Aberdeen Dad Vail ® Regatta - The Dad Vail Loop; College of Charleston Comes Full Circle On The Schuylkill

The Dad Vail Loop;
College of Charleston Comes Full Circle On The Schuylkill

These last 250 meters, Travis Landrith decided, would have to be traveled on foot.

The abandoned bike tumbled on the Kelly Drive pavement. Now running, bobbing and weaving his head to peek between spectators, the magnitude of the moment swelled inside Landrith's mind.

My God, we might medal at the Dad Vail Regatta.

Seven hundred and fifty meters earlier, the College of Charleston head coach thought his Cougars were as good as dead. His men's lightweight four wallowed in fifth place. Landrith continued on, though, pushing each bike pedal as the lightweight four pulled each oar.

By the 500-meter mark, he blinked twice and noticed the Charleston boat had made a surge.

"They came out of nowhere and were shot out of a cannon," he now remembers. "It was probably one of the most incredible experiences I've ever had. I couldn't believe it."

Thus, Landrith ditched the wheels and went on foot for the final 250 meters. Dodging spectators and obstacles, he reached the Schuylkill River grandstands just in time to see it — the crowning achievement of Charleston's 21-year-old crew program — a second-place finish at the Dad Vail Regatta.

Landrith, a 1997 College of Charleston graduate and a member of the program's first boat to compete at the Vails, was awash with disbelief.

"The pinnacle of my career was just rowing at Dad Vail," he says. "The goal was just to go there. (Winning a medal) is something I honestly never thought I'd see. It was absolutely unspeakable."

For numerous Dad Vail teams, a simple second-place finish would have been just that — simple. But for Landrith, the significance of a Dad Vail silver medal was all-encompassing. He shuffled down the grandstand steps and hopped onto the awards dock. With the boat pulling in, his excitement breached the riverbank as he belted, "You know what, the last time I was out there I had to float on back down the river. You guys got to turn the bow around and come back!"

It wasn't too along ago when Landrith and teammate Chris Gaffney slipped back down the Schuylkill as their opponents turned their bows. In 1996, the duo turned in a solid fifth-place finish at Dad Vail despite having never raced in the men's pair. In retrospect, that weekend represented so much more than two guys finishing fifth.

The 1996 Dad Vail introduced Landrith and the College of Charleston to America's largest collegiate regatta. He still recalls tiny details like tales from a recently read book. He waxes poetic describing Charleston's crew as a team born in 1989, fathered by a microbiology professor, that had a whimsical dream of one day pulling its trailer up to the banks of the Schuylkill. Landrith says the team's inaugural members would describe the Vails as being "as close as you're going to get to rowing for a national championship."

When Landrith and Gaffney finally reached the Promised Land in '96, it was indeed a religious experience. Landrith remembers catching his first glimpse of an illuminated Boathouse Row and then shuttling past miles of trailers lining Kelly Drive. The size and scope of Dad Vail came into focus.

"I vividly remember turning to Chris and saying, 'Man, I don't think we deserve to be here,'" he now recalls. "It was really the most incredible thing I'd ever seen. It was really a world we had never been exposed to and never experienced. Of all the things we'd done and all the experiences we had, we found everything we were searching for in Philadelphia."

The fact remained, however, that the pair from Charleston didn't have a boat and never rowed as a pair. First things first, the crew from American University allowed Landrith and Gaffney to borrow a shell for the weekend. Then a friend of Landrith who rowed out of Philadelphia's Vesper Boat Club gained permission to allow them to row out of the boathouse.

The day before heats, in a sequence of events emblematic of the Philadelphia rowing scene, a Boathouse Row old-timer caught wind that two rowers from Charleston were preparing to compete despite having never rowed in a pair. The veteran, whose name Landrith can't recall all these years later, found the Charleston boys at Vesper. He burst into a lesson about maneuvering the Schuylkill and the intricacies of rowing the pair. Then, after 15 minutes, he was gone.

The following day, Landrith and Gaffney finished second in their heat and advanced to Saturday's semifinals. A third-place finish there propelled them to a fifth-place finish in the finals. Not bad, not bad at all.

From that weekend forward, "Dad Vail was imbedded in my mind," Landrith says.

After graduating in 1997, Landrith went on to coach high school crew, then Georgia State University, then the Atlanta Rowing Club. In 2008 he received a phone call from fellow Charleston crew alumni imploring him to return to his old program. He jumped at the opportunity.

Charleston had sent a few boats to the Vails after Landrith departed in '97 but the upward momentum had letup. The program languished like a ghost ship. Upon returning, his goal was simply described, but burdensome and complicated to execute: Grow the program's membership and bring the entire team to the Vails.

Three years later, Charleston crew grew from 15 participants to over 50 and plenty of maroon and black could be seen on the Schuylkill at the 2010 Aberdeen Dad Vail.

"Before Travis came around, Dad Vail was basically an excuse to go visit Philadelphia," says Charleston senior Matt Hill, who was in the three seat in last year's lightweight four. "There's a very different feeling and culture now."

That culture culminated in Charleston's silver-medal performance. This year, gold will be the goal. The Cougars' lightweight four will return to Philadelphia intact, with first seat B.P. Perrin, second seat Brandon Zoellner and stroke seat
Sam Dickey joining Hill. Only coxswain Anneke Wilder has departed.

"We knew what last year meant to Travis and the program as a whole and we knew that we made history for the college," says Hill. "It was a huge step in the right direction. ... As we look back on our silver medals now, though, there's kind of a bitter taste is our mouths. We want that gold more than anything this year. That's our focus, more than anything else."

As for Landrith, the focus has always been on the Aberdeen Dad Vail. Since his shell disappeared under the Columbia Ave. Railroad Bridge back in 1996, the Vails have left an indelible mark. But just like the Charleston lightweight four looped its bow around to the awards dock last year, Landrith's story has looped around and come full circle, too.

"I had the unique opportunity of being in the first men's boat from our school to row at the Dad Vail, and 14 years later, I had the unique opportunity of hanging our schools first Dad Vail medals around the necks of five incredible athletes," he says. "It was an incredible experience."

It was an Aberdeen Dad Vail experience.

Brendan F. Quinn
Editorial Writer
Dad Vail Regatta Organizing Committee
DVROC Office Line: (610) 234-2076
brendan.quinn@dadvail.org.
www.dadvail.org
www.twitter.com/DadVaildotTV

About the Aberdeen Dad Vail Regatta, Presented by Coca-Cola®
The Aberdeen Dad Vail Regatta presented by Coca-Cola is the largest collegiate regatta in North America with over 100 colleges and universities from the United States and Canada. Held annually since 1953 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on the Schuylkill River, thousands of student athletes and spectators visit the City of Philadelphia during the weekend of the second Saturday in May.

About Title Sponsor — Aberdeen Asset Management
Aberdeen Asset Management Inc is the wholly-owned U.S. subsidiary of Aberdeen Asset Management PLC, a global investment management group which is headquartered in Aberdeen, Scotland, and manages more than $287 billion of assets for both institutions and private individuals (as of Dec. 31, 2010). Philadelphia is home to the U.S. equity and fixed income investment management teams, as well as U.S. client servicing, consultant relations, business development and other operational staff: more than 180 employees in total. Aberdeen manages and services approximately $53 billion in total assets on behalf of North American and international clients. For more information, visit www.aberdeen-asset.us Here in the U.S., Aberdeen is also proud to be one of the supporters of the British Garden at Hanover Square, New York. This New York City park celebrates historic ties of friendship and unity between the U.S. and the UK. Globally, Aberdeen has a long standing association with university rowing competitions having sponsored the Oxford v Cambridge University Boat Race in the UK from 1999 – 2005. The company also continues to support the Aberdeen Universities Boat Race in Aberdeen, Scotland in their annual event which takes place every February.

About Presenting Sponsor — The Coca-Cola Company
The Coca-Cola Company (NYSE: KO) is the world's largest beverage company, refreshing consumers with more than 500 sparkling and still brands. Together with Coca-Cola, recognized as the world's most valuable brand, the Company's portfolio includes 14 billion dollar brands, including Diet Coke, Fanta, Sprite, Coca-Cola Zero, vitaminwater, Powerade, Minute Maid, Simply and Georgia Coffee. Globally, we are the No. 1 provider of sparkling beverages, juices and juice drinks and ready-to-drink teas and coffees. Through the world's largest beverage distribution system, consumers in more than 200 countries enjoy the Company's beverages at a rate of 1.6 billion servings a day. With an enduring commitment to building sustainable communities, our Company is focused on initiatives that protect the environment, conserve resources and enhance the economic development of the communities where we operate. For more information about our Company, please visit our website at http://www.thecoca-colacompany.com.

To download this story in PDF: 2011_Aberdeen_Dad_Vail_Feature_5_Charleston_Crew.pdf

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