Time Out for a Triptych

In The Athletic last month, talking about The Masters golf tournament, where at the halfway point (36 holes, or 1,000 meters for us rowers) he was leading by a commanding six strokes, Rory McIlroy said, “Golf is the most amazing game because it’s you and the golf ball and the golf course. And that’s it. You shouldn’t be affected by anyone else.”

This calls to mind something rowing coaches frequently say: “Just row your own race. Make your own boat go as fast as you can and don’t worry about what your competitors are doing.”

It’s very good advice. In a close race, no oarsman or oarswoman should be focusing on a competitor. Even a coxswain, who is supposed to keep track of where the boat is compared to the others, can overdo it.

At worst, the cox is looking to port, to starboard, and behind. “Penn is moving. Cal is raising the rating. Here comes Harvard!” Coxswains are not play-by-play commentators on the action. Frantically broadcasting what’s happening on other boats rather than on your own is incredibly distracting.

As someone who coaches young athletes, I find it difficult to get them to tune out their competitors and focus on their own rowing, their own boat. It takes practice. I’m reminded of what my mentor Todd Jesdale used to do—throw tennis balls from his launch over the heads of the crew he was coaching to get them to keep heads in the boat. I favor heaving a volleyball.

As I write this, Rory McIlroy has retaken the lead, and watching him make his shots and walk the course coolly, it seems clear he’s playing this final round with his focus where it should be—on his own shotmaking, not on what the others are doing,

For years, I’ve heard the story that the Shah of Iran had rowed while he was at Harvard. No less a figure than Harry Parker told me this. The current situation in Iran reminded me that this is one story I want to know more about, true or not. I’ve searched my library of rowing books, Googled everything that might be helpful, bothered friends and acquaintances.

I couldn’t find any evidence that he studied at Harvard. Or rowed. The Shah was a real devotee of Western culture; he celebrated New Year’s Eve in 1979 with then-President Jimmy Carter at his palace in Tehran by flying in a sumptuous meal from Maxim’s in Paris.

So it seems possible that, unlike the current Islamic rulers, he might have tried an activity that was popular in the United States (“The Great Satan,” as Iranian radicals called us): sculling.

“It’s conceivable,” said Craig Lambert, longtime editor of Harvard Magazine, “that when the Shah got an honorary degree from Harvard in 1968—amid heavy protests—he did a bit of recreational sculling out of Weld.”

His son, Reza Pahlavi, did attend Williams College as a freshman in 1979. There’s an unsubstantiated rumor that he tried rowing at Williams, but it didn’t take. When his father, the Shah, died in 1980, Reza left the college, moved to Cairo, and assumed the title of Shah (in exile).

The story is too good to be true, but it haunts me that I didn’t follow up with Harry beyond saying, “Really?”

Friends, readers, men of Harvard, does anyone know anything about this?

As endurance athletes, many rowers trade their oars for skis in the winter. I’m sure many of you out there watched the incredible racing of Johannes Hosflot Klaebo, the Nordic skier from Norway who won six gold medals at the Milan/Cortina Olympics.

Watching him break free from the pack in every race on the final uphill climb was amazing. He kicked it into high gear and dropped his competitors by increasing his pace.

I took out my stroke watch to see what his “stroke rate” was as he pushed up that hill, which the commentators said was as tall as a 10-story building. I clocked his poling as he sped up the hill in the 10K at 67, increasing to 74.

Now there’s a guy who can step it up and sprint.

Doctor Rowing, a.k.a. Andy Anderson, has been coxing, coaching, and sculling for 55 years. When not writing, coaching, or thinking about rowing, he teaches at Groton School and considers the fact that all three of his children rowed and coxed—and none played lacrosse—his single greatest success.