BATES ROWING TEAM MEMBERS Lucy Del Col ’24 of
Wellesley, Mass., Oli Seline ’24 of Delaware, Ohio, and Hannah Braslau ’23 of Chelmsford, Mass., talk with Ralph Sylvester ’50 during the dedication in April.
IN AUGUST 2021, Ralph Sylvester arrives for his long-
running morning tradition, breakfast at the Den with Bates friends.
Senior Bates rowers receive a blade at graduation to recognize “commitment to the program from the start to the finish,” Steenstra explained to the audience. “The honor is 100 percent attainable but by far the most difficult thing to achieve.” “We have never given one of these to anyone who was not a rower for Bates. But there is no question in my mind and the team’s mind that if anyone deserves it, it’s you.” Finally, speaking for many in the audience, Steenstra said, “This is by far the least that we, in this little school, in this little town, can do to say ‘thank you’ for everything you’ve done and everything you are.” n BRITTNEY LOHMILLER
And that’s where students, including hungry rowers returning after their morning workouts, got to know Sylvester. He recalls with a chuckle how “they’d come in and shout, ‘Hi Ralph, how you doing?’ The guys on the football team were the loudest.” The students would come and go from Ralph’s table, an endlessly rotating conversation from morning onward, and Sylvester had no shortage of stories to tell. When the new boat arrived, Steenstra asked his captains to think about a name, something meaningful to them and their college. “They came back a week later or two, and said they didn’t have anything that really dug deep for them.” That’s when Steenstra suggested naming it for Ralph Sylvester. Presented with that idea, the captains’ eyes widened, recalls Steenstra. They quickly asked their coach, “You mean that older gentleman who’s in Commons quite a bit? The one we’ve all seen?” Steenstra, turning to look at Sylvester during the dedication, said, “It was a great sense of pride for them to discover more about you. They couldn’t have been more happy and more proud to put your name on the shell.” Before the boat christening, Steenstra had a surprise gift for Sylvester: a Bates rowing blade.
JAY BURNS
“HE EMBODIES WHAT BATES ROWING IS ABOUT.”
Spring 2023
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