Half a century on the water

Winter Park Crew is celebrating its 50th birthday with an alumni race and barbecue for the community on Saturday, Dec. 17, at the Winter Park Crew McAllister Boathouse. The race begins at 10 a.m., and tickets are $15 for adults, $10 for kids 10 and younger. You may purchase tickets at the event and in advance, but an RSVP is requested. For more information, email [email protected] or call 407-414-2947.

They all have that one story. They’re way behind, the famed Winter Park Crew losing a race — not a common sight. And then, somehow, the team pulls together. Their oars slice into the water in unison, arms pumping together, everything disappears but them and the water. There’s no hot sun beaming on them, no other team pushing past them, no single athletes. Just one team. And then they win.

“All of a sudden the boat came together,” John McCabe said about his race. “It was like one person, one mind.”

“There’s nothing else outside of that boat,” said Matthew Cascaddan, a 2004 grad and the boys’ coach.

Winning history

And while the alumni reminisced about their win after a struggle, those stories aren’t that common for the team. Winter Park High School’s boys and girls crew teams boast two of the best teams in the nation, with numerous national championships and medals from the Stotesbury Cup, the nation’s oldest and highest regarded high school regatta. It’s a tradition of winning that’s been built over the course of decades. And for much of its most successful years the boys’ team was helmed by the same coach, Dan Bertossa, who after 21 years stepped down as head coach in October 2010.

This month, Winter Park Crew celebrates 50 years full of successes with a party and alumni race.

But it didn’t start so glamorously. The first boys’ team was made up of the first guys to respond to a bulletin board post, said Jonathan Rich, a former president of the Winter Park Crew Boosters and father to two crew graduates. First crew member David Hoffman, class of 1962, said he jumped at the chance after hearing it over the PA system during his chemistry class. At a “beanpole” 115 pounds, his only chance at participating in sports came with the experimental rowing team.

“The jocks never showed up because it was not a lettered sport yet,” he said.

They began as the Optimist Hustlers in honor of the North Orlando Optimist Club that sponsored the team. The Hustlers part, one teammate said in a letter, doesn’t have as clear an origin other than it might have sounded pretty fast and tough at the time. There were lots of questions when he wore his crew sweatshirt around, to say the least. Hoffman said they were inspired by the pool shark movie “The Hustler.”

“You had to hustle and learn how to keep up,” Hoffman said. “We probably worked harder than Rollins.”

Since then, they’ve built a team known nationwide for its skill and speed. Paul Deatrick, a 1977 Winter Park High School graduate and crew member, said it’s pretty great to be a part of that history and the present team, which now does all the work for the great reputation.

“And I get to take the credit for it,” he joked.

“We’re such a storied team,” said Nathan Meeks, a 2004-06 rower and recent University of Central Florida graduate.

A forever experience

That history, and being a part of it, has the ability to change a person, said McCabe, a 1978-79 crew member. He said it took him beyond what he could’ve imagined his limits were and helped him realize what he was capable of, built confidence and challenged him.

“It really sort of transforms your outlook on life,” he said. “There’s really no sport like crew.”

That’s easy to see. These three men don’t know each other, but it’s hard to get a word in edgewise. They wander the boathouse — Meeks looks up and touches the boats he practiced in as he walks by — and talk crew shop. Like how certain old wooden boats whistle as they glide over the bubbles beneath them when the team is in sync and really moving. Or the less fond, but funny memories of “crabbing,” when your oar hits the water the wrong way and rowers get hurled out, which is Meeks’ one story of winning against the odds.

While McCabe and Meeks have left their rowing days behind them, there’s still a visible pull to the memories.

“It’s something you’re always going to miss,” Meeks said.

Deatrick doesn’t miss it, though. He still lives it, six days a week.

“I’m 52, and this morning I did 20K, I’ll do it forever,” he said.

But they’ll all do it at the alumni race. Meeks will row for the first time since last year’s event; McCabe will row for the first time in 29 years.

“Maybe against my kids,” said McCabe, whose two sons joined crew this year.