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You can click on the hyperlink above to make a $1 donation through Cash App if you like what you hear. You can also support the Mids and the show at the same time. Navy Sports Central is a proud affiliate partner of Fanatics.com, the Ultimate Fan Gear Store! Click on the link to start shopping now!
Hi everybody, my name is Karl Darden and I'd like to welcome and thank all of you for joining us today on Navy Sports Central. I'm your host, and this is the official podcast of the Navy Sports Nation where we take a deeper dive into Navy Sports. In today's episode, I'll get you caught up on some of the new coaches who have been hired at the Naval Academy in the last month, and the Mids also have three athletes competing in the under-23 World Rowing Championships taking place as we speak in Bulgaria. Finally, we'll continue with our rowing theme, as I'll be joined by one of the best oarsmen from the class of 87. All that, plus our question of the day, are just around the corner, so stay with us. Alright, it is great to have you here on Navy Sports Central. Thanks for dropping in to hang out with us.
Karl:Before I get going, I wanted to mention that we are breaking records left and right here in Phoenix when it comes to the temperatures. This is the 22nd straight day that the high has been above 110 degrees, and I'm recording these final segments on Friday, the 21st, so that basically means we've been dealing with this for the entire month of July. It's pretty crazy and, by the way, I don't want to hear any of this nonsense that it's a dry heat, because trust me when I tell you that once you get above 110, it's just not very fun at all. In fact, any kind of breeze that kicks up when it's that hot feels like you're sticking your face into a blast furnace. Now what I can tell you is that I'm willing to suck it up for another four to six weeks, because once the highs drop below 105, things are much more tolerable because the evening temperatures can get down into the low 70s, and then it's awesome weather until next July. So yeah, I just have to start off with that, because I think one day it was actually about 118 or 119. And even the low temperatures are only getting down into like the high 90s. I think the last one last night was like 97 degrees. All right, that's enough about the weather.
Karl:Let's go ahead and get into some of these coaching hires that have taken place in the yard over the last month or so. Let's start with baseball, where Chuck Ristano was named the head coach a little over a month ago, replacing Paul Kostacopoulos. He retired this past spring. After leading the mids for the last 17 years, Ristano spent the last season at Florida State as air pitching coach, and before that he held the same position at Notre Dame for about 12 years, and during that time, he led the Irish to three NCAA tournaments and the College World Series. Coach Ristano is also one of college baseball's top recruiters. He has found and developed 9 conference award winners, 27 All-Americans and 51 All-Conference selections. 41 of his student athletes were selected in the Major League Baseball Draft and 9 former players reached the Major Leagues.
Karl:Okay, now let's check in with women's lacrosse. Head Coach Cindy Timchal announced this past Thursday that Gabby Capuzzi Solomon would be rejoining the midshipman's coaching staff. Capuzzi Solomon was an assistant and an associate head coach at Navy for six seasons between 2015 and 2020, and she returns to Annapolis after spending the last three years at Ohio State, which is where she played her college lacrosse. Now, as I look at this coaching hire or rehire, as the case is here I think this might be a situation where Coach Timchal is looking to put the band back together, to use that old quote from the Blues Brothers. During those six years Capuzzi Solomon was on her staff, the Mids won two Patriot League titles and advanced to the final four of the NCAA tournament in 2017. Timchal stated that bringing her former associate back to coach at Annapolis will help elevate the program even further as they look to break through and knock off Loyola while regaining their footing against a pretty improved Army program. So with all that talent, the team has coming back this year. The next season should be a pretty exciting one for Navy women's lacrosse, and I've got one more assistant coach. I wanted to touch on real quickly before we wrap things up.
Karl:Navy men's head golf coach, Jimmy Stobs, announced I guess it was a little over a week ago that Jimmy Criscione would be joining the Mids coaching staff. Criscione is a PGA class A professional, and he has spent the last two years as the head coach of Wagner College up there in Staten Island. He transitioned to coaching after playing his college golf at Monmouth, but the thing that I find most impressive about Criscione is that he's built up some pretty serious credentials in a really short period of time and when you think about it, he was playing high school golf just seven years ago. That's right. In 2016, he led his team to the third of three consecutive state championships and he was named a first team all state selection for both 2016 and 2017. And then he also won the prestigious American High School championship in St Andrews, Scotland, and that was as a freshman. So I think it's safe to say that he's built up a pretty impressive track record so far, and it's going to be pretty interesting to see how things play out next year as Criscione starts to make his mark on the Navy Men's Golf program. So that covers the coaching hires I wanted to talk about.
Karl:But before I close out this segment, I did want to mention that there are three Mids competing on the world stage this week as part of the under-23 US National Rowing Team. Jackson Fuller, who graduated this past May with a class of 23, and Mason Banks, from the Class of '25, have reached the finals in the Men's Lightweight Pairs, and Lauren Day, from the Class of '24, is part of the women's A crew that also qualified for the finals. The championships are being held in Plovdiv, Bulgaria. I'm not sure if the results of either final will be ready by the time I release this podcast, but I will be sure to post them on the Navy Sports Nation Group Facebook page as soon as they are available. All right, that gets you all up to speed on things going on in the yard this weekend and beyond.
Karl:Coming up next is our deep dive segment, music. All right, welcome back. And it is time for our deep dive segment. And those of you who are familiar with either this podcast or the Navy Sports Nation blog know that I'm a huge drawing fan. Back at the beginning of June, the lightweight team finished third at the IRAs and the women reclaimed the Patriot League title. And, as I mentioned in the previous segment, the Mids have three athletes competing in the under-23 World Rowing Championships.
Karl:So my guest today was a highly recruited rower when he gained admission to the Naval Academy with the class of 87. In 1982, his prep school's oared four shell with coxswain won the New England Interscholastic Rowing Association Schoolboy Championships at Lake Quinn-Sigamon, massachusetts. He was also invited to the Junior National Selection Camp in 1983, but he couldn't attend because of Plebe Summer. During his first year he was named captain of the Plebe Rowing Team and led them to a third place finish at the IRAs. And he reached the podium again with another third place finish the following year as a member of the first Varsity VIII. And finally he was named team captain for the varsity his senior season, where they finished fourth in a highly competitive IRA championship. Following graduation, he competed in the World University Games and was invited to try out for the 1988 Olympic team.
Karl:So I am very happy to have Sean Coughlin, from the class of 87, join me today. All right Se an, thanks for being here with me on Navy Sports Central. I appreciate you taking the time. You're more than welcome, all right? So there are so many things that I want to cover with you today and I think the best thing to do is just jump right in. So let's go ahead and get right to them. You named your memoir the Cult of Pain, and that title certainly got my attention and, as book titles go, it was an interesting choice, especially when you consider how many inspirational stories come from the sport of rowing. You've got Navy's Great Eight, which dominated the sport from 1952 to 1954, including an Olympic gold medal.
Sean:Right.
Karl:And also the boys in the boat from the University of Washington back from 1936. They won the gold medal in Berlin that year and I haven't met a single rowing fan yet who hasn't read that book. So how did you settle on that title and how do you think it fits?
Sean:I like the. You know the Cult of Pain. I just think it's a pretty good description of what goes on in rowing and because it is very painful when you do it. Well, you can. You know, race is a very painful prospect and the great Harvard coach, harry Parker, hated that title. So I was, like you know, a little bit hesitant to use it. But one of my classmates on the PLEEB team at Navy said that he loved the title and he thought that was so accurate Because when he first, like, got into the sport and he saw me like doing Ergon the early days on the team and I threw up the end of it, he said what have I gotten myself into? And he said the Cult of Pain captured that exactly. So I just, you know, I thought that was great, yeah, yeah, I can definitely see that.
Karl:And one of the and I'll ask you this and we'll get into this a little bit later on, but I want to get your. I want you to describe the feeling physically that you had the second. You crossed the finish line in any race, whether it's a 2000 meter race or 6000 meter race. Finish line, cross, race over. What do you feel physically?
Sean:Different races take different effort. You know, some races you win by a lot, some races you don't win, but I'm the races that are really close and you're really going, you know. You know, like I can't say the word I'm thinking of because it's kind of dirty when you go and balls the wall. You know, like it, when you're going, that it's just utter exhaustion. You know, when you expend everything, you're just you know usually you're actually your vision goes down or a small point you lose sight. You can actually dry, heave. You know, like you, just you go through some. It's like running really really hard and but because your whole body involved it even a little bit, you know I think more rigorous, but you know so like if you're really pushing that hard, then you know you're doing a good job. I once thought that unless you throw up the end of a race, you're not rolling hard. So like you know. So if you really have that physical reaction, you know that you put out as much as you could.
Karl:Okay, right. So next question some athletes became elite Roars at the Academy and they were introduced to the sport at a pretty early age. I had a chance to chat with Dan Lyons from the class of 81 a couple years ago and he talked about the time that he was first put in a, in a shell as a coxswain by his dad, and I forget how old he was then. I think he said he was about eight or nine years old and he got others who didn't pick it up until they got to anapolis.
Karl:And Again, in conversations I've had with both Coach Friedrich and Coach Bagnall, who's a coach of the lightweight team, they talked about several rowers who never picked up an ore until they got there and they were able to really become Elite Roars. Now you fall somewhere in the middle, because you actually did row in high school, yes, and then you went on to have a really great career. So talk to me a little bit about how that happened. How'd you become exposed to rowing and what was it that appealed to you compared to the other sports that you played?
Sean:Well, I went. I went to a school called Belmont Health School in Boston. It's in Belmont, right outside of Boston, and the coach there, kim Bassett, like I kind of took me under his wing because I was a, you know, I was a big-size young man, I didn't do any drugs, I didn't drink anything, but that's the kind of person he liked and he really like kind of Guided me along and I took the sport. My first year was in a tenth grade and I did relatively okay, but I really wanted to succeed at the sport now it's terrible at baseball, hockey, football, basketball. I just didn't succeed at all in those sports. And then I found crew in my sophomore year won't know, my junior. I was actually lucky enough to be in a boat that was like really really good and I just fit into that boat and I didn't make any waves. You know, we were actually the Northeast schoolboy champions and then the Canadian schoolboy champions, so I was probably the top recruit of my year.
Sean:And then coach Kenny Dreyfus I owe him more than anything. He wouldn't quit because my senior year in high school I always want to go to the Naval Academy. But then I got called feet and I was thinking, well, maybe it's not the best place I should go to because it just limits my options, which wasn't true at all. But I was just thinking all sorts of crazy things as a senior. Coach Dreyfus like kept on me and he like never shut the door and he just kept encouraging me.
Sean:It's why I ended up at Navy and that's, like you know, I think, the best school in the world and I, you know, I'm a teacher. So I think that every school is a great school if you just you get out of it. We put into it. But for me, navy was the best place ever and I met my wife there and I really flourished as a rower there. So like, um, I think me and coach Dreyfus both was like a gave to each other. I did a good job for him as a rower and he was Unbelievable as a coach and also getting me there. So like I owe him so much. Both a coach Clodier and coach Dreyfus were Instrumental in my development as a human being and as a rower.
Karl:All right, all right, well said now. It was interesting to hear you talk about all this because in your book you speak to the fact that and and though the best way I can characterize it is probably saying that you have kind of a love-hate relationship with rowing while you were doing it, because on a couple of occasions you stated you know, you know, I'm going into this race knowing that it was gonna be my last one, I wasn't gonna do it anymore, and then the race after that. There you were. So can you walk me through? Can you walk me through that mindset a little bit?
Sean:I think that you know that's just, I think, cuz you feel you do feel so much pain in the course of a race and you're not sure if you can like live up to that, that like requirement. So like every race is a question like, am I gonna be able to like put as much as I need to into this race, or am I gonna pull back? And then you're always afraid of catching a crab. You know, like I was definitely afraid of my whole life of just like catching a crab and stopping the boat dead in the water. You lose in the race.
Sean:So, like a, you know, I think it's I just allowed so much pressure and I don't know if that was like a thing to like help me do better because I put so much pressure myself. I like it was actually a motivating factor, but that might not be the case. But I definitely should have. Um, you know, looking back, I think I just let it become too big and then I should have just done the best I could at every point and then let it go. You know, looking back on my whole Olympic career, everything, well, I think I would have been much happier if I just put everything into it and left it on the water, not agonize so much about not being good enough, because I was really always worried that I was not good enough.
Karl:Right, right, and that's something I'd like to get into a little bit later, but before we go on, you mentioned a term called catching a crab and For the listeners out there, I just want to give you guys some context. Sean and I know each other because I was his squad leader during second set plea detail in the summer of 1983 Sean being class of 87, obviously and he was the first one to first explain to me what catching a crab was, and I remember that from a distinctly remember that from a Conversation we had at the squad table one day during dinner. So I was wondering if you could kind of describe what that is and and what it looks like physically when, when you're rowing when you're rowing, you know you're everybody's rowing in order and trying to light, not upset the boat.
Sean:When you catch crab, your ore gets stuck in the water. You know, for whatever reason you can't get it out. So it dragged the whole boat to it like a dead stop and like it goes sideways and it makes a big mess. So that's what catching a crab is it's just getting stuck in the water and you got to just wrestle it out of the water. Now, when I told my wife the first time, she thought like didn't he see a crab before? She thought the roar had reached over the side of the boat and picked out a crab in the boat. But no, it's like when the ore gets stuck in the water.
Karl:So that's catching a crab, wow and they can be pretty violent too. I mean, I've seen some video of rowers getting taken out of the shell by the ore coming back and hitting them.
Sean:If you go with it you can sometimes let the take a stroke and then recover. You know you just could be very easy, but if you fight it it can launch you out of the boat.
Karl:Wow, now I did want to talk a little bit more about your decision to attend the Academy, and you mentioned in your book that you were actually on the fence because you were considering another school. Which one was that?
Sean:U Penn University of Pennsylvania for rowing.
Karl:Yeah.
Sean:Well, a lot of my friends from the Bellman Hill went to U Penn and I would join them and they had a really successful Wrong program during my times in college. But so I was like kind of like thinking I would go to U Penn, but but Coast Rifus didn't give up and he just kept pushing, push and push. And in my father when I was about five years old I said, dad was the best school in the world. And he said the US Naval Academy. And I had always wanted to go there from that point on. But, like I said, my senior year I got cold feet and then for some reason I didn't want to go there.
Sean:And when I got in, you know, courtesy of coach Rifus, and you know that's why almost of this too, my father said, sean, you're going to Navy. And he just like laid the law down. And I was all Resentful at first but I'm so happy he made me do that because I would have just, you know, pissed away a wonderful opportunity if I hadn't gotten to Navy. Because, again, I just I just love Navy and everything to stand for.
Karl:Now, when you were rowing, specifically in high school, were you mostly in the fours shell or the eights or both?
Sean:In high school we only had fours. Okay the eight. In college I started rowing eights, but in high school it was just. My school was fours. Okay like and over or extra rose. Eights by Belman Hill with grottin and metal sex in St Mark's. We were fours.
Karl:Okay now, how is rowing in the fours compared to rowing in the eights? The same and, and how's it different?
Sean:well, the sweep rowing is like the what you do in the fours, in the eights and then you can do that in the pair. But I have so many regrets because when I was trying off the Olympic team, there's only like one seat that I possibly could get in the in the on the sweep team, and my chances of doing that were very slim. So what I should have done is sculled. That's when you have two oars Mm-hmm. If I had sculled I would have had a chance to get one of seven seats, but I was afraid to take a chance and try something new and I'll always regret that to the day I die. If I had sculled and then I could maybe wrote with you know, have you heard of Greg Montesi?
Karl:Yeah, I've heard the name.
Sean:He's a great rower and he was a scholar. He was also an Olympic athlete, you know from Navy. But he was poking around around the time I was rowing and I think I would have ended up with him and I think we would have done very well.
Karl:Mm-hmm. Okay, so it sounds like there's a big difference between sweeping and sculling. Huge, yeah, but not so much when you're talking about sweeping in our four shell versus sweeping in a eight shell.
Sean:No, you know, okay, sweeping on the small board, like in this in the pair, you got to be like a little more attuned to what's going on in the boat. No little better of a rower, but there's very little difference between four, eight and two. Okay yeah, I was a small guy, so I would have just my. My best chance was like for the bow or the smaller boats.
Karl:The one thing I've always been curious about. I remember the one of the first times I saw the fours race, because you know they have fours with coxson and fours without. And Even when you, when I'm watching the fours with race the first time I saw one, I'm like looking okay, well, where's, where's the coxon? I see four dudes up there for women, but I don't see. I don't see the coxon, and actually had to ask my friend Tom Callahan From my class. I said where, where is the coxon on these things? And he goes if you look real close, you'll see them. You're, she'll see their head in the, in the, in the front. So how, how does that?
Sean:work. In the old days we used to roll the coxon, used to ride in the stern. Mm-hmm on a little seat and steer the boat with his rudder. And now that he rides in the in the bow he lies down and his head pokes up above the bow, you know, just above the deck, into a tiny little compartment, but again, used still the use of the rudder to steer. That's why it's different now. When I first started rowing it was all the guy that he set in the stern, but that's like okay, days.
Sean:They don't do it Now and now it's all like lying down in the bow Right, right, okay, cool, all right.
Karl:Now I want to talk specifically about the stroke seat. Okay, compared to the other seats in an H shelf, when somebody rose from the stroke seat, what specific skill sets do they have to have and how appreciably different are they from anybody else rowing in seats one through seven?
Sean:I think a good stroke is a can keep a great pace and I know it can feel his boat like when the time to push, when the time to pull back. And I was not a good stroke, I was actually a horrendous stroke and you know I rode stroke my senior year. I wish I had not done that because the best stroke in our team was a guy named Mike Gaffney and he he won the boat races stroke for Oxford when he is a road scholar and he was just a great stroke and we had one of our best races our Junior year, our second-class year, when he was stroking. I was seven. It was against Harvard and Penn and Penn beat us handily. What mean Harvard and our boat? Or neck and neck and it's the last like 10 strokes. We like I think we beat them but they call it a tie.
Sean:But that was one of the best like finishes I've ever involved with. We definitely came in second but again, mike was stroking and I credit him with all that and it was just he's able to keep the pace and he just feels the boat and knows what it's called for, it every sip of the way and you know it's just a lot of trust that goes into the into the stroke. I don't regret. I had a few hours of power where our you know, the Roars trusted me a lot because I was their captain and stuff. So there was some great hours of power, like the Leading bow length went way ahead of us and then by the end of the race We'd caught up and that was a glorious race. That was with Bob pescatore, my, he was my seven man and we just had, you know that was a one full time. But you know I don't think I would have kept myself in the stroke seat for the season because Mike was definitely a better stroke. You know I regret that.
Sean:Okay, All right you know my high school coach, kim Bassett. He he tried me in the stroke seat and he quickly took me out. I don't know what he saw, but he was like a brilliant man and he knows what. He's no wrong for so long. But I just wish I hadn't stroke. I think Clothe was just being nice and let me take a chance and let me do that, but I don't think it would have been better in the long run. I wish Mike had done it.
Karl:Mm-hmm. Yeah, all right, so Freshman year, you're selected as a team captain. Yes, and you want. You guys went on to have a pretty strong year. What was it about that team that stood out to you in particular?
Sean:We just kept trying, you know. You know it was really special because Princeton, we, we had a door the way race with Princeton and we beat him and I was going bananas, I was splashing water and everything, but the Ernie Harper, my, the man, who were just ahead of me. He yelled at me. He said what are you doing splashing? Like? They had no concept of what we just done, because Princeton was a hugely recruited boat. I raised most of the guys in the boat in high school and I just knew they were like packed with rowers and this Navy boat with like few recruited people, just like a whole bunch of guys, just like doing better than they thought they could. You know, like had beat Princeton. So that you know that. Just that's why I love Navy, because they just had no idea of like the quality they were in a. You know, I was just astounded me and coach drivers were like in seventh heaven and just losing our minds with like we'd be Princeton in, but nobody else knew that. What an accomplishment that was.
Karl:No, that's funny. All right, I'm gonna read a quote from your book and then I'm gonna ask you to give us a little bit more insight, given how things played out. Because when I think about how things progress for you in terms of the international experience you had your tail end your last couple years at the Academy and then even post anapolis I was actually a little bit surprised that you felt this way. So I'm gonna go ahead and read the quote now and then I'm gonna ask you to comment on it.
Karl:Okay, during plea beer, crossing the campus at night and listening to the sounds of Mother B, I remember thinking that I would probably do well at Navy as a plea rower. But as time went on, I would also probably have to resign myself to rowing in lower boats. The others would catch up and my head started. Rowing would no longer be as decisive. I resolved to do as well as I could for as long as I could. Now, sean, when I think about elite athletes, I think a lot of them at some point in time for lack of a better phrase might be plagued by self-doubt. I would ask why did you feel this way, knowing that as time went on, you continued to mature and grow as a rower, and you actually had some really wonderful opportunities that presented themselves later.
Sean:I think I was trying to keep myself motivated and not to let my head get too big. I wish I had had that mindset when I was trying to offer the Olympic team, because it was like when I did try for the Olympic team I thought I was in much better place than I actually was. I thought I was much closer to the bout of the eight than I was. If I had known that everything you get in life you got to steal. If I had gone out with the same mindset as I did as a plea, that I got to bust my ass for even getting on this team, if I had said I'm going to do anything I can just to have some hope of making this, if I had sculled, that would give me much more of a chance to have any hope at all of making it. But because I thought when I was older I thought I was much closer to the bout of the eight than it was actually the case. So I think what I said there as a plea, I think that was just a healthy way to keep my mind in check and to motivate myself to do well Okay. So I wouldn't say that was as much self-doubt, it was just a way of me to keep myself honest and keep striving and don't like the rest of my laurels, because Kyo Schreifers did say one of my strengths as a team captain was how, like, we were all on the same level. I didn't act superior, and I know he had a trouble with athletes in the past who had been recruited who did act a little superior and I didn't want to do that at all, like I think you read in my book where I said like there were people in our plea class like JD Fulp and people like that that prior listed, that like really brought the other plebes along with them and made them better. I wanted to do that for my Navy rowers make them better, but like sort of don't put it on any heirs. So I think that was just a way of motivating myself to keep humble.
Karl:Yeah, right, right, okay. So what I wanted to do also was talk a little bit about give us a little bit of a snapshot. You already kind of talked about your freshman year where you guys beat the Princeton boat, which was pretty much a highlight of that particular season.
Sean:No doubt Yep.
Karl:I was wondering if you could talk about a similar instance in both your sophomore and junior year, that either A was a huge highlight or, b, it helped you become a better captain when you got to your senior year.
Sean:Well, I was kind of like a quasi captain my junior year because the class ahead of us, 86, didn't have many rowers on the team and the captain, he was a good man, jim Coe, but he wasn't like a, wasn't a force like on the rowing team. He was a really great leader and a great man, but I think like people looked more towards me for leadership. So that was kind of an interesting and odd situation because 86 was, like you know, just like kind of a holding pattern. But, and again, the highlight for 86 was the you know when in Harvard and in the Irish boat, like tied at the Adams Cup. The highlight in 85 was like a year that we were really really great that year, that we could have gone, like, I think, really far, but a whole bunch of things conspired against us. But the highlight for 85 was beating Harvard again, winning the Adams Cup. That was huge. And then then kind of things tear it off from that and then we also get the third, you know, a bronze medal at the IRAs, which is great. And then my senior year was beating Harvard again, and again I thought that that put us in a much better place than we actually were. So again. I just wish I had had another stroke. Mike Gaffney and I had rode seven behind him, or three or one. And so really, the Adams Cups beating Harvard both years third class year and first class year it was actually maybe the highlight of my life.
Sean:And Andy Sardis, he's the great Harvard rower. He was like in the boat that we defeated and that was just a huge thing. We're actually on the cover of the Boston Globe when we did that, because I was such a big upset that I went to the Harvard Boathouse and because you know that's right down the road and there's no mention of us beating them in 85. And there is a lot of stuff on 85 walls being the greatest boat ever at Harvard, but there's nothing mentioned that. You know this scrappy Navy brod hit, beat them in the Adams Cup. So like I know that drove Harry Parker crazy. I remember I saw him on the grass outside of steerage just staring up at the sky and he said like he courted in the Boston Globe. He said three times in my life have I seen an inferior crew defeat a superior crew. That was one of those times.
Sean:So he really was so enraged that we did this prize boys. But you know, we like like Admiral Patrick Piercy just he and he was a bad ass. Patrick was a tiny guy but he was like a one 20 years on watch. He was in his full just blues. And one of my friends I'm like Juanbo was wearing his you know, who was out of uniform, and he took off running and Patrick chased him down halfway across campus. But I said you never challenged Patrick, but it was. You know, it was kind of people like Patrick who were in the 85 boat it brought it to Harvard, and Ben Wright, who's another one I think he know. Ben, okay, oh, yeah.
Sean:He was the class below you.
Karl:But you know it was just like that.
Sean:That's the kind of spirit in Eric Shea and John Walters. You know he was our stroke, so, like you know, it's just really powerful team.
Karl:All right. All right, there is another rowing, I guess concept I wanted to ask you about, and that is and this is something that I never even knew about until Dan Lyons informed me of it. Now I will say that a couple of years ago, when I was writing about the Kings Cup and and see, I started that blog in 2020 and the King, the Kings Cup it happened the summer before, in July of 2019. And it was actually Scott Gordon and Tom Callahan that told me about it, and the reason I wanted to write about it was because the pandemic had just hit, so there was no spring sports going on, so there's nothing really to write about at all. That was current and I thought it would be a good opportunity to do some like look back pieces, right, that's what I tend to call them. And they talked to me about the you know, the rowing team, and how they competed at the, the Kings Cup, at the Henley Royal Regatta, and I said, oh cool.
Karl:So I did the, I did the piece, and I was just kind of observing that. You know, towards the end of the article, I was kind of talking about the fact that you've got a group of athletes here who are really kind of different from everybody else. Because you look at a basketball team and, yes, it's fun to watch a basketball team play together, but they all have different jobs, right? Same thing for football, same thing for baseball, but in rowing everybody has got the same job. Everybody with an oar in their hand has got the same job, right? Yes, so I just thought it was really kind of a unique experience because, okay, they've really got to be dialed in. They're doing the same thing over and over again, just putting an oar in the water and pulling it through to make the shell go faster.
Karl:And I just had to believe that that when you get to the point when, when you get really, really good at it, it must really bring you closer together as as a team. And I heard from Dan Lyons after that. He happened to read the article and he described to me a word associated with rowing that I heard for the first time then, and that was the whole concept of swing. So, first of all, I was wondering if you could explain in your words what swing means to rowers and then, secondly, if you can think of a time where you ever achieved it as a, as a group rowing, whether it was in practice or in an actual race.
Sean:I think swing is like I was coaching for Andover Crew a while and also I think I was a very good seven man. And the thing is, I think, coach Bassett and Grant Inderley, you just try to copy the man ahead of you as best you can, just mimic his every movement. And you know when you do, when they'll have four people or eight people on the boat doing that, then you will get swing and that's what that is. You know just everything going together and you just like you go beyond where you think you can go. It's just like every every movement is like complement to every other movement. But I do think rowers become a little too mystical and, you know, make a little too much of swing, you know like you only swing when you win, but when you so like that you know, when you win everything is good.
Sean:You can be as tired and sick, and you know winning has a way of like we're doing very quickly and losing is the toughest thing Because you know, then there's no swing, it's just misery. And that's why the Harvard Wraiths, where we were behind, like you know, caught up and, I think, beat them. But you know, in my second class year, behind stroke Matt Gaffney was such a big race in my memory because we didn't have a swing and then all of a sudden we had it and they just both took off and it was just so. That's the time I can think of where I really fell swing.
Sean:The other time I felt like a strange situation was in my third class year in the IRAs, the finals. For like the first, like 250 meters of the race, it was like time had slowed down and I think that's because your heart and body were moving so quickly. The time were literally around you just slowed down. I remember thinking I'm definitely going to catch crab here because it's taken me so much time to go up the slide. It was just so. And then within a few strokes time resumed its normal course, but for a moment there it was just like it was just really eerie, and I think that was. I never experienced that again. It was just like time, slowing down, just like being.
Sean:I think a guy like Michael Jordan or Tom Brady can do that all the time where they just slow my students, like I asked them, I said what do you think a man like Tom Brady like, how is he so good? And they all thought together that he could just slow down time where he, like we just see things happen around him in slow motion, go to the right person and I think, like great athletes like Michael Jordan, you know Tom Brady, you know LeBron James, they have that ability and I know you know rowing is such a like a goofy sport compared to, like basketball is amazing, soccer, lionel Messi, you know, because there's so many people who competed it. Rowing is such a small pool of athletes. I've heard one athlete tell me where the Michael Jordan's are rowing. There's no, michael Jordan's are growing, michael Jordan is being large. Rowing is a small, goofy sport and it's just like. You know, people who do it are lucky to do it, but it's not like a soccer.
Karl:Okay, all right, I tell you what this looks like. A pretty good place to take a break, but don't go anywhere, because when we come back we will continue our conversation with former Navy rower Sean Coglan. Welcome back to Navy Sports Central, carl Darden here with you, and I'm joined today by Sean Coglan, from the class of 87, who is one of Navy's finest oarsmen during his time at Annapolis. So, sean, you'd mentioned one of your classmates, mike Gaffney, as someone who was ideal, occupying the stroke seat. Now, can you give us a little insight into what goes into selecting the other members of the crew?
Sean:Well, you know, Coach Clother used to have us do pyrrogata's every Friday and we, the seniors, the first classmen, always picked the boats. In my senior year I never had a boat lose a pyrrogata, because I knew every athlete and what they would bring to the boat and I could, like I may just met, meshed them up very well. And I think you know, I know we never lost a race in the fall season of 86. So I think, like you just got to know your athletes and what each person brings to the boat, because they might be strong in one area and a little not as strong in another area, but you know, the sum of the parts like makes it go as fast as possible.
Sean:And this goes into my teaching and everything. All my classrooms were really tight and all the students were really like hug each other, like brothers, and I do teach like a Marine, like everybody goes forward together and nobody's left behind. And that's why I brought the same skills from crew into my classroom and I think so I have such fond memories of every single person I rode with because I kind of knew their strengths and weaknesses. When you're working in such close proximity to other, you can hide weaknesses and build up strengths, and I think I learned that at Navy. That's what you do as a leader, and that's why the Marine Corps was a perfect match for me.
Karl:Okay, all right, good, good During your time while you were at Annapolis. Just give me the name of one, maybe two rowers that really stood out to you and why that was.
Sean:Well, john Walters, I'm not sure if you've had him on yet, but he's one of the great rowers of Navy at of all time. He was on the 88 Olympic, he was in the four width and he tried out. I think you know he graduated in 1985. And then he tried out for the Olympic team for the next two and a half years and he made the, he made the team and he rode in.
Sean:Seoul in the four width. So he's one of the Navy greats. And then Patrick Parise, who he never went on to anything further in line but he was like he won so many IRA medals and he won somebody like he was on the 84 crew, the champion crew, and then he was a huge contributor in 85. And Ben Wright, bruce Thompson, eric Shea, my classmate with Mike Gaffney. You know, all these people are just wonderful people and wonderful rowers. So you know, I could never like say that this person is better than that person because they're just like all great contributors to the sport.
Karl:Right, right, and you also mentioned another guy in your book named Dan Sainer.
Sean:What can you tell us about him? Dan Sainer was a, was a, was a. He became an FBI agent and he was intimately involved in the war on terror. And when he went to Navy he had never picked up in the order's life and he took up the sport of rowing at Navy and he was a member of the 1980 crew, the Ellipa crew that you know didn't go to Moscow because the boycott, but he was a member of that crew and he was just one of the great Navy rowers and he went on to do like a important service for the FBI. So like I just think he's a good representative of Navy, what it all stands for.
Karl:Right right.
Sean:And Carl, I do want to say that you know, with all my rowing, post-rowing from Navy, I was very fortunate to be able to do that. But if that had impacted, you know, I was, I was involved in the Gulf War and that was the defining moment of my life, I think even more than my head injury.
Sean:you know, all my people came home and I did the mission that Navy trained me for. So if I missed the Gulf War because my rowing, I never would have forgiven myself. So like it all worked out, you know that I was able to like try out for the Ellipa team and then make it to the Gulf War. But if I had not made it because the Ellipa team, I would have felt like that was a big failure. I just don't understand.
Karl:And I think that, knowing Marines the way I do and the the opportunities I had to work with them, I don't know that that would have ever been an issue. Because I think, if you know, let's say you're preparing for the Olympics and then all of a sudden, you know, desert Storm jumps off two years earlier I don't doubt for one second that anybody in your position would have said look, this is a great opportunity, but my job is elsewhere. So I, you know, I just think that that's the way things would have played out.
Sean:I think you're right in the money. I think you're 100% right, yeah.
Karl:Yeah, all right. So let's talk a little bit about that transition from your graduation from Annapolis and then you're competing internationally. One thing when I was reading your book was yes, there was these opportunities to. I guess there's a certain process that it was involved in getting to a point where you could compete for the national team. So it sounded like you were like rolling for specific clubs in the in the Pennsylvania area, maybe New Jersey area. Can you take us through that experience?
Sean:Well, I was on the World Revision Games team. I went to a camp for that and me and Mike Gaffney were on the same boat and now coach Clodier was our coach. You know, I kind of blame. I don't think that boat wasn't that fast, we didn't have a lot of success and I blame that on me because I was not, you know, trying to follow the guy ahead of me 100%. I had an idea in my head of what a perfect stroke was. Now it's trying to get that. So, like, right, there is that you have the wrong mindset, so I blame our. You know, we still did okay. We came in six in the finals of the World Revision Games. But I think we would have done better if my head was more in the boat. I was not in the boat, so like I blame that on me.
Sean:And then after that, after I came home from that, the 87 Copenhagen Gold, the eight. I was disappointed, I wasn't in that and they actually won the gold medal. And when they won that I should have known that there was no chance of making the eight anymore and instead I was. I had a foolish thought that I could still do it and that's why my Olympic quest just went nowhere Because at that point I should have switched to sculling and tried to go that way or just rode a pen. I see, with Dan Lyons that was a great club. I don't know why I didn't do that but I made.
Sean:The biggest mistake of my life was because I wrote for Vesper and that was just the wrong place to be, just the wrong personalities, wrong place to be. And so my Olympic quest was doomed. And I didn't know it at the time. I wanted to be in a good boat for the head races but so like, again, my goals were like off and I was looking at the wrong thing. I should have been looking and making the Olympic team racing in the Chadd Charles in the head of the school. So again I just, and then I briefly rode with a guy from Garmin Hill in the double, but I gave that up when I didn't make the improvements I wanted to as fast as I wanted to. So again, I went back to, went back to sweep in the final race of my life.
Sean:The final huge success of my life was at the San Diego Cool Asset and my boat, you know, won the elite, elite eights race. We beat Panacea, we beat Vesper with all their great roars and actually Stephen Redgrave, the great English roar he was in the English boat. They came in second. We had a wonderful sprint and caught them at the very end of the race. So I have a poster that my garage that's like the high point of my Olympic year was winning that race. Now, we had wonderful people in the boat and the stroke of the boat was Rick Filowbeck and he's the man I ended up rolling in the pair with for the for the final trials, and we I think we came in fifth or something, but he was wonderful and he could easily stroke the eight.
Sean:But you know it's just you know, rowing is just such a weird sport that you know you can be as close as you want to be, but you're still a million miles away.
Karl:Right.
Sean:So me and Rick are so close to this day. But you know, like highlights for the my post Navy life was definitely the San Diego Roku classic winning the lead date race, and I remember the announcer saying, with a finish like that, there's no way these guys are not going to make the Olympic eight. And I was like you have no idea, you know, it's just because I knew at that point I was like a million miles away from making it and even though we had that wonderful race and wonderful sprint, it didn't mean anything.
Karl:Well, you know, the one thing I've come to appreciate when it comes to the different athletes I've spoken with over the last couple of years is understanding that there is an extraordinary amount of commitment that's required to get to the point where you got to right and then after that, it's certainly there.
Karl:It's a lot of, it is a lot of it is timing. A lot of it is just just the world being what it is right, and I totally admire anybody who not only is a college athlete to stand on a college athlete but to the point where they are recognized as okay, we've got more opportunities for you beyond this. So I don't think that there's anything that any athlete, regardless of sport, that reaches your level, you know, should be bummed out about, because I mean, I just I think it's wonderful, I think the nature of you being a competitor, I get it right, you know you always want to achieve that level and then, once you get there, you're just not satisfied. You want to hit the pinnacle and I guess, as I've got older, I've learned to appreciate the fact that, okay, yeah, maybe those guys didn't quite get there, but my God, I mean, they're still among the best in the world. And how many people can even say that?
Sean:Well, thanks, carl, but it still hurts me because I always have these regrets, because I didn't put myself in a position where it was all up to me there were too, many variables.
Sean:If I'd sculled it would have just been one person, me, with two wars, and I could have made it or not. But you know, with a sweep you got to get a partner and you got to get a boat and you got to go like be in the right club, and there's just so many variables and I didn't handle those variables well. So, instead of making things simple, just sculling, sculling, sculling to invest I could, and then getting in the boat I could, I, like you know, threw myself into the sweep cycle, hoping against hope that some crazy miracle would put me in the bousy of the eight, and the chances of that happening were so slim. It was just. That was an insane decision. You know what do they say? The definition of insanity is the same thing expecting a different outcome. Well, that's exactly what I did.
Sean:I did the same exact thing and you know so many. Even Coach Korsanowski, the national team coach, had told me in 87, sean, you should scull, but I was afraid to try. So, like I just want to leave any of your listeners that don't ever be afraid to try. Just go for your best, take a chance If you're going to be different go for broke. I did not do that and I'm paying the price and I regret that every day.
Karl:Well, that's definitely some good advice and I will tell you that I, you know, I know that feeling as well, just not necessarily from an athletic sense, but just you know, in my professional life, different opportunities I could have taken that I didn't. And then you kind of think back okay, what if I'd have taken out of the fork in the row? You know what would have happened. Anyway, let's go ahead, and I want to talk a little bit about how your experience as a rower impacted your career as a Marine. In other words, what were some of the key takeaways from rowing that you were able to kind of bring to the table as a Marine Corps officer, particularly, you know, when Desert Storm jumped off in the early 90s there.
Sean:I think you know, mike, I'm not sure like what came first, my abilities or the abilities come to me, but I think I've always been pretty good at the leadership position and because I'm not like a, you know, I don't bark orders and stuff.
Sean:I try to get people together to accomplish in the side mission. You know, that's what I did as a rower and that's what I did in the Marine Corps and that's not what I do as a teacher and it works very well on all, you know, on all arenas. You know, I don't know if that's like something I learned or something I had or whatever, but that's really what I do is just try to like get everybody together, you know, get our strengths, you know, in weaknesses, minimize the weaknesses, fortify the strengths and try to accomplish the mission. And you know that's why I think my rowing crews are all been very tight knit. My Marine Corps units have been tight knit and then my, my classroom is very tight knit. And that's because I don't try to like, you know, have too much hubris. I like I just try to say let's all do this together, We'll go forward together, nobody gets left behind.
Sean:But there were a few challenging episodes, carl, I'll tell you. And I felt good because I remember they were like in the admin section of my unit. They were like going to discharge a female Marine for being overweight and she came to me for help and she was in tears and I went into the admin office and I said you guys can't do that. You got to give her a chance to lose the weight and they were like totally bummed and shocked but they couldn't do that, you know.
Sean:And then there were some other racial issues that I don't know if I should get into now. But you know like what? Where? Like a staff sergeant had said something awful to one of my Marines and I like confronted him in a gathered evidence and they eventually dismissed him and that kind of made a like a war between me and the senior NCOs in the unit. But others NCOs hit my back because I stood up for somebody who had not been stood up for before. So you know all these issues and I think all that came directly out of my rolling experiences of just being strong. You need to be strong even. You know if the things are against you, if you know you're firing in the good fight, then keep on fighting.
Karl:Right, right, yeah, very good. So give me the timeframe where you were an active duty Marine. Obviously you graduated in May of 87 and then walk me through the timeline from there.
Sean:I was on the World University Games team in 87 and then trying out for the Olympics in 88. In 88, late 88 and 89, I was in TBS, the basic school for the Marine Corps, my training. Then I was assigned to my unit in 89. In 90, I was at the unit wing support group oh no, the Marine Wing Support Squadron. I was there for quite a while, for almost a year, and then we went to the Gulf War, the higher headquarters, the Marine Wing Support Group. They took me because I was a good writer. They were like I was assigned to the group. I left my support squadron and went to the group. That's when I went over to the Gulf War with. Then I came back and I stayed with the group and then I got out in 92.
Karl:Okay, good. So when you got out, you were living, were you in California still?
Sean:Well, I got accepted to film school and then I want to go to film school. I had California residency so I went to UCLA. That's where I was. I was in UCLA in 92, 93, 94. I had a massive head injury. I finished UCLA in 95. Then we were on California until 99. The birth of my first son was in California. Then we came back east to be close to my parents. We came to the Boston area.
Karl:Then we had my second son.
Sean:My first son was Thomas. He was born in California. Owen was born here in Mass.
Karl:Okay, all right. How old are they now?
Sean:Owen and Thomas are 25 and 23. They're both gainfully employed. One works for Epic, a hospital company, One works for Esri, which makes geographic information systems information. They make maps.
Karl:Okay Now Sean, when I started reading your book, it begins with a pretty scary accident You've actually alluded to a couple of times here. I was wondering if you could go into a little bit more detail on that so that our listeners know what you're referring to.
Sean:I was skiing in California at Big Bear Mountain in 94, december 16th with my brother Ryan. We were racing down the mountain like we always do, not wearing helmets, of course. I think nothing of it. Then I wake up five weeks later in a hospital. I was in a coma for five weeks. I don't know what was going on, but I knew that everything was going to be okay. When I woke up I wasn't terrified or panicked because I knew everything was as it should be. Then I had a long order recovery, years of recovery. That was that accident. The defining moment of my life is probably that, but it may be the war, I'm not sure.
Karl:Now you don't remember it happening, but was it just a wipeout or was it colliding with somebody?
Sean:I was totally my fault. I was skiing like a knucklehead. I was doing 87 miles an hour. I thought the force would be dissipated over time horizontally, but I didn't realize the force vertically was instantaneous. My brain sloshed inside my skull and it killed one of the cells in the basal ganglia. I also shattered my right shoulder. I was hit with a sledgehammer, smashed it into 27 pieces, but because that took the burn of the fall, the head injury wasn't as bad as it could have been. That actually probably saved my life, but I just wiped out on snow.
Karl:Okay, just to recap here. You were on active duty from 87 to 92. We were living in California at the time of your active duty discharge and attended a film school at UCLA. Then, eventually, you wound up back east in Massachusetts to be closer to your parents. Now you're an adjunct professor. Do I have that title correct? You're correct, okay.
Sean:I teach at the Wentworth Institute Technology and also Rocksbury Community College.
Karl:Okay, talk to me a bit about how you happened upon those opportunities and some of your experiences as we start to wrap things up. I'm really curious to do this because I am basically retired. One of the things I do to keep busy is I teach junior high kids math and science, and then I'm also sponsoring a math club where my kids used to go to junior high. I'm always interested in the education aspect of things. How did that happen for you?
Sean:Well, the film thing didn't really work out. I was involved with a production called American Fighter Pilot in the early part of the century. That would mean my partner had a big falling out. I had to file suit against Scott Free Productions to get my money and my credit. I kind of sat around the whole film biz thing. I just looked around because my wife really makes the money for the family. She works for PricewaterhouseCoopers. She is very smart and hardworking woman.
Sean:Once I was a stay-at-home dad until 2012, and then I decided I should go back to school to teach. I started doing that, I loved it and I continued to this day, looking for more opportunities all the time. I'm an adjunct professor right now, which I don't make much money at all, but I do love what I'm doing. I teach at a predominantly black institution. That's what Rocksbury Community College is. I also went to an Institute of Technology. I've taught a number of schools, but they say those who can't do teach and those who can't do anything teach English. That's a joke. I think teaching English is the most important thing there is. The foundation of all I do is Frederick Dulles. He's like the backbone of all my teaching. It's like he's an example, in all my classes I open with him in every class. I just love teaching and I think that I am a good at it.
Sean:I do a good job.
Karl:Yeah, judging from what I've read and I did read a couple of other articles that were and, by the way, for those of you listening, sean's book is in digital form on the Naval Institute's website you can go to that site and just click on the archive section and pull it up Again. It's called the Cult of Pain, but if you just type his name in, there are a bunch of other articles that'll come up. So when you get some time, feel free to check them out, because it's pretty good reading.
Sean:Carl, I also have my published book is a book form Storming the Desert. Oh, okay, that's by MacFarlane and Press MacFarlane Company. Okay, that was published in 1996.
Karl:Awesome, awesome. Well, thanks for the heads up on that one as well. All right, sean, we are getting close to the end here. I wanted to see if there was anything that I haven't brought up or haven't talked about that you would like to discuss at this time.
Sean:I think you've covered everything I wanted to hit.
Karl:Okay, One quick question before we finish up. I asked Coach Bagnell this one time what's the weirdest thing he ever saw during a crew race. So I'm going to ask you the same question, whether you are a competitor or you happen to be observing one what's the strangest thing you've ever seen in a crew race? I?
Sean:can tell you what happened to me in the Olympic finals and the straight four, the boat that actually won the silver medal in the games itself we had a head on collision with. We were in our boat and the collision was my fault because I wasn't looking. I looked out and saw them coming. The next thing I was in, everything was green and I was in the water. What had happened is their ball ball was an Ampaka ball ball, so it was like a fist and thank God or I would have been speared because, it ripped my right out of the foot stretchers and launched me in the water.
Sean:I remember Coach Corzinalis. He was saying what is Sean? What is Sean? Tom Bohr, who's a good friend of mine. He's one of the greatest rowers in American history. He was just hanging his head because his was the boat that launched me. But it wasn't their fault at all. It was my fault because I wasn't looking and we couldn't race. So that was like again, another sign of the denouement of my Olympic hopes. I'm in for the camps. After that I recovered well enough to make it to the camps but we couldn't compete in the trials, so everything just went downhill from there.
Sean:And again. So the big errors in rowing are kind of like can be placed in my feet. So I really can't like I didn't follow well enough at the Warren University Games boat and I wasn't looking in the trials boat. So there's always a reason for things to go haywire and I wasn't paying enough attention.
Karl:Well, all that notwithstanding, again, congratulations on a fine Navy rowing career. By the way, folks, Sean is a member of the Navy Sports Hall of Fame, if you didn't know that. And again, Sean, thank you so much for joining me today and best of luck to you as you continue with your teaching career there up in Boston.
Sean:Carl, thank you so much. This has been a wonderful experience. I really appreciate it.
Karl:All right take care man.
Sean:See ya, Carl, Thank you.
Karl:All right, that was Navy Sports Hall of Famer Sean Coughlin from the class of 87. We're heading down the home stretch here, guys, so stay with us. We'll be back shortly with our question of the day. This is Carl Darden and you're listening to Navy Sports Central. All right, it is time now for our question of the day. Let's circle back real quick to check out how you all responded to the one from the last episode. Here was the question Braden Presser set a school record in the Javelin at the NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships with a throw of 249 feet four inches. How many of the top 10 performances in the event does he own? Is it A6, b7, c8, or D9? And as I look at the responses, it looks like 7% of you chose 6, 53% went with 7, and 40% thought 8 was the right number. Nobody picked 9. So it turns out that the correct answer is 7. Presser owns the top two spots on the list of 10 best performances, as well as the fourth through eighth positions, and you know he's coming back for a senior year, so there's a pretty good chance he could own all 10 spots before he leaves Annapolis.
Karl:Okay, now let's check out today's question. Earlier in the show. I mentioned Navy's great eight crew that won the gold medal at the 1952 Olympics in Helsinki, finland. So the question is how many consecutive races did that crew win between 1952 and 1954? Was it A29, b30, c31, or D32? You all can give that some thought and let me know what you come up with. I will have the question up on the Navy Sports Nation Group Facebook page by the end of the day.
Karl:That's going to do it for this edition of Navy Sports Central. Thank you all so much for joining us. Now, if you like what you've heard, be sure to follow us wherever you get your podcast and remember to spread the word to all the other Navy fans out there. Once again, I'd like to thank Navy Sports Hall of Fame rower Sean Coughlin for joining me today. It was really great having him share some of his experiences.
Karl:We have been getting a great response to our question of the day. So if you want to jump in on that, just go to the Navy Sports Nation Group Facebook page. I will go ahead and pin it to the top so you won't miss it. And just a quick reminder the views expressed on Navy Sports Central are my own and do not reflect those of the US Naval Academy or Navy Athletics. By the way, the music used in Navy Sports Central comes to your courtesy of Audio Jungle. This is a great site for purchasing the rights to use music from thousands of artists around the world, and those we feature in the podcast will be credited in our show notes. Talk to you soon, everybody. Until next time. This is Carl Darden. Go Navy beat Army.