Copyright©1998
The Hanover Review, Inc.

A Sculler and a Gentleman

by Adam Tanney

Dartmouth's freshman heavyweight crew coach Will Scoggins, coach of several Olympians and national title-holders, called Steve Simmerman the man he has most underrated in his entire career. “When I first saw him,” says Scoggins, “I thought he looked more like an accountant than an oarsmen.”

Most of last Fall's freshmen rowers shared Scoggins' opinion. Halfway through the Fall of 1997, some freshmen rowing recruits were hanging out after dinner, predicting who among them would be in the first boat six months later. One rower asked about the exclusion of recruit Steve Simmerman from their list. Half the group jeered: “You mean that short, pudgy guy?” The other half didn't know who he was.

Evidently, none of them reads Rowing News regularly. The previous Spring, Simmerman had won several high school sculling championship races, as he did the year before that. I asked him why he never told anyone, including Coach Scoggins, about his high school accomplishments.

“I'd rather people recognize my abilities through my actions, rather than my record,” Simmerman said. “I knew that if I kept working hard and doing what I do the coach would eventually notice.” Teammates discounted him, the coach paid him little attention—but Simmerman never doubted himself.

If his abilities weren't visible before, they certainly were by Spring training of freshmen year, when Simmerman won all his seat races by several lengths. No one was calling him an accountant anymore.

He doesn't fire glowering looks at his opponents on the water, grunt in the weight room, or, it seems, ever even sweat. In an environment often dominated by “rage calls”—boasts of the fastest erg score and of who lifts the most weight—Steve is a rock. He doesn't compare himself to others or make predictions about his performance. Simmerman prefers to keep quiet at his races, lest he say something to an opponent that might “anger him enough to beat me the next time.”

In a sport that demands both mental acuity and physical grace, Simmerman finds a balance. Those who have rowed a pair with him say that it's like pulling on an indoor rowing machine. He steers. He calls the race. He follows everything the stern man does perfectly, and stabilizes the boat so well one might as well be rowing on land.

Simmerman won the single scull at a championship regatta for American clubs for last summer at the intermediate level, beating, among others, an oarsmen who won the double at the U.S national trials this spring.

Then, Simmerman set his sights on the Senior B Single Canadian Henley.

The Canadian Henley is the largest regatta in North America. Intensely competitive, the race has no awards for second or third place. The winner takes the medal, the plaque, the flowers, and all the glory. The second place finisher, who often loses by mere feet, takes a couple hundred lonely strokes back to the dock.

At the race, Steve Simmerman looked like he would win his heat fairly comfortably, despite being harried down the entire course by one Canadian sculler. Then Simmerman hit a boey, halting his boat. His opponent advanced. They were even. “He seemed more surprised by it than I was,” says Simmerman, who eventually beat the Canadian.

The Canadian's coach excused the loss, saying that the runner-up “had a doubles race later on so he shut it down.” Dartmouth's team found the explanation hilarious, since the heat was only one to qualify for the finals.

Unlike a final at a college championship—where you know who is in each crew, how fast they are, who they've beaten, and who has beaten them—Simmerman knew nothing about any of his opponents in the Henley final.

Any onlooker could have told you that at least three of the competitors—including one who traveled to the regatta from Argentina—looked like model rowers, straight out of some rowing gear catalogue. If people bet on rowing as they do on horse-racing, I could have fetched ten-to-one odds on Simmerman.

I watched him launch his boat before the final. No nervousness, none of the nearly inevitable pre-race fidgeting, no grimacing at his opponents—not even a deep breath before he shoved off his boat. He looked as if he might be starting an afternoon swing row, a few miles of drills at some steady pace.

Some might have mistaken his emotionless demeanor for relaxed indifference. Some of his competition surely did; they marched onto the dock casting cold stares at each other, each trying too hard to give the impression of a natural ferocity.

All that was remarkable about Steve Simmerman was that he was six inches shorter than the rest of the competitors—and that he wore a gray Dartmouth T-shirt over his uniform suit.

Watching Simmerman prepare for the race, I also thought he appeared indifferent. Then I saw the look in his eyes. He was ice cold. Nothing outside of his shell mattered, nothing that could not make his boat move faster had meaning—not wind, not sneering old coaches, not statuesque Argentineans, not even Harvard's stroke man, who was in the lane next to him. The Harvard boat had beaten Simmerman's Dartmouth crew by more than two lengths in the Spring. It wouldn't beat him again.

The best racers know that when race day arrives, you don't try to do any more, or any less, than you have always done in practice. “When race day comes you're not going to blow fire out your ass,” says Alton Lo '99, Dartmouth's heavyweight captain. When the countdown reaches one and the starter yells “go,” you simply do what you know best. On August 1, 1999, as he had done so many times before, Simmerman did just that; he destroyed his competition.

I could not see the race from my spot on the shore until the race was half over, but I later learned that at the five-hundred meter mark—one fourth of the way into the race—Simmerman was in sixth place. He had settled his stroke cadence twenty strokes after the start, while everyone else remained high—at least forty strokes longer. His discipline was remarkable: he stuck to his race plan even while falling into sixth place during the final. By the time I could see him, he was in third place, charging through the leaders.

Political strategist James Carville once said, “When you see your opponent sinking, throw the son-of-a-bitch an anvil.” His opponents were weak from their early sprint and Simmerman took no chances by waiting until the end of the race to pass them with a sprint of his own. Steve brought out his anvil; he began his sprint at just over half way through the race.

Even Steve Simmerman must have allowed himself a smile when he saw his opponents. A flustered look of distress overcame them as Simmerman sped past them with 750 meters to go. By the time 500 meters were left in the race, he had established a clear lead. There were no boeys this time.

After pausing to catch his breath, Simmerman made his way to the medal dock.

I clapped for him from the shore as he rowed back to the launching dock. He stopped and looked over at me. I expected a raised fist, maybe an exuberant “Yeah!” or nod of his head. Instead, he offered a pleasant “Well, I heard you yelling this time.” Before I could ask him anything, he was on his way rowing again.

I guess he didn't want to give anyone a reason to beat him next time—as if a gold medal wasn't incentive enough. A champion's credo, I thought: respect everybody, fear nobody.

My heart still beating fast in disbelief, I ran back to the launching dock to meet him. If we wasn't going to celebrate, I would display enough enthusiasm for the both of us.

Excited, I barraged him with questions: “How close was it at the end? Did they take your picture on the medal dock? How did you feel when you crossed the line? Are you really psyched?”

It was curious that I had to ask if he was psyched after winning.

“Well,” he replied, “they wasted an entire role of film on me at the medal dock. The whole time I was thinking, `Come on, hurry up. I want to get back and de-rig my boat.'”

“Hey, where's your medal?” I asked. “And do you want any help bringing up your boat?”

“The medal's in the bottom of the boat. I don't really like to wear them onto the dock. Yeah, you can carry the plaque up for me.”

“We can both carry the boat,” I said. “That way you can still hold the plaque.” He had just won it, after all.

“Adam, you just carry the plaque and I'll carry the boat. It's easier.”