I picked up the phone. It was Mike, my friend and co-worker, who had a proposition for me. "Hey Phil! I saw an ad for a learn-to-row class. I'd like to do it, but not by myself. You should join the class with me." This was in the summer of 1989, just after I had graduated from UW Madison, when I had no more schoolwork, newly free evenings and weekends, and a fresh new engineering job providing excess income. His invitation came at a perfect time, and it seemed it would be something fun to do. I signed up for the class, which sparked a passion for rowing that is with me today.

The class was offered by Madison's Mendota Rowing Club. I don't remember if it was 4, 6 or 8 weeks, but when it was done I became a permanent member of the club and kept rowing. The club rows from Bernard-Hoover Boathouse on its namesake, Lake Mendota, which is the largest lake in Madison. The lake is often rolling and choppy, and as a beginning rower I found it hard to row, but I loved it anyway. During the winter months, there were rowing machine and weight workouts in the University of Wisconsin boathouse, and occasional tank room rowing. As my skill improved with practice, I began to row with better rowers. I began to experience occasional zen-like, almost spiritual moments when the water was glassy and the crew linked together as one, the sounds from the oars moving in the oarlocks and the blades moving in and out of the water were almost perfectly synchronized and hypnotic, and at every stroke the surging power in the boat felt like a roller-coaster rush. I was hooked.

My first engineering job was in Madison, but as a fresh and eager engineer I was looking for better work. Soon enough I found a new job in South Beloit, Illinois, and moved to Janesville, Wisconsin. I stayed with the club, skipping out of work half an hour early on practice nights and driving an hour to Madison, changing into workout clothes in the car while driving, to make evening practices.

I had planned to spend a couple years with the new job, keep rowing, and then go back to college for a graduate degree. Unfortunately, the grass at the new job wasn't as green as I had expected, so I accelerated my plans and was accepted, after working only 9 months, into graduate school at Auburn University starting in the fall of 1991. Before leaving my rowing club in Madison, I purchased a new Concept II Model B rowing machine. Then off I went to Alabama, giving up the on-water rowing but committing myself to staying in condition with the rowing machine and having the intent to pick up rowing again somewhere after graduate school.

I no longer remember what exactly prompted me to pursue the formation of a rowing club. Probably I met others who had rowed and wanted to do it in Auburn. I somehow got connected with a Dr. Michael Kamen, maybe through the athletic department, who had some interest in rowing. When I first met with him, he'd just recently met another student, Wayne Partridge, who was also interested in starting a club, and gave me Wayne's phone number. I called Wayne, we talked, and agreed to join efforts to create the Auburn University Rowing Club, AURC, with Dr. Kamen as our faculty advisor. Wayne became the club's first President, and I was Secretary. Later on, I became President for a term.

Within months we'd recruited enough members to fill boats, raised money, and purchased two very-well-used shells, a Pocock wooden eight, which we soon discovered was quite flexible as it twisted and undulated in the water, and a Schoenbrod fiberglass four that needed major repair work. Dr. Kamen lived 45 minutes from campus on Lake Martin, so boats were kept in his back yard and we conducted practices from there. Because I had more (a little bit more!) rowing experience than most of the members, I began coaching, and put my rowing machine to use for training. I also took on the task of repairing the four, rebuilding much of the internal wood structure over nine months of occasional afternoons and weekends. By the time the four was complete, the club had moved to Still Waters Marina on Lake Martin, which provided free storage space for boats and use of the docks. A member of the marina loaned the club a small motorboat for coaching, which was a welcome addition despite its too-frequent bouts of stalling out while crew and shell rowed away.

Wayne had transferred to Auburn from Florida State University, where he had previously rowed. With his connection to the FSU rowing program, a race was arranged there in the summer of 1992, where the AURC raced for the first time in borrowed boats. The club didn't race again until spring of 1993, when I was coaching a women's four in the boat that I had restored to working condition. We entered races on two consecutive weekends, hauling crew and boat in a rented 15-passenger van to Augusta, Georgia and to Atlanta, where the ladies took second in their heat and third overall out of seven crews in the novice 2K race. I could not have been more proud!

Though I was having great fun with the club, as a student the time to move on came quickly. Shortly after the races in Georgia, I dropped out of the club to focus on finishing my graduate work and finding a job. At the time, the job market was very poor (the engineering job bulletin board, usually having ads stacked on top of ads, was nearly bare), but I managed to get a job that would take me first to Massachusets for a few months, and then, to my great joy, to Aiken, South Carolina, just east of Augusta, Georgia. I would be able to keep rowing!

Pamela, one of the AURC rowers, and I had begun dating that spring of '93, becoming serious enough that when I left for my new job, she came with me. We landed in Aiken and joined the Augusta Rowing Club masters group. One of the rowers, George, was also the juniors coach, and when he learned that I had been coaching, asked if I'd like to help with the juniors. Of course, I did. So, between the masters group and the juniors coaching, I stayed quite busy. I had the good fortune and pleasure to row pretty consistently with the same crew in a men's master's four - I being the youngest by half a dozen years and more - and with this group I really learned about pacing and ratio control, and was able to race several times with them and win medals.

Alas, the goodness I experienced with the Augusta club would not last. My job situation was, once again, unsatisfactory, and I began looking for my next career move, which happened in the summer of 1995. Pamela and I moved to southwest Wisconsin, close to my family, and we got married and started building a family. We no longer lived where there was rowing nearby, and the demands of a young family made rowing impractical anyway, so that put an abrupt and indefinite end to my rowing "career". Out loud I would say that I was done with rowing, yet in the back of my mind I thought, maybe, someday, I might be able to do it again. I still had my rowing machine...

Twenty-seven years would go by, and though I did not row during that time, rowing remained on my mind. Starting sometime in the early 2000's, I had an idea to design and build a rowing bicycle, and spent a not-insignificant amount of time working on it before giving up around 2020. Also in that 27 years I divorced Pamela, married Kristin, and moved to Decorah, Iowa. The continued raising of Kristin's and my combined seven kids would take us to 2022, when we became empty-nesters. In preparation for retirement in 2024, we sold our house and moved first to Cedar Rapids late in 2022 and then to Iowa City early in 2023.

While on a walk a few days after moving to Iowa City, I decided to check out the Beckwith Boathouse, which I had driven past several times and was curious about. I was very excited to discover it to be a racing shell boathouse! Might there be a club? Indeed there is, the Hawkeye Community Rowing Club. I promptly joined. Rowing had come back to me!

I've been with HCRC for almost a full year now. During that time I've met a great group of people and have rowed with most of them and have become friends with them. I've learned how to row a single, which I'd never really had the opportunity to do. I've been actively coached and have become a better rower by the efforts of our amazing coach Danelle. I've taken great pleasure in helping others with their rowing (while being careful not to step on Danelle's toes!). I've marvelled at the stunning beauty and peace of a morning row on quiet water while the fog rises with the sun; felt the twinge of anxiety on approaching bridge abutments in a single, checking and double-checking to avoid hitting them; gotten my ass kicked by hard practices and races; and have thoroughly enjoyed the comaraderie and teamwork of my fellow rowers.

What I am experiencing now with HCRC is what I experienced in Madison, Auburn and Augusta. I love the whole of the sport - the people, the teamwork, the mental and physical fitness, and the rhythms of the boathouse and the boats on the water. I've come to realize that I belong to rowing, and that, even as Kristin and I are soon to be off to hike the AT and find other adventures, I will need to keep rowing, wherever and whenever I can.

It is my passion.

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Photos

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Mendota Rowing Club - 1989 to 1991

Unfortunately, I have no pictures from my time at Mendota Rowing Club.

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Auburn University Rowing Club - 1991 to 1993
The club purchased this Pocock eight from Louisiana State University. These pictures were taken at LSU, where we traveled to try it out.
Here's the Schoenbrod fiberglass four I restored, on the dock at the marina. When we got it, most of the wood except for the gunnels and the spine was rotted. I rebuilt it with the help of the university woodworking shop, where I cut and shaped all the replacement pieces. I'd read that the original wood was ash, so I special-ordered a large piece of ash from the lumberyard, then cut it down from there. The boat was stored at Dr. Kamen's house on Lake Martin, where I'd go to work on it.	Women's Crew, me coaching - Augusta, Georgia
Women's Crew, me coaching - Atlanta, Georgia They are rowing the rebuilt four!	Atlanta - the ladies won 3rd out of 7
Some articles from 1992 and 1993. Wayne was a journalism major and was on the campus newspaper staff, so we got a lot of good press!

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Augusta Rowing Club - 1993 to 1995
Masters rowers at 1994 Georgia State Games	Men's Masters 4 at Head Of The Savannah
Men's Masters 4 - these guys really taught me how to row!	Me, posing (and yes, I'm sticking my tongue out!)
Mixed Masters 4 - another race	Shoving off. That's George in stroke seat

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Hawkeye Community Rowing Club - 2023 to 2024
The following are a variety of scenes from the Hawkeye Community Rowing Club over the past year. All the pictures below were taken by Coach Danelle Stipes and provided to me for use here. Thanks Coach!