Rowing Revived Group Brings Water Sport Back To The Northwest

Not so gently down the stream, they row, row, row their boat.

“It’s the most physically demanding thing I know of that isn’t violent,” says Rob Neate, grinning as he watches a four-person rowing shell skim along the Spokane River. “It combines grace and power.”

Rowing also combines today’s passion for fitness with some Inland Northwest history. The Coeur d’Alene Rowing Association, of which Neate is president, has revived a sport that was popular here in the early 1900s. Regattas on Lake Coeur d’Alene annually pulled in as many as 20,000 spectators.

Then came the Depression. The regattas went kaput; the skinny rowing shells with their thick protruding oars disappeared from the lake.

In 1986, North Idaho College formed a rowing team which included community members - so many, in fact, that the rowing association was formed. The school turned the equipment over to the group, which shares it with the college rowing club.

Outside of coastal cities, there are no other Northwest clubs for rowers who aren’t students, according to member Mike Carlson.

“Most of us never rowed in college,” Carlson says. “We take anybody who wants to row of any ability, from high school up. The oldest members are in their early 50s.”

Rowers with an itch for competition can race in masters regattas. The association participates in several of those around the region each year. Winners must be willing to share the glory. Theirs is the ultimate team sport, says Carlson.

“There are no stars in rowing. That’s why you don’t see it on TV. It’s a faceless sport, but it makes for interesting camaraderie.”

The association has about 30 members from North Idaho and Spokane. Some 20 women and men show up regularly for practices, which are held in the Spokane River reservoir behind the Post Falls dam.

Their occupations range from state patrol officer to emergency room doctor. They’re the kind of people who bike, run and cross-country ski.

“That’s what I like about this sport. You’re exercising outdoors, not in some sweaty gym,” says Barbara Giles, who’s been rowing for five years.

It’s full-body exercise. Rowers sit on sliding seats and push with their feet, so that most of the energy of each stroke comes from their legs.

The four- or eight-rower shells include a perch for a coxswain, the “captain” who sounds off commands and steers the boat.

A small power boat, referred to as a launch, cruises along during practices. That way, help is available if the rowers need it, and the low-profile rowing shells are more visible to power boaters who might be zooming past.

Often, coach Kathy Fogarty is on the launch, telling rowers how to perfect their timing and form.

“Catch! Drive! Release! Recovery!” she says, describing the path the oars are making into the water, through the water, out of the water, then through the air.

Each person grasps one oar. When rowers use two oars, it’s called sculling. During one practice this week, Louise Calibo flitted like a dragonfly on her solo racing scull. It’s 26 feet long, weighs 35 pounds and is no wider than a derriere.

Each dip of her oars makes a whirlpool in the water. Rowers call that a “puddle.”

Rowing began as an upper-crust pastime on England’s Thames River. Its language is as bright as morning reflections on the Spokane.

When the coxswain tells the “bow pair” to “weigh enough,” the two people in front stop rowing. After a novice loses control of her oar and nearly jerks the boat to a stop, Fogarty says: “We call that ‘catching a crab.”’

Unity is the name of the game. The more synchronized a crew is, the faster the boat goes.

The club’s rowing shells are kept under the pine trees at Ross Point Baptist Camp. Members dream of having their own boathouse.

Practices take place from early March until November. In spring and fall, they begin at 5:30 p.m.

Summer practices start at 5:30 a.m. on weekdays, 7:30 a.m. on Saturdays. Being on the water any later means contending with power boat wakes that can swamp a rowing shell.

“In summer in this stretch of river it’s no fun, because you’re always fighting waves,” says Neate.

He’s a Spokane lawyer who was on an intramural rowing team at Harvard University, although he hesitates to say so for fear anyone will think rowing is a snob sport. When he joined the Coeur d’Alene club, Neate says, he attended practices for several weeks before learning anyone else’s occupation.

Although the basics of rowing can be mastered in three or four practices, Neate describes it as a lifetime sport with constant room for improvement. The best rowers, he says, have a dancer’s sense of timing.

“I just love this,” Neate says as his eyes follow the crew upriver. “There’s a feeling when all eight people are suddenly rowing together, or all four people are suddenly rowing together … It might happen only for two strokes, but you say: ‘This is what it’s all about.”’

For more information about the Coeur d’Alene Rowing Association, call Mike Carlson at (208) 667-1771, or Rob Neate at (509) 455-6288.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 2 Color photos