Achieving swing

JERRY FABYANIC Columnist

jobless. Soup lines and shanty towns were regular features across the landscape.

e tolls taken on the people weren’t only economic, they were also personal and psychological. Millions were reduced to survival mode. For the downtrodden, how one looked or what they wore was irrelevant. But shabby dress accompanied with an unkempt appearance was a badge of shame and source of ridicule for young men like Joe, who through their nevergive-up approach to life, managed to matriculate in a college or university. And that is where we meet Joe as he ambles across the University of Washington campus wearing a rumpled, hand-me-down sweater on his way to try out for what many considered to be an elitist sport in which he had no skill. Making the team wasn’t for Joe an athletic feat to boast about. Failure would’ve meant having to abandon school. And the alternative was not palatable.

us, began Joe’s quest. But unbeknownst to him and his cohorts, their undaunted e orts would remake them in ways unfathomable to their young adult minds and elevate them to the nation’s and ultimately the world’s attention. e closest metaphor or allusion to swing in eight-oar rowing is a symphony orchestra in which one discordant note destroys an entire piece. In rowing, one discordant note is called “catching a crab.” When that happens, everything gets thrown o , and the team essentially starts anew as they watch their competitors race farther ahead. For the University of Washington’s Huskies crew that faced never-ending obstacles up to and including the Olympics — some de facto, others intentional — nothing

Rowing in absolute tandem with precise strokes at the exact moment is an art unequaled in sports. As I read, I searched my mind for equivalent competitions or situations. I thought of the “runner’s high” I got, the point where long-distance runners feel like they could run forever not only despite the pain but by embracing it. I re ected on the scene of Paul Maclean, played by Brad Pitt, in “A River Runs rough It,” perfecting the art of y shing. I considered successful sports teams’ need for players to eschew egos given there’s no I in sport. And I pictured the exquisitely graceful synergism of couples ice dancing. But each of them failed to equate to the absolute harmony and perfection of rowing, the moment when a crew achieves swing where they glide their craft across the water seemingly without e ort.