been made for
prepayment of the mortgage loan.
Our $300,000 mortgage has monthly payments, just like
any other mortgage. You may wonder
how the monthly mortgage payments are made, and who pays them.
This is the way it works. The
Millennium Rowing Association, the nonprofit corporation that owns this
property, rents it to the Crew Boosters of Winter Park.
Crew Boosters of Winter Park is the nonprofit corporation that has
traditionally helped to organize team functions and raise funds for the team’s
annual operating costs.
Thus, the Millenium Rowing Association’s
monthly mortgage loan payments (together with its other expenses, such as
utilities, maintenance, repairs and insurance) are largely paid for with the
monthly rent payments made by Crew Boosters.
And where does Crew Boosters get the money to make the rent payments?
The rent payments are part of the Crew Boosters’ annual budget.
So the rent payments come from the regular fundraising activities and
dues payments of the rowers and their families.
Rent payments were not part of the budget only a few years ago, when we
rowed on property we did not own, but were allowed to use thanks to the
generosity of the Wilson and Coleman families.
And so the budget has been increased to cover them.
Why not continue with the arrangement as it is?
Why is it necessary to ask for funds to pay the mortgage ahead of
schedule? The answer is this:
paying down the mortgage will permit a lowering of the rent payments paid by
Crew Boosters. And that will lower
part of the cost currently borne by the fundraising activities and dues payments
of the rowers and their families. This is of key importance: lowering the financial burden of
participating in crew will permit more young persons to become involved.
The criteria for rowing on Winter Park Crew must not be financial.
The criteria must be talent and desire and sportsmanship.
We cannot run the risk of becoming a small team of affluent rowers.
We must be a large and diverse team of good and committed rowers.
There are fewer black and Hispanic rowers, who
tend to be less affluent, on the team than there were just seven years ago.
Is it because of the higher dues and fundraising requirements?
I’m not sure, but I think that it is possible.
We’ll eventually need to build our financial assistance program, to
bring talented but disadvantaged young persons into crew.
Think of tennis. A few years
ago, it was a predominantly white sport. Now,
after Althea Gibson, Arthur Ashe, Zina Garrison, and the Williams sisters, that
is changing. Rowing, too, has been
mostly a white sport. But, that too
is changing. How many of you know
the name Aquil Abdullah? He is the
first black single sculler to win the gold medal at the Henly Royal Regatta,
which he did just last year. He is
also the first, and still the only, black man to win gold at the US Rowing
National Championship Regatta.
We should do more than pay off the mortgage loan. We
should do that first – get out of a “negative” financial position – and
then go “positive” by creating a permanent fund, a foundation, for the
financial support of the team. Such
a foundation would improve the financial security of the team. The foundation’s annual earnings would help defray at least
some of the operating expenses of the program.
It takes a lot of bake sales and car washes to raise the team’s
$140,000 in annual operating expenses! Eventually,
that annual budget may simply become too large for one year’s worth of rowers
and their families to handle. The earnings from a foundation, a permanent fund, would help
to relieve that pressure.
I’ve talked about paying debt and creating a
foundation as “big picture” aspects of building our financial strength.
What about more immediate and specific needs to build strength
financially? There are several.
First, we need to re-paint the entire boathouse with a durable,
mildew-resistant paint. It will
cost $3,500. We also need
electricity in the boathouse. Second, our dock is sinking, as the styrofoam
under it has become waterlogged over the years.
It will take several thousand dollars to fix.
A more permanent solution, an aluminum floating dock, would cost about
$20,000. Third, we need to renovate the erg house, configure the space better,
add city water instead of the well water, and replace the one tiny bathroom with
separate bathroom facilities for the girls and boys.
We’ll start on some of these things right after this dedication.
But it will take more angels, like the families being honored today, to
get some of them done. We need
boats, always, and if some angel would like to name the new girls’ Millenium
shell – and steps forward soon enough to do it – we’ll make that possible.
I have been talking about growing into these
facilities, but does the team itself need to grow in size?
Maybe. It seems just right
to us now. But it probably seemed
just right when there were only boys on the team.
It probably seemed just right when there was only one coach.
It probably seemed just right when there were 9 members on the team, when
there were 27, and when there were 36. Expansion
of the team itself may not be necessary, but expansion of interest in the team
(in other words more people going out for the team) will provide an ever larger
talent pool and expose more people to the sport.
If we continue to build the team and draw from a larger group, we’ll
continue to put more talented rowers on the water.
Already, Winter Park rowers are making their mark in the greater world of
rowing. Team alumni rowed at the
international Head of the Charles regatta this past fall.
Rafe Quinn rowed at the Henly Regatta.
Yet every year, records at Winter Park Crew continue to fall.
The erg scores and fitness test records are broken each fall, it seems.
If we continue to build, some day – and I believe it may be soon - a
former Winter Park Crew rower will represent the United States in the Olympics.
Which takes me to my second thought about where
we go from here: elevating the profile and visibility of the team.
To attract a large talent pool to this team, we have to build its
prestige even more. If we look at
the great rowing powerhouse high schools in the Northeast – Saint Joe’s for
example – we can see that rowing is probably the most prestigious sport on the
campus. It is the sport everyone
would like to join. How do we
increase the prestige of rowing at Winter Park?
How do we make it the sport that everybody wants to join?
We talk about it. We take
pride in it. We celebrate its
accomplishments. We see that its
achievements are described to the newspaper and the television stations.
We hold boathouse dedications and alumni reunions.
We increase awareness of the team. We
seek the sponsorship of a local civic group or club.
Like the Optimist Club that first supported us.
We ask the Winter Park City Commission to formally recognize the team’s
success at one of its monthly meetings… maybe declare a day in honor of the
team. We take the Winter Park Crew
story to the community. And if we
do, the community will give back to the team a little of the glory that the team
has given to it. That is how we can
build the prestige of the team even further.
We’ll be rewarded for doing it.
And then there is the third and final point
about where we go from here: cultivating alumni support. Traditionally, Winter Park Crew parents and rowers are
involved for up to four years, and then they leave the program.
There are some exceptions, including our honorees, but not many.
The program may have grown too much for that four year turnover now. Change is good, and new supporters should continually be
brought into the program. But for
continuity, institutional memory, long term planning and tradition, a core group
of supporters should turn over more slowly.
The alumni and their parents would be ideal for that role.
Again, if we look to some of great Northeastern rowing schools, or some
of the rowing universities and colleges, what do we see that distinguishes them
from Winter Park High School? What
does St. Joe’s have that we don’t have?
An organized alumni base that provides leadership, experience and
financial assistance. And an
alliance with a great rowing university. In
the case of the high schools, it is often the alumni that help provide the
alliance with a leading rowing university or college.
We need such an alumni base, and perhaps we’ll also need such a tie to
a great rowing university or college. We
can do it here. We will do it here.
Again, if you want to see what high school rowing will look like in the
future, look at current rowing programs at the colleges and the universities.
They have supportive, organized alumni bases.
So it will happen. If the
thought is too unrealistic, too unlikely, then think again for a moment about
how unrealistic and unlikely this place would have seemed to the rowers who
first started in 1962.
Winter Park Crew is number one right now.
But an interesting thing is happening at the regattas.
Other schools have followed our example, to their credit.
They have adopted our fundraisers, imitated our ad book, copied our
handbook. They have “reverse
engineered” our stuff (and in some cases may have improved it).
They are showing up in equipment that is much better than it was a few
years ago. They are well organized.
They have great spirit. One
group has tapped the support of a rowing alumni organization at a university.
Another, Leon High School in Tallahassee, has built a fine program, not only in
its victory record, but in its spirit and sportsmanship.
Bishop Moore High School has done more in five years than we did in our
first 20 years, because we went first and made the path easier for them.
Are Florida schools catching up to us?
Do they, in crew talk, have their bow seat on our four seat now?
Maybe. We won last year’s
state championships by only a single nail-biting, hair-curling point!
It may take us a special effort now, maybe a “power ten,” to stay
ahead. Let’s do that.
Let’s make that special effort. Let’s
keep winning. If we build the
team’s financial strength, elevate the team’s profile and prestige to
continue to attract talented rowers, and organize our alumni for support and
continuity, we will remain the pacesetters, in Florida and in the Southeast.
But we’ll do more than that. We’ll
become a powerhouse to rival the oldest, strongest, and most traditional
programs and achieve lasting recognition as one of the top rowing teams in the
nation. Let’s do that.
We’re not finished, because this race is never run.
Let’s continue. Let’s
continue to be better than we’ve ever been before.
Let’s be better than we have ever been before.
Let’s be the best.
Thank you.
I’d like now to recognize the current members of
the Winter Park Crew Team, the finest group of young people it has ever been my
privilege to know. Will all the
rowers on the team please stand for a moment and be recognized?
If you are already standing, please just raise your arm for a moment.
I’d like to ask that all the current coaches
please now stand or raise an arm to receive our appreciation. You can read about
them, by the way, in the handbook on display at the tent.
When I suggest that anyone stand, please
understand that to mean raise an arm if you are already standing.
Now, I’d like to suggest that we give appreciation
to the Winter Park Crew alumni who are with us. I’m going to ask the Winter Park Crew alumni whose final
year of rowing was in the 1960’s to please stand.
If you last rowed in the 1960’s, please stand.
And those alumni who last rowed in the 70’s,
please stand.
Those who last rowed in the 80’s, please
stand.
And those who last rowed in the 90’s or in
2000, please stand.
Alumni, thank you all for being here.
You have built a heritage of sportsmanship and honor that the present
team has been proud to inherit. This
is a team which, when it loses, congratulates its opponents.
When a rower who had fallen very sick was pulled from his boat at the
last minute before a race and was replaced with an alternate, his teammates
rowed to victory and then gave their trophy to the boy who couldn’t row with
them. This is a team that when
unfairly denied a gold medal at one recent regatta, quietly accepted the
judge’s mistaken decision and graciously declined to accept the gold medals
offered to them by the team that knew it had not won.
You built that team by your example, handed down, class by class, rower
by rower. You can be proud of this
team, and they should be proud of you.
And now, will all the former coaches of Winter Park
Crew, please stand. Everyone here
– parents and rowers alike - owes you, and the present coaches, the most
heartfelt appreciation for your training, leadership, guidance and moral
support. You have made hundreds of
lives better by your work, and we will never find adequate means to thank you
for that.
Now, I am going to ask that all the officers and the
directors of The Winter Park Crew Boosters and The Millennium Rowing Association
please stand. This is the group
that presently provides support to the team and the coaches.
It is also the group that made this event possible.
Thank you for all the extraordinary work that you do.
Now we are going to recognize some specific gifts.
First, I want to thank Richard and Nancy Jeppeson for
their surprise gift of a new Concept II Ergometer for the team.
This was wholly unexpected, but we are delighted to add this to today’s
good news. Richard and Nancy, will
you please stand? Thank you for this wonderful gift.
Every year, we try to purchase a new shell for the
team. It’s difficult to do,
because the shells are very expensive. There
are some years when we are fortunate enough to receive assistance from
individuals in making the purchase. But
then there are some years, miracle years, when we are so fortunate as to receive
an outright gift of the full amount needed for the purchase of a shell.
If we are really fortunate, the team also buys a shell that same year.
This is one of those years. Today,
we are going to christen and name a brand new Vespoli Millennium shell that has
been given to the team by Tony and Lacey Gray.
Tony and Lacey, will you please step forward and pour a little water over
the bow of this beautiful boat and then join me here for a moment?
Remarks by Tony Gray, and christening of “Pappy
Gray”
Let me add that Tony and Lacey have emerged as
absolute stalwarts in the support of the team, in every way.
From the laying of bricks and pvc to spending the entire 10 days
traveling with the team in New York, Philadelphia and Delaware last May, they
have done it all. I’ve seen Tony
on this property so many times in work pants, I can hardly recognize him today.
Tony and Lacey, thank you.
The Pappy Gray (like the boat beside it) has never
been rowed. It will be rowed today
for the first time, at approximately 1:00 o’clock.
We hope you enjoy seeing it rowed for the first time.
We’ll now move to honoring those who have done the
most to give Winter Park Crew this property and this boathouse.
I’d like to call on Ralph and Molly Losey to join me as we do that.
Ralph and Molly are the Co-Presidents of Winter Park Crew Boosters. I’ll also ask that Mike and Tammy Traviss come up.
They will be the Co-Presidents next year.
I’ll ask that they help with the presentation of honors to our next
honorees.
I should point out that we’ll be providing a
special gift to each honoree, but we’ll ask that they not open the gift until
we reach the end of all the presentations.
So please wait until the end, and we will show you what the gift is.
The families that we are about to honor have given
the team its home. This is one of
the finest high school rowing facilities in the country, one that most colleges
would envy. We therefore owe these
families a very special debt of gratitude.
Before Winter Park Crew had this property, it had a
home not far from here, on what is now the Lakehurst development that you see
just west on Red Bug Road. That was
our home for many years. It was a
large and beautiful piece of property owned by the Wilson and the Coleman
families. Thanks to their
generosity, we were allowed to use it at no cost.
We used that property, and the Osborne Wilson boathouse that stood on it,
for so long it was hard to separate our identity from it.
It was the home of Winter Park Crew longer than any home we have ever
had.
The Wilsons, and Bud Coleman, are no longer with us
now. But we are delighted to have
Cathie Coleman here with us today. And
just as we are about to honor those who have helped make this new home a reality
for the team, we will honor Cathie as the remaining member of a generation that
first gave the team a place that the team could call a home.
Without the extraordinary generosity of the Wilsons and the Colemans, we
would never have set our sights so high as to dream of a place like this one
here. Cathie, on behalf of Winter Park Crew, thank you and all your
family for all that you have done for us.
Cathie, I’m going to present you with a plaque and
a gift. I’m going to wait until
all our honorees have been recognized before I read the language on the plaque
and describe the gift.
If you’ll allow it, I’m going to take a brief
moment of personal privilege, and recognize the gentleman who is accompanying
Cathie, because it is his 85th birthday today. He, like Cathie Coleman and Pappy Gray and a few of you with
us today, is a member of the “Greatest Generation,” as it has justifiably
come to be called. He served in the
Pacific during World War II. He was
Dean of Admissions at Rollins for 15 years.
For four decades, he has served as an educational advisor to young people
and their families, and has touched more young lives than anyone I know.
He is my father and I’m pretty proud of him.
I’d like to thank him for allowing this event to serve as part of his
celebration today. Please provide a round of applause to John Oliver Rich….
Thank you.
Our next honorees were all involved, one way or
another, in the acquisition of this land and the construction of the new
boathouse.
One was the first representative of the team to set
foot on this property. The team
knew that it needed a new home, and had been looking for property for some time.
The team tried to secure other locations, and devoted great effort to
some possibilities, but nothing seemed to work out.
The coaches hoped to stay on Lake Howell.
The size of the lake was right. There
was no public access. Use of the
lake by others was not intensive. It
was not too distant. It was right
for us. This property was for sale,
and our next honoree came and looked at it.
He met with Charlotte Smith, the owner who lived here.
She came out of her house with a parasol and a large sun hat, and they
walked the property together. Immediately,
Mike Chambers knew that this was the place for us.
It was perfect.
Over the years, Mike and Elva Chambers have helped us
more than almost any of us will ever realize. And they have done it for many, many years.
Whether it is helping to renovate the house, or asking Bill Gordon to
join us today, or digging trenches all weekend to lay pvc, or arranging for the
improvement of the entrance to our driveway, or serving as officers (including
President) of Crew Boosters and Millennium Rowing Association, or working on
countless fundraisers, Mike and Elva have always been willing, dependable,
effective, positive and selfless. Just
last Saturday, Mike was here for our workday, purchasing, transporting and
planting 240 plants. Digging,
filling, and watering. He was the
first to begin, and I know for a fact that he was the last to leave.
Talk about taking in your own laundry!
The man was working when he shouldn’t have had to: in preparation for
an event held in his honor. That’s
Mike Chambers. If this team’s
supporters have dedication, it is embodied in Mike and Elva Chambers.
Mike and Elva, please come forward and accept our gratitude for all that
you have done for us.
Our next honorees not only have served as officers
for Crew Boosters, and inveterate helpers of the cause over many years, but also
as legal advisors – consiglieri, if you will - to the team.
Larry and Jane Hames have given hundreds and hundreds of hours of legal
work and other services and advice to us. I’ve
seen the files and records, and they are testimony to the time that Larry and
Jane have given to the program over the years.
Larry has provided counsel to over seven Presidents of Crew Boosters.
He has helped us in matters that have not always been tangible or
visible, but that have always had great importance: on tax issues, zoning issues, permit compliance, loan
documentation, insurance questions, liability questions, team policies and
procedures, correspondence with third parties, and countless other matters.
But it goes well beyond that. When
we needed a new home, Larry was a leader of critical importance in the search.
When we tried to establish a home on Lake Killarney, it was Larry who led
us through surprisingly controversial hearings before the Winter Park City
Commission. When we explored other
venues, Larry and Jane were at the forefront.
When we bought this property, it was Larry who structured the
transaction, prepared the documentation, and handled the closing.
When it was decided that a new entity was needed to hold title to the
property, Larry and Jane formed the Millennium Rowing Association.
When the Millenium Rowing Association needed money to help build the
boathouse, it was Larry and Jane who led the first effort to raise funds.
They really took ownership of this place, in more ways than one.
A favorite memory is of Jane out here in overalls riding the lawn mower
and cutting the grass! And like other great benefactors of Winter Park Crew, Larry
and Jane have continued to help long after their turn. When our taxes were cut in half last year, it was Larry (with
Mike Chambers’ help) who filed the appeal, and appeared before a special
master, and got that great result.
Larry and Jane, thank you for your guidance through a
time of transition and challenge for the team. And thank you so many things that have been essential to
bringing us to this place. Please
come forward to accept our honor and appreciation.
Our next honorees also were involved in Crew for
many, many years. Their family is a
Crew institution by itself, almost a team in its own right.
Dick and Jesse Delater helped design and build our dock quite a few years
ago. (It was floated here from our
old location.) They arranged storage space in a warehouse in south Orlando
when we were between boathouses and needed a place to store all our boats, oars
and other equipment. They had a
primary role in the design and construction of this boathouse.
They gave a generous gift toward its cost.
The name Delater always came up when you asked how
something had been accomplished for Crew. They
were always, always available and ready to help.
My most enduring memory of the Delaters is one that I think of often.
At the Scholastic National Regatta last May, they watched as the last of
their daughters rowed her last race for the team.
It was an emotional experience for me just to be near them!
But what followed is what I remember.
It was raining, and very muddy. We
all had to drive two hours to Philadelphia and then take flights home.
But before leaving, when it was time to take down the team’s tent,
Jesse and Dick were the ones who without a thought began doing the work.
So there they were, getting muddy and bedraggled, taking down the
team’s tent. Even though they
were about to travel for hours by car and plane, probably without an opportunity
to clean up and change clothes. Even
though their tour of duty had arguably just ended.
Even though their service to the team had, years earlier, risen far above
the call. They were still at it,
quietly working for the benefit of others.
It was inspirational.
Jesse and Dick, I’m glad that today is not a wet
and muddy like that day! And you
will not be taking down the tent. Please
come and accept our tribute to you.
Our next honorees are David and Lucy Strong.
Unfortunately, and very sadly, due to the tragic death on Thursday of
David’s brother, Hope, the Strongs were not able to be with us today.
The Hope Strong family, the
David Strong family, and Hope and Peggy Strong were extraordinarily devoted and
generous to Winter Park Crew. Our
hearts go out to them now. I would
like to call for a moment of silence in sympathy for the entire Strong family,
and then I will say the things about them that I would have said had David and
Lucy been able to be here to accept honors on behalf of the entire Strong
family. Please join me in a moment
of silence.
[Silence]
Thank you.
[Zander Strong was then recognized and asked to come
forward to join the other honorees.]
David and Lucy Strong provided us something
absolutely indispensable to the team’s well-being: leadership.
It is one thing to lead in a time of abundance and contentment.
It is quite another to lead in a time of challenge and crisis. Years ago, David and Lucy Strong, as co-presidents of Crew
Boosters led us, successfully, through one of the team’s most difficult times,
when there were serious differences of opinion that divided team supporters.
When there was turmoil, they remained steady, calm, positive,
even-tempered and fair. When some
predicted an end for the team, they saw a better future.
It must have been supremely difficult, but they never showed it. They remained strong for the rest of us.
They had faith that we would emerge more thoughtful, more civil, more
involved and more committed than before. And
we did. Their legacy, therefore, is
without equal in the team’s history.
Years later, David and Lucy and the Strong family
provided the interim financing that we needed to purchase this property.
They also made the team an overwhelmingly generous gift, which reduced
the cost of acquiring the property. Truly,
we would not be here today without the Strongs’ leadership in a fragile time,
their faith in the team’s future, and their financial support.
David and Lucy, Hope and Sharon, and Hope and Peggy,
we thank you.
[Zander Strong then accepted the plaque and gift as
representative of the family.]
Our next honorees are Bruce and Nancy McAllister.
Ironically, if this event had been held in their time, Nancy would have
been the one to organize it, because she was in charge of hospitality and
special events. Nancy worked as
hard in that capacity as anyone we’ve seen.
What one remembers most is that Bruce and Nancy cared
about the members of this team. And
the team members knew they did. I’ve
never seen the girls’ team respond to any supporter the way they did to Bruce
and Nancy. Bruce and Nancy were
providers. They were providers of
personal warmth, encouragement, and, when necessary, sympathy.
Although they’ll deny it, Bruce and Nancy, by themselves, made this a
better team. They elevated the
meaning of support to new levels. Most
importantly, they showed, by example, how the parents in Crew Boosters could
better interact with the team. They
showed that the parent supporters and the team were not separate groups, but the
same group. They knew each of the
girls personally, and well.
And they were quick to provide help, in whatever form
was necessary. Bruce always
responded first in an emergency. When
one of the girl rowers, Melissa Perry, passed out and went into convulsions from
heat and asthma at the end of a race, Bruce had her in a blanket and in the back
of a car, on the way to help, before many parents’ jaws had even dropped.
That’s Bruce. He helps
without hesitation when help is needed.
And they provided again and again.
They provided jackets, shirts, travel bags and other necessities to the
team. In 1995, they made a gift of
the girls’ shell, the Philadelphia, to the team.
The girls’ lightweight eight rowed it, when it was still unnamed, at
the Stotesbury Cup Regatta that same year.
They won the silver medal in it. Then
the lightweight eight rather boldly named it the Philadelphia, because they were
determined to go back and win gold the next year.
They did just that: they won the gold medal at the Stotesbury Regatta in
1996 in the Philadelphia. And there
is no doubt in my mind that what motivated them, in large part, what gave them
the heart to win, was not just their own desire for excellence, and their desire
to honor their team and their coach, but their desire to do it for Bruce and
Nancy. A videotape was made of their victory, by the way – a movie
I should call it, since it has music and credits and is pretty fancy.
They even took the Cox’s recording of the race and added it to the
video. If you ever have a chance to
see it, you should.
Bruce and Nancy gave the team this boathouse.
I’ve said it already – it’s one of the most outstanding high school
rowing facilities in the country. College
crew coaches have visited us and said, “Do you realize what you have
here…?” I think that we do.
Do we realize what we have in Bruce and Nancy?
As supporters, as leaders, as models to the rest of us?
I hope so, because that is what today is all about.
We’re counting our blessings.
Bruce and Nancy, I would like to ask you to come
forward and accept our thanks. And
I would also like to ask that you be joined by Jan and Neil Frazee and Larry and
Chris Groves. Please come up.
We have a plaque for Bruce and Nancy, as we did for
our other honorees. This is what it says:
“The Crew Boosters of Winter Park, Inc. and The Millennium Rowing Association, Inc. hereby recognize with grateful appreciation Bruce and Nancy McAllister for their exemplary leadership, service and generosity benefiting Winter Park Crew. Boathouse Dedication and Alumni Reunion. January 27, 2001.”
We also have a very special gift for the McAllisters. We’ll show it to you now.
As you can see, it is a beautiful pastel rendering of the boathouse. In action, too. Being used, as it is every day. It is fantastic, Jan! We owe great thanks to Jan Frazee, the artist who made this for us. Thank you very much, Jan. And also thanks to Larry and Chris Groves, who helped arrange it. The gifts given to our other honorees are beautiful prints made from this original.
And now, I would like to announce the dedication of the boathouse. It gives me the greatest pleasure to announce to you that the directors of the Millennium Rowing Association unanimously and unhesitatingly have decided to name our boathouse “McAllister Boathouse.”
We will put up a permanent sign that bears that name. We did not do so before the event, because it would have given away our surprise. For the moment, we will show you a temporary banner, so you get the idea.
Bruce and Nancy, we’re proud of, and grateful for,
this place. Thank you for making it
all possible.
In closing, I’d like to offer one more thought, for
all our honorees. Silken Laumann,
the well-known Canadian single-sculls champion, said this:
“Rowing is a great teacher. When the medals are old
and dusty, my real memories will be of how I found pureness on a river in a
wooden boat, the pureness of a pursuit whose greatest reward is the knowledge
that you have tried, and tried with all your might. The strokes down the river teach me. They show me how hard life can be, how long it can take to
get what you want, and ironically, how getting what you want is often the least
important part of the experience.”
Today, thanks to you, the Wilsons, the Colemans, the
Chambers, the Hames, the Delaters, the Strongs and the McAllisters, we have what
we want here. Ironically, as Silken
Laumann noted, it’s not the best part of the experience.
The best part was coming to know you, working with you, and getting here
with you. Thank you.
That is the end of our ceremony.
We can have lunch now. It
would be good if we don’t all descend on lunch at exactly the same time.
So if you haven’t walked around yet, some of you might do that for a
moment before heading over.
And remember, there will be rowing at about one
o’clock.
Thank you.
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