Feature Story

2008 TPA Better Newspaper Contest

First Place D7

Westlake Picayune

Gently down the stream

Carie Graves has pioneered a new path in the world of rowing

By Laura Hensky

Carie Graves offers a sturdy handshake — one that you can feel power behind. Her fingers are thick and her palms broad.

They are the hands of a rower — ones that have pulled oar blades across dozens of rivers and lakes around the world, ones that have been riddled with blisters earned from hours of backbreaking practices aboard slim rowing shells.

They also are the same hands that have clenched gold medals after being slipped around her neck.

Taller than 6-feet, Graves is a commanding figure. Just by looking at her, you can tell she was born to be an athlete. Even at 54, her athleticism and strength is apparent.

Growing up in the 1960s, Graves heard that girls weren't supposed to participate in rough-and-tumble sports.

But Graves, a stubborn farm girl from Wisconsin, disproved all of that and became a legend in the physically demanding, typically male-dominated sport of rowing.

Now, as the head coach for the University of Texas rowing team, the West Lake Hills resident and pioneer of the sport leads the next generation of young female rowers.

The three-time U.S. Olympic rower and a 1984 Olympic gold medalist first began rowing at a time when women were emerging as athletic equals to men, mostly thanks to Title IX legislation that required schools to provide equal funding to both men's and women's athletics.

Today, Graves looks back at that time in her life fondly but is humble about her role in sports history.

"It's like history is being revisited," she said. "Now in our early 50s, (the women of that time period) have more time to ponder things. Yeah, we had to use men's equipment, and we didn't have showers. But I can't remember being angry about it. I loved (rowing). It was something I found, and it was so wonderful. All the other problems we had were problems that could be dealt with."

Girl in a man's sport

Graves grew up in the middle of dairy country - Spring Green, Wis.

On the farm, Graves was a tomboy who often did chores and bailed hay alongside hired men, matching the men's work and sometimes silently competing with them as they bailed hay or hauled grain.

She didn't quite realize that her strength and farm-girl work ethic would one day help make her a champion.

"I was a kid," she said. "I didn't know I had that in me. I was never an athlete because there never was an opportunity for me as a young woman. At 6-1, a girl would have those opportunities now."

It was the '60s, and girls weren't supposed to play rough sports. Like other girls her age, Graves was relegated to more refined pursuits like ballet dancing and figure skating and only watched from the sidelines as her brothers and father rowed.

Rowing was a man's sport, Graves said.

"(Rowing) was part of my early childhood," she said. "But female rowers were highly unusual."

Her father, Robert, was a championship rower and captain of the University of Wisconsin varsity rowing crew that competed in the national championships in 1956.

Her brother, Ross, also rowed for the University of Wisconsin and eventually urged her to join the fledgling women's varsity crew.

Before discovering rowing for herself, Graves began classes at the University of Wisconsin but soon became dissatisfied with academia.

She took time off from school, sold Christmas trees, worked at a Dunkin' Donuts and backpacked around Europe for a summer.

But that too became daunting. At 21, she returned home.

Encouraged by her brother's descriptions of rowing and a little prodding from her father, Graves went out for Wisconsin's women's team. Her life changed forever.

"It sounded like so much fun — all that work," she said. "I really had to test myself."

Breaking barriers

Graves quickly emerged as one of the most powerful and determined rowers on the team. She was placed at the stroke position on the boat — a role that is considered the heart of an eight-person team and that sets the pace of the boat.

In 1975, the underdog Wisconsin team won the collegiate championship — a first for the school.

"We earned our way — physically and financially," Graves said of rowing in college. "It was very special. We worked very, very hard. We started from the ground up and built it."

After the Wisconsin team proved themselves on a collegiate level, many on the team, including Graves, were asked to join the U.S. National Team.

Graves was the lead rower on the legendary Red Rose Crew — the nickname of the first U.S. national women's rowing team that won a silver medal at the world championships in 1975.

The team got the moniker after they raced with red roses tied to their shoelaces.

Every five years, Graves reunites with some of those same members of her crew to compete at various masters level competitions.

Graves eventually spent 11 years as a competitive rower and participated on five US. National Teams and three U.S. Olympic rowing teams: 1976, 1980 when the U.S. boycotted the Moscow Olympics, and 1984, when she and her team won a gold medal in the women's eight rowing event.

Graves remembers the exact moment when she heard that women's rowing would be offered as an Olympic event in 1976.

It was a chilly day, slushy and cold, and Graves had only one thing on her mind.

"I remember knowing I was going to be on the Olympic team," she said. "I was absolutely certain."

Graves admits now that the year she won gold at the Olympics, she was proud of the achievement but a little disappointed in the overall experience.

She was the only remaining original team member and the oldest on the team.

"I never felt connected with the other team," she said. "(Winning gold) was great. I did it. That was my goal. But I wasn't sharing it with the people who had helped me get there. That made it feel a little hollow."

After winning gold, Graves went on to become a coach in an effort to help grow the sport and to help other young rowers gain the same camaraderie and support she experienced as a member of a close crew.

Graves was head women's coach at Harvard University/Radcliffe from 1977 to 1983. She then spent 10 years as head coach of women's rowing at Northeastern University in Boston and became the head coach at the University of Texas in 1998 the inaugural year of varsity rowing at the school.

In eight seasons, she has helped build UT’s rowing program from the ground up and established a team that each year is considered among the best in the nation.

The team has made three trips to the NCAA championships in the last five years.

"We have a really great team," Graves said. 'They are fighters. They are a team. It's wonderful to watch that. That's why I like to coach. You get to watch that develop."

The team finished its fall rowing season in November. They are in off-season practice until Feb. 9 when they will return to the water for the winter regatta, the Fighting Nutria on Lady Bird Lake.

The team consists of about 87 women divided into varsity and novice groups with 20 full scholarships offered.

About half of the team members are walk-ons. Many didn't even row before joining the team but probably played volleyball or basketball in high school.

"It helps to be fit," she said about good rowers. "It helps to be tall. It's really one of the hardest sports. They are one, working as a team. If someone screws up, that's it.

There aren't any stars. It's a real team sport."

As a coach, Graves has delighted in seeing her former rowers go on to become doctors, lawyers and teachers. Some have become coaches themselves.

UT's assistant rowing coach, Melissa Perrone, rowed under Graves for Northeastern.

Now the two coach along side each other at UT.

"She inspired me," Perrone said about Graves. "She helped me understand this power you have to challenge yourself and how to overcome obstacles."

After a recent practice, Perrone and Graves hung around UT's boathouse situated next to Lady Bird Lake. The two worked out on stationary bikes and chatted about their beloved sport. Perrone retelling one her favorite stories about coach — recalling a time when Graves rowed during a competition on the Nile River in Egypt and onlookers threw stones at them.

"Thank God you exist, or otherwise wouldn't have the opportunity to row," Perrone told her former coach.

A generation of female rowers would likely echo those words.