Course Correction by Ginny Gilder

Author:Ginny Gilder
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780807074787
Publisher: Beacon Press
Published: 2015-02-18T05:00:00+00:00

10

My Yale racing career was over. My four years of eligibility had expired, even though I had one more term of college to complete. I no longer had the cover of college sports to obscure my training for the Olympics. I had no proof of progress with which to console or inspire myself. The real world of college graduation and employment beckoned. Time was running out on my dream of greatness.

Four years as a solidly successful varsity athlete on a superior college crew made no ripple in my thinking. Three years of rejection from three different National Team coaches, however, reverberated. Three hard-thrown, hard-to-ignore punches in the stomach: not good enough, not good enough, not good enough.

I couldn’t get anyone to want me. I had convinced no one to take a risk on me. No one had discerned any flicker of something special to invest in and build on. I wasn’t worth a leap of faith.

Yet, I couldn’t stop myself. Last chance, last chance. The longing would not die quietly. The 1980 Olympics hovered on my horizon.

I started my final term in the autumn of 1979. All the varsity rowers from my senior class, now college graduates, chose to train in New Haven one last time for a shot at the Olympics. Sally Fisher, Elaine Mathies, and Cathy Pew rejoined Mary O’Connor, who had made Kris Korzeniowski’s US team along with Bouche. Having successfully stroked our collegiate crew to a National Championship, Mary stroked the US eight and, sure enough, Bouche was sidelined as a spare. The eight won a bronze in Bled and returned home with visions of gold.

But Mary brought home more than her medal and a newfound confidence. “You really impressed Kris, Ginny,” she told me one day at the Yale gym. “He thought you were really feisty. You should keep training.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, you could make it. He loves spirited rowers.”

What? I was shocked to learn that my bailing-out of the erg test he had offered hadn’t torched my credibility. I didn’t flunk that test of character after all.

My father thought it was ridiculous. Three strikes and you’re out, as far as he was concerned. “It’s time to grow up and enter the adult world,” he said. “You’ll be graduating in December. What about finding a job?”

“Dad, you don’t understand! I want to make the National Team. I came so close last time.”

“You’ve tried out three years in a row. The market’s trying to tell you something. You’re just not good enough.” My father could read the writing on the wall, even if I wouldn’t.

He’d been a good supporter for four years. Yes, he had jazzed me about rowing, applying his trademark teasing to test and toughen me, but he’d made his share of trips to Derby to stand on the dock and witness the last snippet of many victories. He’d taken my phone calls and listened to my reports of team victories and private failures. He had followed my story closely, but now he was ready to turn the page and move on.

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