The Boys in the Temple Boat

If you love rowing, then you have heard of and probably read, The Boys in the Boat, Daniel James Brown's award-winning nonfiction book on the University of Washington's 1936 crew and its quest for Olympic Gold.

The book tells the tale of how the Huskies' boat became so successful and the individual stories of the nine young men who made up that historic eight.

Fans following Temple Crew and its season know that the Owls have made history of their own in 2021. The Varsity Eight is currently undefeated heading into the IRA National Championships. The team has been ranked as high as eighth nationally during the season and currently sits at 12th in the polls.

Overall, the team did something that had never been accomplished in 50-plus years of the program, win the men's points trophy at the Dad Vail Regatta.

So, how did this happen? How did this success come to be, especially during a global pandemic that impacted not just sport, but life itself? To find the answer, a deep dive is needed into this group of young men that comprise the Owls' eight.

THE TEMPLE BOYS

Head coach Brian Perkins, a former Temple rower ('92), has seen fast boats before. His Owls won the Dad Vail Regatta Varsity Eight in 2018, his second year at the helm. A former team captain under Hall of Fame Owl Coach Dr. Gavin White, Jr., Perkins also earned two golds himself during his four years as an undergraduate.

"I thought in 2020 we had a boat that was fast enough to win the Dad Vails. I thought very strongly about that and when the season ended on March 12, we had 16 seniors and 10 of them just had to move on," said Perkins recalling the abrupt end to last season due to Covid. "So, we had six guys come back as fifth-years and that was very helpful. The NCAA exception allowed a couple of guys who were coming to grad school at Temple to jump on our team and it provided a nice outside spark, a little firepower. (The boat) definitely came together in a weird way, but we have good guys and they really jelled together against all odds."

Only two rowers that competed in the 2019 Dad Vail Regatta are part of this season's championship boat, fifth-year seniors William Hooper and Mattison Sicko.

"It was more of teamwide thing earlier on because this boat (V8) was not in this lineup until shortly before racing in the spring," said Sicko, like Hooper in his third year on Temple's top eight. "A lot of mixed boats in the fall and obviously no lineups in the winter. In the spring, it was figuring out lineups until we got to where we are now. We were not in this lineup long before we started racing."

Besides the two returning veterans, two graduate transfers, Thomas Bischoff and Matt Blaszczyk, made their way into the boat. Blaszczyk, who previously had rowed at Marist, was coming to Temple to go to school for podiatry. When it was announced that all 2020 spring sport student-athletes were awarded an additional year of eligibility due to the pandemic, he contacted Perkins to see if he could join the team. It may have been the easiest decision the Owls coach ever had to make given that his new "recruit" was already accepted to the United States U23 team.

Bischoff, a transfer from perennial national contender Yale, was a different story. He was looking for a home as the Ivy League was not permitting fifth-year students to compete. One of his priorities was finding a home where he did not have to race against his former team much, if at all. Temple was a natural as the Owls rarely compete against Yale, but ironically the teams met during Bischoff's time there with his boat literally crashing into a Temple eight at the 2018 Princeton Chase. Something he laughs about – as do his Temple teammates – now.

Add two seniors, Lasse Grimmer and Jacob Bucko, into the boat and you get to realize how much experience the boat truly possessed heading into the year. Grimmer, who is the team's senior captain, was referred to Perkins through a recruiting service. The U23 German National Team member fell in love with the team, especially the guys, and despite what Perkins calls the worst cheesesteak lunch he had on his first visit to Philly, he decided to attend Temple.

A dark horse to make the Varsity Eight this year, Bucko also had an unusual arrival at Temple. The Philadelphia native, who had been in contact with the coaching staff, just arrived in the erg room in January 2018 and said, "I am here!" The unique mid-year enrollee never looked back during his four-year career and worked his way onto the V8 as its two-seat.

The final members of the Dad Vail champion boat are sophomores, Summit Gillespie, Adam Oliver and Kenneth Raynor. Gillespie, who was recruited as a coxswain for the lightweight eight, made the leap to the Temple Varsity Eight after spring break in 2020. Oliver, a native of Wokingham, U.K. met assistant coach Fergal Berry on a recruiting trip to the Henley Royal Regatta and decided to attend Temple. A native of Zimbabwe, Raynor came to American with plans to row for Princeton. Unfortunately, that did not work out, but Perkins and Berry met him while he was working a Princeton camp and convinced him to make Temple home.

WHEN DID YOU REALIZE HOW SPECIAL THIS BOAT WOULD BE?

This very special Temple Varsity Eight did not materialize overnight, but came together with the right make up, perseverance, and hard work. It was a total team effort.   It just took some time for the young men in the boat to realize exactly what they had.

"Everyone knew there was potential from the start of the season," said Bischoff. "Everyone was working hard, improving in terms of fitness and rowing. So, we knew there was potential it was more a matter of materializing that from the fall and the winter and staying on it through those dead months where it really can be hard to motivate sometimes. I think that is where it all came together."

"I realized how special this boat could be when we were putting up some of the margins (of victory) on other teams that we might not have typically put up," added Hooper.  "That took me by surprise. Not only were we winning, but we were winning by wide margins and lengths of open water to a degree of which you would see the top boats in the country winning by. That is kind of when it dawned on me that we have the skill and ability to compete with all of the teams in the country."

"We were able to tell it was special when we realized how much experience we had and how we were just able to row together. We went into our first race knowing we were fast and I think it went from there," concurred Bucko.

For Perkins, he knew early on the potential he had, it was just a matter of maximizing it.

"I knew on paper last summer," said the Owls' coach. "Everything is theoretical, though. When you have guys like Matt Blaszczyk, who came to us from Marist College and learned to row there, and Tom Bischoff, who came to us from Yale. He was a prep school guy from North Jersey. These are very different styles we had to pull together. So, pulling all these styles together it is not a guarantee of success. But we had the firepower and I thought we had the personalities to make this happen."

THE RACING ROAD TO IRAs

On April 3, the Owls finally took the river for the first time since October 2019 when the program hosted the Murphy Cup on the Schuylkill River. Normally a regatta that has a field of 30-plus teams, the 2021 version was comprised of just Philadelphia-based crews.

The Owls won by open water over its main rival, Drexel, defeating the Dragons by eight seconds. Penn was a close third followed by La Salle.

It was off to California next as Perkins, knowing he had a fast crew, wanted to bring his top two boats to San Diego. It was a successful trip as Temple defeated two nationally-regarded crews – San Diego and UC San Diego.

A week later, it was back on the Schuylkill to compete in the Kerr Cup. Temple won both of its heats, including its first win over Penn in 20 years, to continue its hot start. These wins would propel the Owls to No. 8 in the nation in the first national poll released the following week.

The Owls put their well-earned national ranking to the test a week later as the Varsity Eight traveled to Bergen County to race No. 16 Holy Cross on Overpeck Lake. Marist was supposed to compete in the race but was a late scratch due to Covid issues within its program. Temple easily dispatched the Crusaders with the crew demonstrating blazing speed in a 16-second win.

In their final tune-up before the Vails, the Owls Varsity Eight competed in the Bergen Cup, the City Championship race. Temple kept its win streak intact, unifying the Murphy, Kerr and Bergen Cups with a 2.9 second win over Drexel. It marked the sixth straight win for the crew which appeared to be gaining speed and confidence with each race.

Then it was time for the big race of the year for Temple and the Philadelphia rowing community – the Jefferson Dad Vail Regatta. Temple, which entered race day with a record 21 varsity eight titles at the prestigious regatta, was the favorite, but Drexel would clearly present a challenge as would 12^th-ranked George Washington.

The Owls were able to fight off GW and Drexel in the most tightly contested race of the season, edging the Colonials by a mere 1.09 seconds for the win.

"There was never a time I was not confident in the boat that we could win," said Gillespie. "At Dad Vails, three quarters of the way through the race when we were still sitting with the other boats… I was still confident that we had it in the bag. I knew the guys. I knew what needed to be done and knew we were going to win this."
Grimmer credited his young coxswain on his composure in the team's biggest win of the year.

"Something that was really helpful was that Summit took control of all of our practices and, because of that, all eight of us really grew to trust him and respect his position," said the Temple stroke. "So even in the races like the Dad Vail final, when we weren't where we wanted to be because there were issues on the course, Summit was composed. He made sure we were all collected and because of that I was never worried. I knew that if Summit was relaxed, we had it in the bag. I think that is a testament to how he has grown as a coxswain over the season and how he took control of the entire boat and made it his."

LOVE FOR THE BOAT

With the team adding a race against nationally regarded Marist the following Sunday, an unexpected change happened to the Owls Varsity Eight. Grimmer, the team's captain, had to remove himself from competition for the remainder of the season due to a medical condition.   It was a decision he did not make lightly.

It happened on very short notice and after a quick tryout by Perkins and his staff, freshman Adam Love was inserted into the undefeated boat.

"The main factor for me to make that decision was that I did not want to end eight other people's season at the IRAs," explained Grimmer. "Ending my season prematurely is better than ending eight other guys seasons. It was a very tough decision for me to make, but I think with Adam Love we have a really good guy coming into the boat."

"Lasse has had a previously diagnosed condition that flared up again, so we lost him the day before the Marist race," said Perkins. "We had an audition and we ultimately went with a guy whose speed seemed a little more sustainable and his body type matched the guys in the boat, meaning he was very tall and lanky. He is also very competitive. It checked off a lot of boxes for us and he is coming along. They are big shoes to fill but I think we are getting there. I think we have regained some speed."

For Love, it was big shoes to fill, and big pressure being the new guy – and only freshman – on this highly successful boat.

"I was extremely nervous the first day or two that I was in the boat, but I knew I just had to match (speed) as well as I could and just not slow the boat down as best as I could," said Love.

"I remember texting him on Saturday night," recalls Gillespie. "I was just trying to get him to relax his nerves a little bit. I could tell he was a little nervous and it was a big role to fill. He definitely stepped up to the plate and did an amazing job. He earned that seat."

With Blaszczyk, the Marist transfer, replacing Grimmer in the stroke seat and Love taking the six-seat in the shell, the Owls easily handled the Red Foxes, defeating the visitors by 10 seconds on the Schuylkill.

All that was left now was preparation for the National Championship.

THE END IS NEAR
There is one race ahead for this undefeated boat – the 2021 IRA Championship on Mercer Lake in Princeton Junction, N.J. There, the Owls will be tested by powerhouse crews like California and Washington, as well as the elite crews of the Ivy League.

Temple has had many champion crews enter the IRAs with the program's best finish being two fifth place showings in 1996 and 2000.

So, if the Owls cannot pull off a miracle and upset the powers that be, what constitutes success in this race?

"Winning and losing is something we cannot control," said Perkins. "We have to have our best piece in the afternoon on Saturday, May 29. The guys have a goal of making it to the grand final. I believe if they can make the grand final through a nice time trial and semifinal race, they have an opportunity. They are 2000 meters away from putting their bow ahead of a couple other crews and if we do that, we can finish fourth, maybe medal."

In the end, it will not matter what place this boat finishes on Saturday. It has already made its mark in the history of Temple Crew. And it did so during the toughest year for all of sports.

"These guys are a unique crew," said the coach in closing. "We ask a lot of our student-athletes here at Temple Crew. It is not easy to be a Temple Crew guy. You must make a lot of sacrifices. A lot of what makes college life fun you must put aside. This year they were asked to make all those sacrifices plus the masks, the washing hands, the social distancing, all the extra sacrifices that came with this pandemic.

So, I am really proud of this team. The Varsity Eight is very fast, but this speed does not happen in a vacuum. The freshmen are very fast, the 2V and 3V have done a great job. The lightweights still competing and medaling at the Vails. This was a very good Temple team that helped me produce the fastest Varsity 8 I have ever had."

Temple University Athletics

The Boys in the Temple Boat

Players Mentioned

Thomas Bischoff

Matt Blaszczyk

Jacob Bucko

Summit Gillespie

Lasse Grimmer

William Hooper

Adam Love

Adam Oliver

Kenneth Raynor

Mattison Sicko

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