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October 21, 2005|Volume 34, Number 8


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Several Yale staff members and alumni are part of the crew, which won the USRowing Masters Nationals in August. Pictured with their trophy at that championship race are Ann Patry (bow), Karyn Gallagher, Jen Brackett, Alice Robinson, April Kisson, Audrey Novak, Mitz Carr, Anne Boucher (stroke) and Susanne Botta (coxswain).



Coach is helping to steer city rowers to victory

On a recent rainy morning, a group of nine women got into their boat on the nearly flood-level Housatonic River and began rowing, their bodies moving in sync in the gray mist of the dawning day.

The steady rain and the dampness could not deter the group from a routine they have shared for some time and to which they have become accustomed -- meeting at 5:30 a.m. three days a week at the Oxford Boathouse for their hour-long rowing practice. Already their dedication has paid off; in August, the women won a race in their age category in the USRowing Masters Nationals in Worcester, Massachusetts, making them national champions.

The women -- a mix of current Yale staff members and alumni of the University, as well as others from the local community -- are members of the New Haven Rowing Club, a non-profit organization that was founded 25 years ago by Tony Johnson, former men's heavyweight crew coach at Yale.

The club has allowed the nine women, who are all between the ages of 32 and 51, the opportunity to compete in a sport in which they have participated since their youth, or to test their newly acquired prowess in the art of rowing. They are members of the New Haven Rowing Club's Master "Eight" team (eight single-oar rowers and a coxswain who gives commands and steers the boat).

Eric Carcich, assistant coach of the men's lightweight crew at the University, has been putting in extra coaching time during his busiest Yale seasons to also coach the women's Master Eight.

He's now preparing the crew for its biggest race of the fall, the "Head of the Charles" regatta, which takes place Oct. 22 on the Charles River in Boston.

"We've been ramping up the intensity of our training since the Nationals, and training for longer races," says Carcich, noting that the Head of the Charles contest is raced by crews in an individual time-trial fashion -- instead of head-to-head -- over a three-mile course. The crew with the fastest time is the winner in the various categories.

"The race takes about 18 to 20 minutes," Carcich says, "and since the team doesn't really know how its competitors are faring, it's really a race against the clock."

For Audrey Novak, manager of integrated systems and programming at the Sterling Memorial Library, being part of the New Haven Rowing Club crew team has allowed her to fulfill a desire she has had since her college days nearly 30 years ago.

About six years ago, she took part in a Learn to Row program in Norwalk, Connecticut, and then joined the New Haven Rowing Club in 2001.

"I had wanted to row since college but, for various reasons, never had the chance to," says Novak. "Then, when I turned 40, and started doing the kinds of things I had always wished, I took the rowing class, and things just took off from there."

"When I first started, I thought I wanted to row a single," Novak says. "I quickly came to appreciate rowing in a group, where you are trying to achieve individual perfection at the same time that you are trying to perfect your technique with four other people or eight other people. Rowing is extremely demanding physically, but there is a lot of excitement to competing in the sport."

Novak is a relative newcomer to the sport in comparison with her crewmate Anne Boucher, a 1981 graduate of Yale College who has been rowing since she was a high school student in Middletown, Connecticut.

Boucher, who is the Master Eight's stroke (the rower who sits in the stern-most seat and sets the pace for the others), says that she first entered the sport of rowing because it was the most appealing choice of her limited options for female high school sports. The only other offerings for girls at her high school at the time were swimming and softball.

"I consider myself lucky that I chose rowing without knowing much about it, and it turned out to be something that I really enjoyed," says Boucher.

She continued the sport at Yale and became such an accomplished rower that she took a year off from school to train for the 1980 Olympics as a member of the U.S. National team, which competed internationally. She joined the New Haven Rowing Club back then to train locally, and trained through the 1984 Olympic year. While she did not make the Olympic team, Boucher continued her affiliation with the local club, which also includes female members ranging in age from older teens to about 70.

Boucher, who now works in the clinical research division of 3M Health Information Systems in Wallingford, notes that she and other members of the team who have rowed since youth are in the minority.

"Most of our rowers learned to row later in life," says Boucher. Other members of the team include Jen Brackett, a member of the clinical faculty at the Yale School of Nursing; Alice Robinson, an alumna of the School of Medicine's Department of Epidemiology and Public Health; Susanne Botta; Mitz Carr; April Kisson; Karyn Gallagher; Ann Patry; Bev Lysoby; and Cis Fischetti.

Both the veteran and more novice rowers added to their experience by competing in some tough contests during the spring and summer, including several in which they rowed against a team from Narragansett, Rhode Island, that has become their biggest rival.

Being able to compete against a team that is evenly matched with their own has added excitement for the women this year, even though their rivalry is more friendly than not.

"At the Nationals, we had a close race, and when it was over, we all went to congratulate the Narragansett rowers, not knowing yet whether we had won or they had won," says Novak. "We just told them about how much we enjoyed competing against them, and only later learned we had won."

The New Haven team has won two fall events this year, the Riverfront Regatta on Oct. 2 in Hartford and the Head of the Connecticut in Middletown on Oct. 9. The Narragansett crew won the Head of the Housatonic Regatta in Shelton on Oct. 8. This race is organized and run by the New Haven Rowing Club. The first time Narragansett and New Haven will match up this fall is at the Head of the Charles in Boston.




Eric Carcich, assistant coach
of the men's lightweight crew
at the University.



Carcich, who came to Yale in 1999 as an assistant coach and serves as the head coach of the freshmen men's lightweight team, says he has enjoyed getting better acquainted with the women's team since he began coaching it in February. He began the women's winter training in Yale's indoor practice tanks in the basement of the Payne Whitney Gymnasium.

A high school soccer player turned competitive lightweight rower while a student at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, Carcich won several silver medals and two bronze medals at the New England Championships and the Champion Regatta. After graduation, he became the assistant coach of lightweight and heavyweight crew at Amherst, eventually becoming the varsity coach in 1998. His teams there captured a number of championship medals.

He has since made coaching his top priority in a sport he feels passionately about.

"Rowing, in my view, is the ultimate team sport because you have four or eight other people who depend on you to get the work done," comments Carcich. "For college rowers, it requires a rigid schedule that forces you to prioritize and be self-disciplined because you have to practice a certain number of hours per week. Unlike a sport such as cycling, where you can go out and ride your bike whenever and wherever you want, rowing involves a more rigid framework."

Novak and Boucher say the team has noticeably advanced under Carcich's tutelage, and they are grateful that he has chosen to devote some of his time away from Yale to them.

"Eric is great," says Novak. "We've absolutely improved both as a crew and as individuals. The wonderful thing about him is that he coaches both the individuals and the whole boat, and that really makes a difference."

Her crewmate Alice Robinson concurs, adding, "I think our coach should be proud that he has done such a good job with us in a short time. He takes coaching pretty seriously, whether with the Yale students or with us."

Carcich is eager to witness his women's crew in their final big event of the season, the Head of the Charles.

"It's so cool to be on the Charles, where people line up along the river and on the footbridges to watch," says the coach, whose also has various Yale student teams competing. "Rowing is often very isolated from crowds, but at this race, that is not
the case."

Boucher, Novak, Robinson and the rest of their crew are also looking forward to their upcoming race.

"There's nothing like being in an Eight that goes well," says Boucher. "Being able to get eight people together in a boat and have them work as one -- that's a pretty incredible feeling."

-- By Susan Gonzalez


T H I SW E E K ' SS T O R I E S

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Biomedical engineering symposium also marked dedication

Celebrated language-learning program enters digital age

Coach is helping to steer city rowers to victory

Yale offers staff new incentives to car-pool

In Focus: Whitney Humanities Center

Tanner Lecture, related events focus on food and art of autobiography

Grant supports scientist's work related to nanomedicine

Scientists identify gene that plays a role in Tourette's Syndrome

Noted journalist Bob Woodward to deliver the Fryer Memorial Lecture

Show reveals 'journey' of reconstructive surgery patients

Career Fair to highlight jobs in federal government agencies

Troupe to present two nights of one-act operas

Novelist will read from his latest work of fiction

Exhibit traces roots of Tiananmen Square movement

Reparations for slavery to be among topics of conference

Talk, symposium examine how artists 'remade the past'

David Blight is speaker for library's next 'Books Sandwiched In'


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