The starting official raised the flag.
“Ready.”
Silence fell. Even the Riverside crowd went quiet.
“Row.”
Both boats exploded off the line.
For the first twenty strokes, they were even. Blades flashing, water churning white, and the muscles of sixteen guys propelling the thin shells across the water. Our coxwain was yelling like he was trying to inspire a herd of wild animals.
But the coxwain for Riverside, same guy from last year, was more like a magician conjuring a spell, his face stern and focused, words rhythmic and quiet.
Kingswell’s technique was sloppy but the power was there. Completely wrong for a day like this… they were crabbing, their oars weren’t entering the water at the right angle. Some were going to deep and others not enough. The rhythm was off.
But Riverside was moving, their stroke rate climbed faster than ours.
“We’re fucked,” Marcus said.
“I don’t man. Riverside might burn out.”
We continued to watch.
Come on. Come on.
Riverside didn’t burn out.
At the five-hundred-meter mark, Riverside pulled ahead by half a length. Their coxswain’s voice intensified and carried across the water—sharp, relentless—those boys were under his spell.
The Kingswell boat stuttered, our bow four kept washing out in the chop, and the gap widened.
“Come on,” someone muttered behind me. “Tighten it up.”
They didn’t tighten it up.
By the thousand-meter mark, Riverside had pulled two seats ahead. By fifteen hundred, it was three seats. They were locked in.
Meanwhile, Kingswell’s boat was falling apart.
I could see it happening in real time and our freshman coxswain’s voice went shrill, screaming at them to pull harder, faster, tighter.
“That’s not the way to do it,” I said.
You don’t yell louder when a boat’s breaking. You bring them back. You reset. You find the rhythm again.
Five seats ahead now.
“It’s fucking over,” Marcus said, his voice flat.
Collins shook his head, eyes locked on the Riverside boat. “It’s their coxswain.”
“What about him?”
“How’d he pull them together like that in one week?” Collins’s voice carried something I didn’t expect—respect. “Fucking crazy.”
By the time they crossed the finish line, Riverside had won by seven seats.
The Riverside bleachers erupted. Air horns, screaming, students rushing the dock to mob their freshmen as they paddled in. The energy was electric, chaotic, alive. Meanwhile, Kingswell’s boat drifted toward our dock in silence, heads down, blades dragging.
