This is the second in an AirWaves Series on Youth-to-College-to-Olympic sailing. Enjoy!
Olympic Sailing or College Sailing
(If you have not read the Airwaves piece below this post, you may want to read that one first. This piece by Tufts coach Ken Legler was written in response to Joe Morris’s opening essay on this topic.)
Joe Morris was right. It is nearly impossible to sail in college and compete for an Olympic medal in the same year, or quadrennium for that matter. You can complete college and then do the Olympic campaign but as Joe points out, you need to start your campaign earlier in order to compete with the increased level of professional talent from other nations. Here is a look at the past and potential solution to the problem:
Former college sailors have done incredibly well representing the USA in Olympic Sailing but very rarely while they were in college. If we divide the history of Olympic Sailing into three eras we have 1 – Pre-war (WWII) with elite yachtsman sailing a few keelboats, 2 – Post-war (1948-1992) with amateurs competing in various dinghy and keelboat classes, and 3 – Modern day (1996-present) with professional sailors. Though the US won its share of the precious metal pre-war, we flourished in the amateur era. Our two peaks was 1984 when we medaled in all seven classes (while the Eastern Bloc boycotted our home regatta in Long Beach) and 1992 when we medaled in nine of ten classes in Barcelona. Savannah’96 was a rude awakening with only two bronze for the home team. Pros from other lands took advantage of some US misfortune on what was supposed to be our home waters but, was it really home? Our sailors had no more experience in the waters of Savannah than the well funded teams from abroad. Nor could we out-tack, out-jibe, and most important, out-speed the seasoned pros. We too needed to go pro to compete.
1984 470 Worlds Jib Mark photo by Ken Legler
Our former college sailors have dominated the ISAF Team Racing Worlds but it’s not the same sport. All-American amateurs with full-time jobs willing to train hard can and do win the TR worlds. But what does it take to win an Olympic medal these days and in future Games? What role does college sailing play in helping or hindering our Olympic sailing athletes? Here are some past examples of college dinghy sailors going for gold. I’ll leave keelboats aside as sailors in these classes need not be young and super agile, rather they need be big and cunning. In 1976 Peter Commette did his best international sailing before graduating from Tufts. He won the first Laser Worlds in 1975 and raced the Finn in the ’76 Games before graduating in 1977. He was also an excellent college sailor but not an All-American. He was certainly good enough but lacked the necessary quantity in college regattas while training for the Olympics. Our 470 reps were the even younger Whitehurst bros not sailing in college at all. Along came Olympic sailing for women in the mid-1980’s. Initially 22 teams put a toe in the water at the women’s 470 midwinters. That got whittled down to 14 teams by the trials. 13 had skippers that had been great college sailors, many recent. One did not. Trials winner and Olympic champion Allison Jolly did almost no college sailing for her club level team. To be fair, her crew, Lynne Jewell was an excellent college sailor a few years earlier at BU. In 1996 two recent college-sailors-of-the-year, Tyler Moore (Charleston’94) and Ryan Cox (Navy’95) teamed up in the 470. I asked Josh Adams who was also campaigning a 470 how they looked. They certainly had the current college sailors rooting for them, thinking they must be favorites with those credentials. Josh responded, “Well, they certainly race well…but they have no chance against Morgan (Reeser, 1992 silver).” It was clear racing well isn’t enough. Skip ahead to 2008 where we medaled in two dinghy classes with Zach Railey, not sailing in college, capturing the silver in Finns, and Anna Tunnicliffe, ODU’01 as Olympic champion in Radials. Anna had many things going for her in combination including athleticism, drive, support from others, and a solid background of racing well from her college days. It should be noted that the only college dinghy classes also sailed in the Olympics are the Laser and Radial.
Joe mentioned Stu McNay, who answered interview q’s for sail1design. Academics aside, it seems Stu’s athletic major at Yale was college sailing with a minor in Olympic sailing. After three more years of Olympic training post-college, Stu made it to the Games and did well with two bullets but no medal. Given the climate of modern Olympic sailing, competing against full-time, well-funded professional athletes, what will it take to overtake Britain and other nations as the best in the future? I’m not asking about Stu, who is looking good at the moment ranked second in the World at this juncture, I’m wondering about our more distant future.
College racing has also gotten harder. To make the All-America team these days, a skipper needs to specialize in homogenous college dinghies, and college team racing. Could someone minor in college sailing while majoring in international sailing the way Peter Commette did in the 70’s. The coach wouldn’t like it if his or her star recruit didn’t practice and compete with the team very often. Perhaps we coaches could embrace the idea of having a few of our sailors train for the Olympics while studying as it were a different varsity sport. This will be a tough sell since the model of varsity athletics is to strive to beat the other college teams for ol’ U. Is not pride of excellence enough when compared to garnering college championships and racking up All-Americans? Certainly Yale, Old Dominion, and many other programs take pride in their many Olympians, just as U. Rhode Island takes pride in their international big-boat victories. But still, these international achievements do not help in the rankings, All-America count, or college championships.
Let’s suppose some schools did offer varsity Olympic sailing as a piggy-back to college sailing. What would it look like? How would the two overlap, if at all? Veteran college sailors should at least be able to out-roll tack anybody, or can they? The moment you change to an international class, rule 42 (kinetics, including limits on tacking) changes. The first venue that comes to mind is Yale on the widest part of Long Island Sound. Kings Point, Navy, and Old Dominion also have open water. The Boston schools are seemingly sailing on creeks and puddles but nearby and accessible Boston Harbor is a fine open-water venue where a combined university program could be launched. St. Mary’s need only venture to the mouth of the Potomac for their open water and other programs can also find it not too far away.
I wish such a program existed at my high school alma mater, Tabor Academy. Prep schools l
ike Tabor have a model where all students take a sport all three seasons but always a different sport to help them become well-rounded. If they did though, I can imagine a fantastic sailing experience in the fall. Let’s say they had six Lasers (with Radial rigs too), four 470s, and two matched keelboats. On windy days they could train on Buzzards Bay and on light days they could stay ashore for boat work and physical conditioning. They would not be racing against other schools but inviting sailors from other schools as guest training partners. In the spring they could go back to the 420 team racing which they do so well.
Note: Early on as Tufts coach, Ken was a part-time US Sailing coach for 470s and other classes, 1981-85.
