These rowing quotes were aquired from Rec.Sport.Rowing
<>From: dnr9@bonjour.cc.columbia.edu (Daniel Noah Richman)
<>Subject: A Collection of Rowing Quotes
<>Date: 9 Oct 1994 04:38:35 GMT
A Collection of Rowing Quotes
Weightless in water, swift as the wind,
Subtle of purpose - a feather blown -
I go with my oarsmen where they will,
My beautiful body and theirs all one.
- Mark Van Doren
To follow the drops
sliding from a lifting oar,
Head up, while the rower
breathes, and the small
boat drifts
quietly shoreward...
- Theodore Roethke ( The Shape of the Fire )
"Pull thy oar, all hands, pull thy oar,
till thou be stiff and red and sore..."
- Dr. Sydney Dangell
"You linger to see his back, and the back of his neck and shoulder-side...
The Bending forward and backward of the rowers..."
- Walt Whitman "I Sing the Body Electric"
I met a solid rowing friend and asked about the Race. "How fared it
with the wind," I said, "When stroke increased the pace?
You swung it forward mightily, you heaved it greatly back. "Your
muscles rose in knotted lumps, I almost heard the crack. "And
while we roared and rattled too, your eyes were fixed like glue.
"What thoughtwent flying through your mind, how fared it, Five, with
you?" But Five made answer solemnly, "I heard them fire a gun, "No
other mortal thing I heard until the Race was done." -R.C. Lehman
Faintly as tolls the evening chime,
Our voices keep tune and our oars keep time. -Thomas Moore
Rowing: a competitive sport of boats that are narrow.
(Great Soviet Encyclopaedia)
And all the way, to guide their chime,
With falling oars they kept their time. -Andrew Marvell
So we beat on, boats against the current,
borne back ceaselessly into the past. -F. Scott Fitzgerald (The Great Gatsby)
"Internally, you experience rowing as a graphic microcosm of life -
solitude, learning, work, rest, nourishment, sharing and ultimately
challenge." -Allen Rosenberg
"Rowing is more than a fast boat on race day. It's a complementary
experience to a young man's intellectual development..
Rowing, like success, is a journey, not a destination. I tell my
oarsmen to have fun, learn and, most of all, grow as individuals. The
wins the losses will take care of themselves."
-Rick Clother, Rowing Coach USNA
"Rowing is not like baseball, where you can arrive late, grab your
glove and run onto the field. For me, it was the discipline of having
to be at a given place at a given time, sometimes seven days week.
As time went on, that very discipline influenced other dimensions of
my life." -Frank Shields, Penn. '63
"On race day, there's tremendous anxiety. Leading up to the stake
boat, I distinctly remember saying to myself, `I can't wait 'till this
is over'." -Frank Shields
"In rowing as in life, there are competitors and there are racers. The
competitor works hard and rows to his limit. The racer does not
think of limits, only the race." -Jim Dietz, Rowing Coach, USCGA
"The most significant message I can convey to the rowing athlete
is: Just row the race. Think, about the process. Don't dwell on the
result until it's history."
-Larry Gluckman, Varsity Heavyweight Coach, Princeton University
"Rowing is a sport for dreamers. As long as you put in the work, you
can own the dream. When the work stops, the dream disappears."
-Jim Dietz, Rowing Coach, USCGA
"As a coxswain, I concentrated most on knowing the people in my
boat - why they were rowing, why they came down to the boathouse,
what made them tick. You have to know whether someone's rowing
because they love their mother and hate their father. They're not
sure they are proud of themselves; they want to be proud.
Determine some of that and you can tap the strongest parts of those
individuals. Being able to inspire someone, unexpected and in a way
new and fresh to them, is what made coxswaining special for me."
-Devin Mahoney, Coxswain, Varsity Heavyweight Eight, Harvard '86
Not everybody wins, and certainly not everybody wins all the time.
But once you get into your boat and push off, tie into your shoes and
bootstretchers, then "lean on the oars," you have indeed won far
more than those who have never tried. (Unknown)
Flatter me, and I may not believe you
Criticize me, and I may not like you
Ignore me, and I may not forgive you
Encourage me, and I may not forget you. -William Arthur Ward
"When one rows it is not the rowing which moves the ship:
rowing is only a magical ceremony by means of which one
compels a demon to move the ship." -Nietzsche
"When we gather for the happiest week in all the year, it is the brotherhood
of rowing, the comradeship of the oar that we recall, when eight men who have
trained until they have become a single drive, a single thrust of
forward-flashing wrists, face suddenly the crisis towards which that selfless
toil has led them, and know that every link in all that pulsing chain of flesh
and blood rings true. For us, there are no centuries or duck's eggs, no goals
or gallery kicks, no individual distinctions where the crew are all in all.
The rattle of the riggers of the finish, the music of the tide beneath her
body as she shot between the strokes, the grim yet heartening sound of
splendid and unbroken strength when all eight blades crashed in together
- these are the things that no one who has heard and felt them will ever
forget. Some delirium. Some tremens. Some kaleidoscope." -Sir Theodore Cook
<>From: dhen1@mdw032.cc.monash.edu.au (Mr D Henshaw)
<>Subject: Re: Quotes
<>Date: 10 Oct 1994 05:07:17 GMT
From a coach....
"Rowing is like a beautiful duck....on the surface it is all grace....
but undernath THE BASTARDS PADDLING LIKE MAD!!"
<>From: crusso@Emerald.tufts.edu (Christopher Russo)
<>Subject: Re: Quotes
<>Date: 10 Oct 1994 23:40:27 -0400
The seat racer's credo:
"They can have my seat when they pry the oar from my cold, dead
fingers..."
<>From: McCrohan@iol.ie (Mike McCrohan)
<>Subject: Re: A Collection of Rowing Quotes
<>Date: 12 Oct 1994 16:26:21 +0100
After a particularly tough series of one-minute pieces many years ago,
our five-man:
"Coach, why don't you just take out a whip and beat us -
wouldn't it be a lot easier all 'round?"
<>From: gisxm01@nt.com (Sean Morris)
<>Subject: Re: Quotes
<>Date: Wed, 12 Oct 1994 21:40 GMT
From my old coach when I was but a junior....
" Those who row, row. Those who can't, follow. "
And, for the more cynical rowers amongst us....
" Those who row, row. Those who can't, blame the riggers.. "
<>From: Hamilton Richards Jr.
<>Subject: Re: A Collection of Rowing Quotes
<>Date: 12 Oct 1994 00:33:17 GMT
There's a fine boat race in the Aeneid (Virgil)--
Nunc! Nunc! Insurgite remis!
(Now! Now! Bend to your oars!)
<>From: rkw2g@Virginia.EDU (Robert Kenneth Wright, III)
<>Subject: Re: A Collection of Rowing Quotes
<>Date: Mon, 17 Oct 1994 08:29:45 GMT
Just the other week, our coach stopped us after a long series
of skill-and-drill pieces. "I just want all of you to take a
good look around you. You have the natural quiet all around,
the sun rising through the trees and mist. This is one of the
reasons I love this sport. You guys get to see things that
most people will never see in their lives. The water, the
trees, the mountains in the background... you this is all just
so beautiful... OK, now with that being said, I'm gonna bust
your balls. Cox'ns, sit ready..."
<>From: crewbum@visi.net (Genji Katsuki)
<>Subject: a collection of rowing quotes
<>Date: Thu, 23 Jan 1997 19:02:20
"Rowing isn't the most important thing in life....
...it comes in second to BREATHING!"
"I took the oar: the Pilot's boy,
Who now doth crazy go,
Laughed out loud and long, and all the while
His eyes went to and fro.
'Ha, ha!' quoth he, 'full plain to see,
The Devil knows how to row."
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by:Samuel Taylor Coleridge