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Hofstra
Crew History . . . by Roger
Baxley
Here is
the history as I recall it:
In 1988,
Mark Greiz and I decided to start Hofstra Crew. We had never
rowed before or even watched a regatta. But for some reason,
the sport appealed to us. We managed to convince the SGA to
give us a bunch of money and then we went in search of a team.
We put fliers all over campus and received a pretty good turn
out. Mark noticed John Kuriger at the meeting and told me
John should be on our boat. John turned out to be the only
other truly dedicated person in our boat. Finding the fourth
member would prove elusive.
Now we
needed a place to row. We had no idea where to go but we assumed
that since we were near water, there must be some where we
could do it. Then one day out of the blue, we heard a knock
at the door. It was Jim Long. We had no idea who he was. He
said he heard we had a team and wanted to coach. He told us
we could row at Sagamore. We never found out how he knew Hofstra
had a crew. (We had only been in existence for a few weeks!)
So John,
Mark, myself and a guy named Rob started the first boat. We
struggled to learn and after a few months Rob quit. Subsequently
through the years we went through many different people in
our boat (I may have forgot some):
- Henry
Zimmerman
- Blake
Thomson
- Mat
- Ron
Patterson
Not knowing
a thing about shells, we called a manufacturer in New England.
We told him we were new to the sport so he recommended a bow
coxed 4 boat he had in stock. We later learned that we had
gotten "taken" - the bow coxed boat proved very
difficult for us to learn in. The following year we were able
to get more money from the SGA so we bought the Hudson 4+.
Two guys from Canada delivered it and were very afraid. They
thought all New Yorkers carried guns and thus were going to
get shot.
After
Jim Long left we found a new coach - Mike O'Leary. He used
to show up at practice at 5 am drinking a "tall boy"
Bud. He was a crazy Irish man but he really knew had to row
and motivate us. During his short tenure, the team began to
grow. We had a women's 4 and two men's 4's. Sagamore allowed
us to borrow their shells. But after half a season, we lost
Mike O'Leary as a coach but found Sixto Portilla. He was an
awesome athlete and great coach. But he too wanted to leave
because like the other coaches, we really couldn't pay him
anything. But Julie from the women's boat convinced him to
stay. I forget the other women's names in that boat but they
were fun, wild bunch of girls.
Eventually,
Sixto left for the Peace Corps and we found Andy. Under Andy
we had our most growth as a team.
NOTE:
Sixto now competes in the Men's Lightweight Single's. He was
in the following competitions:
- 2003
USRowing National Championship Regatta
- 2003
US World Trials
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