WORK-LIFE BALANCE
Spending many early mornings rowing is my way of striking a balance between academic and nonacademic interests.
I learned to row at Oxford University, where I taught for six years (2007-13). After reading that the best way to overcome the grim English weather is to confront it directly, I joined my college’s rowing club and competed with the undergraduate and graduate students in intra-university races for four years, two in the 2nd VIII (second best boat) and two in the 1st VIII (top boat). A highpoint of my Oxford rowing career occurred in 2013 when, unbeknownst to me, I was featured in the yearly tourist calendar as “Mr. September.” Local Oxford shops now sell a postcard with a similar photograph of me sculling. Friends ask how I know that’s me. Aside from my regular fashion faux pas of wearing a green t-shirt with the red, white, and blue unisuit of the town’s rowing club, I am rowing a scull named after my mother, Judy Valentine.
Merton College Boat Club (MCBC)
I spent the 2018-19 academic year finishing my book Unending Capitalism as fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. In the above photo, I am rowing my Carl Douglas Racing shell on Princeton University's private lake. And below are some photos from races and training with the MCBC. The intra-university "bumps" races at Oxford are called Torpids and Summer Eights. The objective in both is to smash into (or, as it is England, politely "bump") the boat ahead of you before the boat behind bumps you. If you bump the boat ahead of you on four consecutive days, you win a blade painted with the names of everyone in the boat, their weights in stone, and the names of the boats you bumped. We won blades in my second year of racing (visit the college's pub to see the blade).
San Diego Rowing Club
Since moving to San Diego in 2013 (for reasons completely unrelated to the ability to row year-round, I row at the San Diego Rowing Club, the oldest club on the West Coast (est. 1888). Rowing friends take note: visiting rowers may row for free for one week. I mostly row a single scull (a 1x). My first of three was a Fluidesign Elite Single (see photo of black 1x below). Then I bought a new Empacher and added the incomparably beautiful wooden/carbon Carl Douglas 1x to row in Princeton. I have also rowed with the men’s squad in the annual San Diego Crew Classic, the world’s largest regatta exclusively for eights (the largest boats).
San Diego Crew Classic
A different challenge... Gone are training days in the freezing English fog and on a narrow river. Youthful enthusiasm in my MCBC boats replaced with over a hundred and fifty more years of rowing experience. In these photos, I’m in the fourth seat from the bow, in the white hat.
Fluid Sculling
Photo from a typical coached outing in Mission Bay, San Diego, in my Fluidesign single. The purple cross on the blade face is the symbol of Merton College.
Appreciation
I am grateful to many individuals who shared with me their rowing enthusiasm, experience, and skills. The first to encourage me were the members of the MCBC (the crew, cox, and coach from my last eight photographed here in our official Merton blazers and 1st VIII ties inside Merton College). A few people deserve to be singled out for helping me on my rowing journey. Andy Dyson for suggesting a middle-aged fellow join the student club, technically allowable but seldom done. Kyle Martin for refusing to let this novice quit and for stroking us to victory at Henley (T&V), rowing Mecca. And Felix Chow for his leadership and patience with “the Gerthquake,” my apt rowing nickname, given to me by Alistair “Hobo” Hodgson. Numerous coaches taught me the ropes. Piers Barnett, my first coach, taught via a rope: using one tied to the boat to pull me back to the shore and, occasionally, into the icy water. For one magical summer, Bodo Schulenbrun, Head Coach of the Oxford University Lightweight Rowing Club, volunteered to coach Nuno Oliviera and me out of Oxford University’s Boathouse at Wallingford. In San Diego, I'm particularly grateful to Patrice Rioux, my occasional training partner in single boats, for teaching me that our three 2KM races are merely the warm up for the 6k race back to the boathouse.
