The Amateurs (26 page)

That Sunday morning, Bouscaren was popping in and out of hospital rooms as best he could, and rushing back to a television set so he could watch the rowing finals. He watched Lewis and Enquist win with an odd mixture of regret and disappointment. When they were standing on the podium and he saw the smile on Lewis's face, Bouscaren thought, I should be there. Suddenly he was angry that Brad and Paul had gotten a chance and he had not; he felt that he and Altekruse deserved it as much as they did. He was also finding that it was harder to let go of rowing than he had expected. He was working hard staying in shape. He had taken a house on Lake Washington, three miles from the hospital. The way to the hospital was uphill, and he roller-skied to work every day, returning at night by running. He was going to buy a kayak so he could work out on the water daily (the sculling facilities were too distant). He was thinking very seriously of rowing again, but if he did, it would be for 1988 and the Olympics.

CHAPTER

THIRTY-TWO

John Biglow was getting ready for medical school at Dartmouth. He wrote letters to all his friends and enclosed Olympic rowing pins for most of them. The letter to his old friend Dan Goldberg, the former Yale coxswain, said in part, "It is not going to be easy to give up this sport. I am satisfied about the single, i.e., knowing my potential, but have unknown potential in the double and quad." It was the letter of a man who had not completely decided to give up rowing. Any number of friends offered him videotapes of the final of the single scull. He did not accept any of the offers. He had heard that Kolbe, watching the videotapes of the final seconds when Karppinen had rowed through him, had burst into tears; and for the first time he found himself sympathetic to Kolbe. Biglow did not need to see the race again. He remembered perfectly—too perfectly, in fact—how it had gone. To watch it again would only be to feel the pain and disappointment once more, an exercise as pointless as watching a videotape of the 1979 Harvard-Yale race. The farther he was from the Olympic race, the less disappointed he became and the more relieved that the stress was removed. What bothered him most now was Tiff Wood. He worried whether Tiff felt he should have rowed the single, and he worried that Tiff believed he might have won the bronze had he rowed. But there was nothing Biglow could do about that. Sometimes he thought he might give one more try to rowing, in the team boats. He also thought he would write Mitch Lewis, Brad's cousin, to find out a little more about Mitch's weightlifting program.

CHAPTER

THIRTY-THREE

Brad Lewis enjoyed immensely the grand tour of the United States with the other American Olympic medalists, even though being a gold medalist in a sport as eccentric as rowing did not increase his fame very much. The other rowers knew that he had won a gold, and some local papers paid attention. Other than that, the feeling of pleasure came entirely from within. What was it, he asked a friend, that Andy Warhol had said about fame in America? That it lasted for fifteen minutes? That was probably right. On this tour he quickly learned how to achieve instant fame. "All you have to do," he said, "is stand just behind the gymnasts at any ceremony. The cameras go wherever they go."

EPILOGUE

A few months after the Olympics, to everyone's relief, Brad Lewis quit his job at the Wells Fargo bank. The last thing he intended to be was a banker. He did some lecturing on his Olympic experiences, and he enjoyed that. He particularly liked showing the cassette of ABC's videotape coverage of the final. During the narration Curt Gowdy, who knew, of course, of the outcome long before he began his commentary, described the American double as being behind at a thousand meters. "But Lewis and Enquist aren't worried," Gowdy said. "Bullshit," came Lewis's voice from the back of the room. The audience loved it. He bought a word processor and started to write a book about his experiences. In the fall he wanted to row with Tiff Wood in a double, but Tiff did not seem that interested. Lewis was going to stay with sculling a little longer, and he hoped to row at Henley in the single in 1985.

John Biglow decided on Dartmouth Medical School over Penn and knew immediately that he had made the right choice. He loved the rural setting and all the outdoor activities that Hanover offered. He was not rowing for the moment, and he was not sure that he would return to serious competition in the spring. He took an elective course on stress taught by a psychiatrist and enjoyed it immensely, particularly when his fellow students, during classroom debate, told him that he was often difficult for them to deal with. He had a tendency, they said, to ask very intimate questions of them while not revealing very much of himself. That did not surprise him very much. He was thinking very seriously of being a small-town doctor.

Joe Bouscaren found that he wanted quite badly to compete in the 1988 Olympics. He also received something he had long desired, an offer from New York Hospital for Special Surgery for his residency. It was one of the most sought-after places at one of the great hospitals in America; indeed, he had often had nightmares in the past year that somehow his name would not be on the list of those accepted. But the rowing fever still burned, and very much to his surprise he found himself considering turning down this cherished appointment and instead taking the most ordinary of positions in an emergency room at a hospital near a great rowing center. The advantage was simple enough: In the emergency room he would work long but set hours, and it would allow him a very free hand to continue with his rowing. Word that he was considering making the decision stunned his friends. When Tony Johnson heard of the possibility, he simply shook his head. "He's really competitive, isn't he?" Johnson said. Bouscaren pondered this choice for several weeks, and in the end he opted for the residency at the Hospital for Special Surgery; but the incident showed how torn he was by the idea of the 1988 Olympics.

Tiff Wood was still undergoing withdrawal symptoms from rowing. He worked out very little on the Charles, but in the fall he did enter the Head of the Charles, coming in second behind Andy Sudduth. Sudduth, who had rowed in the eight at the Olympics, was now seen by the other scullers as the rising star among their group. Wood was frustrated by the fact that he had not done better, but he was wary of committing himself to a more ambitious program. He and Kristy Aserlind announced their engagement, and in mid-December a large engagement party was held in their honor. Tiff Wood pondered one question for a long time and then decided to ask Harry Parker to the party. Harry remained, for all the pain of the past year, an important part of his life.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank Kathryn Reith and Ellen Haskins of the U.S. Rowing Association for assistance far beyond the call of duty; my friend Nancy Medeiros for typing my notes; and, for their time, Charley Altekruse, Kristy Aserlind, Seth Bauer, John Biglow, Nancy Biglow, Joe Bouscaren, Mike Bouscaren, Joe Burk, Dick Cashin, Gene Clapp, Meredith Clapp, Sean Colgan, Frank Cunningham, Richard Davis, Jim Dietz, Paul Enquist, Bob Ernst, Andy Fisher, Curtis Fleming, Dan Goldberg, Fritz Hagerman, Fritz Hobbs, Bruce Ibbetson, Tony Johnson, Stanley N. Katz (class of 1921 Bicentennial Professor of the History of Law and Liberty at Princeton, and coxswain of the 1955 Dunster House crew), Kathy Keeler, Steve Kiesling, Brad Lewis, Dave Lewis, Mitch Lewis, Cleve Livingston, Mike Livingston, Virginia Livingston, Ed Markey, Charley McIntyre, Tom Mendenhall, Paula Oberstein, Harry Parker, John Powers, Peter Raymond, Harrison Salisbury, Al Shealy, Gregg Stone, Mike Vespoli, Jane Wood, Pamela Wood, Richard Wood and Tiff Wood.

About the Author

DAVID Halberstam is the author of fourteen books, including his highly praised trilogy on power in America:
The Best and the Brightest, The Powers That Be,
and
The Reckoning.
His previous book on baseball,
Summer of '49,
was a number one
New York Times
hardcover bestseller.
October 1964
is his most recent book. He has won major journalistic awards, including the Pulitzer Prize. He lives in New York City.

Table of Contents

Title Page

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

TEN

ELEVEN

TWELVE

THIRTEEN

FOURTEEN

FIFTEEN

SIXTEEN

SEVENTEEN

EIGHTEEN

NINETEEN

TWENTY

TWENTY-ONE

TWENTY-TWO

TWENTY-THREE

TWENTY-FOUR

TWENTY-FIVE

TWENTY-SIX

TWENTY-SEVEN

TWENTY-EIGHT

TWENTY-NINE

THIRTY

THIRTY-ONE

THIRTY-TWO

THIRTY-THREE

EPILOGUE

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS