Wednesday, September 13, 2000
Rowers not your average athletes
Three locals have take the road less traveled
By Scott MacGregor
The Cincinnati Enquirer
These Olympians aren't typical jocks.
One (Greg Ruckman) graduated from Harvard with honors and a degree in philosophy. Another (Kelly Salchow) graduated magna cum laude from the University of Cincinnati. The third (Bryan Volpenhein) plans to finish his philosophy degree at Ohio State after the Olympics.
Olympic rowers never are your average jocks, though. Nothing about the sport is typical — especially for these three Cincinnatians who have taken the road less traveled to Sydney, where they'll compete for the United States rowing team.
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OLYMPIANS
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Bryan Volpenhein
Cincinnati connection: Kings High '94
Age: 24
Event: Men's eight
When: Prelims Sept. 17 in Cincinnati, Sept. 18 in Sydney; final Sept. 23/24
Started rowing: As a student at Ohio State in 1994.
Medal chances: Excellent. A gold medal favorite. Won gold at world championships in 1998 and '99.
Personal: Plays chess and enjoys cycling, music and philosophy. His grandfather invented Olestra. Trains in Princeton, N.J. and will return to Ohio State after the Olympics to finish his degree in philosophy. Has been taking classes at Rutgers.
Greg Ruckman
Cincinnati connection: Wyoming High '92
Age: 26
Event: Men's lightweight four
When: Prelims Sept. 17 in Cincinnati, Sept. 18 in Sydney; final Sept. 23/24
Started rowing: As a Harvard freshman, when he saw all the rowers having so much fun on the Charles River
Medal chances: Good. Won the gold in lightweight eight at the 1999 world championships. This is a different event, but his boat is considered a contender.
Personal: Graduated from Harvard in 1996 with honors in philosophy. Began his athletic career at Wyoming as a cross-country and track runner. Is an Eagle Scout. Trains in Princeton, N.J.
Kelly Salchow
Cincinnati connection: Walnut Hills High '91, University of Cincinnati '96
Age: 26
Event: Women's quadruple sculls
When: Prelims Sept. 17 in Cincinnati, Sept. 18 in Sydney; final Sept. 23/24
Started rowing: With the Cincinnati Junior Rowing Club in 1989
Medal chances: Good. Took bronze medal at World Cup stops in Lucerne, Switzerland in 1999 and 2000. Fourth at 1999 world championships.
Personal: Graduated magna cum laude from UC in 1996, majoring in graphic design. Now lives and trains in Augusta, Ga., home of the national sculling center.
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First, there's the training. They spend as many as seven hours a day on the water and sleep between practices, with 10-to-12 hours a day in bed not uncommon.
You try pulling a boat 30 or 40 kilometers a day.
“That's a reflection of how much we beat up our bodies,” said Ruckman, a 1992 graduate of Wyoming High School. “Your body is spending that time in deep sleep repairing itself. People have this idea that if you're in bed, you're lazy. But it's the exact opposite.”
Actually, back up a little. Before these three could even train, they had to criss-cross the country just to do it. Rowing isn't the kind of sport where you walk down to the local park and get up a pick-up game. It takes water, but even more importantly, takes a congregation of very good rowers with which to train to make you a very good rower.
“It's definitely a team sport in a way that others aren't. It's much more subtle than just getting to know your teammates,” Ruckman said. “It's so intimate in terms of the precision of the moment. You can feel each other so precisely, you have to know physically and psychologically how your teammates will react. There's not much talking.”
Salchow, a 26-year-old graphic designer by trade, had to split time between Philadelphia and Augusta, Ga. — two of the nation's major training centers — for two years before finally borrowing a boat and moving to Augusta, home of the Augusta Training Center, the national sculling center. She didn't have a job there, didn't even have an invitation. She basically just showed up on the doorstep, proved herself and stuck.
That was last November. Salchow had some pedigree already — she made the junior national team after graduating from Walnut Hills High School in 1991 as a member of the Cincinnati Rowing Club, rowed for the UC crew club (now a varsity sport) and was the New York Athletic Club athlete of the year while in college. After college, she and a group of seven unknowns challenged the national eight-woman boat and came within a second of winning twice. That showed her she had the potential to be an Olympian.
But even with that experience, her odds were steep when she left here in 1996. At 5-foot-9, she was shorter than most women rowers, and she had to be willing to move to train. She worked full-time as a graphic designer in Philadelphia and rowed twice a day before making her Olympic pursuit a full-time gig.
“Nobody told me I couldn't do it, so I kept going,” she said simply.
Somebody — specifically, U.S. sculling coach Igor Grinko — tried to tell her she couldn't be an Olympian, even after Grinko had chosen Salchow's boat as the U.S. women's quadruple sculls entry for the Sydney Games. After she and her teammates irked Grinko by bypassing one of his training camps to train on their own, a second boat filed a legal challenge to replace Salchow's quad. She won the challenge, though, mostly because her boat is the best America has to offer.
Now she's a medal contender in Sydney.
Salchow got her start early. Volpenhein, a 24-year-old Kings High grad, didn't even get interested in rowing until his freshman year at Ohio State in 1994. He saw a flyer, went to practice and got addicted.
Even though Ohio State supports a men's crew club and the Olentangy River on which to train, Volpenhein's talent could best be honed in Princeton, N.J., another of the nation's top rowing sites. So in 1997, he moved east and started training full-time and taking classes part-time at Rutgers. For money, he does odd jobs around the community, painting houses and doing yard work and fixing things.
Now he's a gold medal favorite in the U.S. eight-man boat. He and his mates have won the last two world championships, and his boat won the year before without him. He only missed that because of broken ribs.
Then there's Ruckman. You want a weird journey, a travel odyssey?
It starts in Cincinnati, where he ran cross-country and track at Wyoming in the early '90s. His coach, Don Furlong, and Furlong's wife Sharon — an Olympic volleyball player on the 1980 U.S. team hurt by the American-led boycott — introduced Ruckman to the idea of systematic training and the love of the Olympics.
“They're great people, and they were a huge influence on me. When I met Sharon, the idea of the Olympics seemed real,” said Ruckman, 26. “They planted a seed in my mind that maybe I could do it too. At the time, I was a good distance runner, but I wasn't built light enough to be the very best. But I was built to be a top-flight rower (6-foot-1, 155 pounds).”
He didn't know that then, but he would soon. In the fall of '92, Ruckman was running cross-country at Harvard. One day down by Boston's Charles River, where the famous Harvard crew team practices, Ruckman saw rowing in person for the first time. He fell in love with it and switched sports that year.
That's no so odd. What's odd is where he had to go to get to the Olympics.
Cambridge, Mass. Harsha Lake, Ohio. Washington. Augusta. Gainesvile, Ga. France. Switzerland. Princeton. Wherever Ruckman had to go to train or compete, he packed up his Buick LeSabre — a hand-me down from his grandmother — and went. For more than a year, through most of 1998 and part of '99, he didn't live in any one place more than a month.
“It was always a big joke when I'd go to competitions and we'd fill out the forms. I'd always say, "Why do they keep asking all these tough questions like "Where do you live,' and "What's your phone number?'” Ruckman said.
Sydney was all he cared about, though he has been involved in various entrpreneurial efforts, including a secret product he developed with some friends at MIT but has put the side. Finally, last summer Ruckman settled in Princeton, where he knew he'd have the chance to train with other top lightweights. They'd switch boats from race-to-race, testing to see who was fastest with whom. Ruckman even had to switch disciplines — from sculling, which uses two oars, to sweeping, his old college skill that uses one oar — to have his best shot at the Games.
The nomadic life paid off in a world championship victory in a lightweight eight-man boat last year. This summer, he landed in a four-man boat and made the Olympic squad.
Now, like his Cincinnati mates — they don't each other all that well, by the way — Ruckman is considered a medal contender.
“Going into the final selection, I took the attitude that the selection process was going to be twice as hard as anything I'd ever done,” Ruckman said. “That helped me a lot. It made me feel I could perform better than I ever had before.
“I'd like to say it would have been worth it even if I didn't make the team, but I don't have to.”
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