Cal Men Celebrate 150 Years

A bearded, balding, smiling man appears on screen and says:

“I got a phone call from Steve Gladstone saying that we should have lunch. Coach Gladstone had pretty much taught every athletic body, every sport, from wrestling to football, basketball, baseball.

“Kids had walked on, been taught to row, and he was very honest. He said, ‘I’ve never had a ballet dancer. I want to give it a go.’

“If you do it full measure—no regrets, high energy—and you dedicate every piece that you have to give to this process, rowing will be a part of your life till the day you die.”

With these words, Brandon Shald, University of California, Berkeley, Class of  2009, opens the new rowing movie Owe Them Victory, which celebrates not only 150 years of Cal rowing but also what’s special about rowing in general and important for this rowing program in particular.

As Shald, now an assistant coach at Cal, tells his story over the next couple of minutes, he hooks me. He’s one of those people who are so charismatic you’d follow them anywhere. As Shald traces his journey from awkward Nebraska boy who became a ballet dancer because of his sister to a champion oarsman, it’s impossible not to think, “Yes, I want more of this. Sign me up.”

Jack Gordon, a Cal coxswain who graduated in 2021 and went on to win an Emmy, has made a 28-minute film that does more than recount the extraordinary achievements of Cal rowing over its long and storied history. He also introduces us to a handful of men whose time rowing at Cal changed their lives.

Shald, one of the dynamic characters in this story of how boys become men, admits that, as a coach, “the most stressful part of the job is realizing what this meant to me. Am I doing enough? I think about it a lot.”

He acknowledges that his four coaches were important father figures. He has stepped into that role and embraces it.

No discussion of California crew can be had without mentioning the fierce rivalry with the University of Washington. These two West Coast powerhouses race each other every year in The Dual (often misspelled, understandably, The Duel.)

Initiated in 1903, The Dual is the kind of race that the two schools point to from the first day on the water in the fall.

“The rivalry is incredible because we’re kind of on islands,” Shald says in the movie. “Our major come-together point is the third weekend of April, and we collide. Whoever wins that race is probably going to win the national championship.

“I love it, because the East Coast guys all think they rule the world. But at the end of the day, real speed—real boat speed—is coming from the West. And it will carry on for the next 150. Guaranteed.”

You’ve got to love his confidence. If you’re an East Coast rower, maybe you’re unaware that these guys really believe they’re a level above everyone else. Who doesn’t love that kind of cockiness?

Shald’s easygoing humor belies the intensity of his coaching. You can see why he does the recruiting. Who wouldn’t want to row for him?

Head coach Scott Frandsen also describes his remarkable journey—from a not-really-recruited guy from Canada who spent his first semester sleeping on the floor of the coach’s office to a three-time national champion and three-time Olympian.

“I was told to go home four or five times in my first semester because I was wasting my time and my parents’ money. It’s shaped who I am, and I’m grateful for that adversity.”

He talks about winning only one Olympic medal in three tries.

When you vie for an Olympic medal and just miss, it’s “the greatest disappointment of your life,” Frandsen confesses.

“Being able to manage that disappointment and come back from it teaches a certain amount of persistence and grit. And that’s what I ask of my athletes every single day. If you just win everything and you don’t ever get that ability to learn from the disappointment…”

Frandsen, it’s clear, is teaching his rowers valuable lessons.

As you’d expect, several athletes talk about how rowing at Cal changed their lives.

Ivan Smiljanic ’05, who was recruited by Cal from his native Serbia, says, “I came here 25 years ago. I’m living the American dream, and never left.”

The University of California was founded in 1868, and rowing–its first intercollegiate sport—began in 1875. The film boasts of Cal’s many successes—three Olympic gold medals (1928, 1932, 1948) as a team and a huge number of Olympians as individuals. (There’s pride in the fact that none of those Olympic crews had men who had rowed before arriving in Berkeley.)

In addition, Cal has won the IRA, the acknowledged national championship, 19 times.

Nevertheless, Gordon doesn’t dwell on the school’s competitive record. Instead, the film is mostly about the culture of the team and the family the Golden Bears build—essential elements of  all good rowing programs.

The title, Owe Them Victory, suggests that contemporary crews stand on the shoulders of their predecessors, which is true and why I like it. Wisely, the film gives ample time to Mike Fennelly, the rigger from 1981 to 2016. As anyone who’s spent time in a boathouse knows, the boatman’s role is crucial to creating the culture of the boathouse.

“We are here because of those who went before us,” says Fennelly, the Cal boatman for 35 years, “and we owe them victory.”

It’s a terrific film, more so for not being too long. Let’s face it, we in the rowing world can go on forever when we get to talking about the sport we love.

“I wanted to distill these 150 years into a shorter, watchable bite, a tasty snack, not a four-course meal,” Jack Gordon told me.

He has done that. Have a bite.
andy anderson

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