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Greensboro native takes the river less traveled

Sunday, October 7, 2007

(Updated Saturday, July 19, 2008 - 10:55 pm)

By Jim Young
Staff Writer

The Wall Street Journal, Title IX, a tall father, a broken nose and a world championship gold medal.

Don't see how these are connected? Don't worry. You would need some sort of psychic powers to have anticipated the role the first four things would play before Caroline Lind earned the last item.

The 24-year-old Greensboro native has taken the road -- or is it the river? -- less traveled to the place she occupies now: a two-time world champion in rowing with a good chance to claim gold in the 2008 Olympic Games.

"I think everyone has an unusual story of how they got into rowing," said Caryn Davies, Lind's teammate on the U.S. national team. "It's kind of an unusual sport."

We'll start Lind's unusual story from the beginning, but keep in mind there is one other element -- the most important one -- that explains how Lind has become one of the best in the world at her sport.

Caroline Lind.

'Can I row?'

It seemed like a strange and personal question, unless you understand college rowing.

When Fred and Mary Lind were visiting their oldest daughter, Mary Laura, during her freshman year at Yale, they were approached by Will Porter, an assistant coach for the Yale women's crew team.

"Is your daughter big like him?" Porter asked while pointing at Fred Lind, who is 6-feet-7 and played basketball at Duke.

"No," replied Mary Lind, "but my younger daughter is."

That was Caroline, who was a 5-foot-11 sophomore at Page High School at the time and was well on the way to reaching her current size of 6 feet, 185 pounds.

It was an interesting revelation for Mary Lind: A college coach was looking for potential team members based on the size of the father. Later, she got an explanation for this unusual tactic when she read an article in The Wall Street Journal.

The piece was about Title IX and the effect it was having on women's college athletics. In the effort to balance sports opportunities for female and male undergraduates, schools were starting sports such as women's crew. The only problem was finding enough women who knew how to row. Thus the search for women who, even if they lacked experience, had the physiological attributes to become competitive rowers -- such as being tall.

Mary Lind is a professor of business administration at N.C. A&T. Fred Lind, a public defender in Greensboro, is a Duke graduate. Mary Laura Lind just finished her Ph.D. at Cal Tech. A college education clearly is important to the Linds. So when Mary Lind read that Wall Street Journal story, she saw an opportunity for Caroline.

"Anything that will help you get into college, we've got to take a look at it," Mary Lind told her daughter.

The first step was going to a rowing camp at North Carolina the summer after Caroline's sophomore year at Page and before she started attending Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass., a prep school that offers women's crew.

Caroline had fun at the rowing camp and enjoyed her new sport, but the friends she made on the Phillips basketball team talked her into going out for softball instead. Rowing was pushed aside until fate, in the form of a plummeting softball, intervened.

When Lind caught a fly ball with her face instead of her glove, she suffered a broken nose. A doctor told her that contact sports were out for the near future.

"Can I row?" she asked.

"Sure," the doctor replied.

Thus began a rowing career with an arc that was really more like a line pointed straight up. It took Lind to Princeton -- thank you, Wall Street Journal -- but what had been the original goal was really just a starting point.

"It was great that happened," Lind said of her broken nose. "I started rowing, and three months later I was on the junior national team."

Take a moment and read that sentence again: I started rowing, and three months later I was on the junior national team.

"That's the way it kind of goes if you've got talent," said Tom Terhaar, the coach of the U.S. women's national team. "You're just better than other people right away."

This is the part where fate takes a back seat and Caroline Lind takes over.

'What was I doing?'

Despite how quickly it happened -- Lind almost made the U.S. Olympic team in 2004 when she was 20 and not yet a junior at Princeton -- she doesn't see herself as a natural at the sport.

"I look back at pictures from the (junior) national team and I'm like, 'What was I doing?' " Lind said. "I can tell that I'm a novice rower."

Raw power got Lind noticed in the early days by the higher-ups in U.S. Rowing, the sport's national governing body, and that power got her those initial opportunities.

But Lind grasped each of those chances because of her mental makeup.

"She's definitely one of the most mature athletes that I've ever worked with," Terhaar said. "As far as, 'What do I need to do? What do I need to be better? What do I need to do to win?' "

For Lind, the answers were twofold. One, she needed to get more technically proficient with her stroke. Two, she needed to improve her endurance and pacing. Going all-out from the start and burying opponents early had worked in college. That wouldn't cut it in international competition.

Fast-forward to the present. The women's eight final Sept. 2 at the world championships in Munich was a textbook example of patience, pacing and endurance. Locked in a tight race with its nemesis, Romania, the United States picked up the pace in the final 500 meters of the two-kilometer race and grabbed the gold.

Lind played a critical role in the No. 7 seat in the boat, one of the most technically demanding positions. She helps back up the rhythm set by the stroke (the No. 8 seat) and helps transfer that rhythm to the remaining six rowers.

"It's just so important to have a seven seat who is able to follow me exactly and pick up what I'm doing," said Davies, who rows stroke for the women's eight boat. "(Lind) can almost anticipate what I want out of the boat."

'a Special Young Woman'

Lind is a vital part of a boat that just won a world championship, but she doesn't consider herself a lock for the Beijing Games. As the team trains, it's also in a constant state of internal competition, with rowers jockeying to be among the eight who get to sit in the boat when the races begin. There are still 10 months of challenges that Lind needs to fend off.

"You could make it one year and then not make it the next," Lind said. "I really feel like at this level I have to be on my game all the time."

Maybe she's just telling herself that to maintain a mental edge during training. Or maybe that's just Lind being, well, Lind.

"I love that she's still humble even though, in my mind, she's one of the top rowers on the team," Davies said.

Given how far Lind has come in seven years in the sport, keeping that sort of perspective is a feat as impressive as the ones she already has accomplished on the water.

"She's definitely a special young woman," Terhaar said.

You don't need to have psychic powers to figure that out.

Contact Jim Young at 373-7016 or jyoung@news-record.com

Accompanying Photos

Tom Sperduto (News & Record)

Photo Caption: Greensboro native takes the river less traveled

CAROLINE LIND BIO
Age: 24. Height/weight: 6 feet/185 pounds
Residence: Princeton, N.J.
Greensboro connection: Grew up here and attended local schools through sophomore year at Page
Education: Princeton University, 2006
Family: Parents, Mary (professor of business administration at N.C. A&T) and Fred (public defender and former Duke basketball player, 1967-69); older sister, Mary Laura.
Rowing accomplishments: Gold medalist in women's eight at 2006 and 2007 world championships; gold medalist in four and eight at 2007 national championships; won women's eight at 2006 NCAA championships with Princeton.
Daily training schedule
7-8 a.m. -- Practice
8-9:30 a.m. -- Break
9:30-11:15 a.m. -- Practice
11:15 a.m.-2 p.m. -- Break
2-3:30 p.m. -- PracticeThe boat
All rowing boats can be called shells. The original boats were made of wood, but newer competition boats are made of honeycombed carbon fiber. They are relatively light and appear fragile, but are crafted to be strong and stiff in the water.
Eight-oared shells, in which Caroline Lind competes, are about 60 feet long. An eight, which carries more than three-quarters of a ton (1,750 pounds), might weigh as little as 200 pounds. In the eight-oared shell, rowers sit in configurations that have the oars alternating from side to side along the boat.

The oars
Oars move the boat through the water and act as balancers. Sweep oars, used in eight-oared shells, are longer than sculler's oars and have wooden handles instead of rubber grips. The shaft of the oar is made of extremely lightweight carbon fiber instead of the heavier wood used years ago.
The popular hatchet blade, named because of its cleaver-like shape, is about 20 percent larger than previous blades. The oars are attached to the boat with riggers, which provide a fulcrum for the levering action of rowing.

The stroke
The whole body is involved in moving a shell through the water. Although rowing tends to look like an upper-body sport, the strength of the rowing stroke comes from the legs. The stroke is made up of four parts: catch, drive, finish and recovery or return.
As the stroke begins, the rower is coiled forward on a sliding seat, with knees bent and arms outstretched. At the catch, the athlete drops the oar blade vertically into the water.
At the beginning of the drive, the body position doesn't change -- all the work is done by the legs. As the upper body begins to uncoil, the arms begin their work, drawing the oar blades through the water. Continuing the drive, the rowers move their hands quickly into the body, which by this time is in a slight lay-back position, requiring strong abdominal muscles.
During the finish, the oar handle is moved down, drawing the oar blade out of the water. At the same time, the rower feathers the oar -- turning the oar handle -- so the blade changes from a vertical position to a horizontal one.
The oar remains out of the water as the rower begins recovery/return, moving the hands away from the body and past the knees. The body follows the hands and the sliding seat moves forward, until, knees bent, the rower is ready for the next catch.
The stroke rate (the number of strokes per minute a crew is taking ) is high at the start -- maybe 45 to 50 for an eight. Then, the crew will settle into the body of the race and drop the rate back -- 38 to 40 for an eight. Higher stroke rates are not always indicative of speed. A strong, technically talented crew might be able to cover more water faster than a less capable crew rowing at a high stroke rate.

The crew
Each rower is numbered in sequential order, low numbers at the bow up to the highest at the stern. The person seated on the first seat (No. 1) is called the bowman, or just bow, and the rower closest to the stern is called the stroke (in an eight, No. 8). The bow crosses the finish line first. In an eight, the stern pair (No. 8 and No. 7 seats) is responsible for setting the stroke rate and rhythm for the rest of the boat to follow. The middle four (seats Nos. 6-3, sometimes called the engine room) are usually the less technical, but more powerful rowers in the crew. The bow pair (seats Nos. 2 -1) are the more technical and generally regarded as the pair to set the balance of the boat. They also have the most influence on the line the boat steers. The coxswain (in addition to the eight rowers) steers the boat, keeps the crew motivated and apprised of the race situation and implements the race plan.
Source: U.S. Rowing ROWING TO BEIJING
NOW
Between now and next spring, Caroline Lind's schedule is filled with practice and &ellipses; more practice. She is training with the national team in Princeton, N.J. When the weather turns cooler, the team moves to the Olympic Training Center in Chula Vista, Calif.
2008
April 4-6: National Selection Regatta No. 1, Mercer County, N.J.
April 25-27: National Selection Regatta No. 2, Mercer County, N.J.
May 9-11: World Cup I, Munich, Germany
May 12-17: Non-qualified Olympic small boat trials, Mercer County, N.J.
May 30-June 1: World Cup II, Lucerne, Switzerland
June 9-13: Qualified Olympic small boat trials, Mercer County, N.J.
June 20-22: World Cup III, Poznan, Poland
June 26: Bib boat naming date (full U.S. team to be named by June 26)
Aug. 8-24: Olympic Games, BeijingCAROLINE LIND BIO
Age: 24
Height/Weight: 6 feet/185 pounds
Residence: Princeton, N.J.
Greensboro connection: Grew up in Greensboro and attended local schools through sophomore year at Page
Education: Princeton University, 2006
Family: Parents, Mary (professor of business administration at N.C. A&T) and Fred (public defender and former Duke basketball player, 1967-69); older sister, Mary Laura.
Favorite TV show: "CSI" -- all of them
Favorite music: Akon, Teitur
Rowing accomplishments: Gold medalist in women's eight at 2006 and 2007 world championships; gold medalist in four and eight at 2007 national championships; won women's eight at 2006 NCAA championships with Princeton.
Off the water: Works at a start-up pharmaceutical company, Aton Pharma; plans to attend public policy graduate school some time after 2008 Olympic Games; was a national debutante in 2003.
Daily training schedule
7-8 a.m. -- Practice
8-9:30 a.m. -- Break
9:30-11:15 a.m. -- Practice
11:15 a.m.-2 p.m. -- Break
2-3:30 p.m. -- PracticeCAROLINE LIND BIO
Age: 24
Height/Weight: 6 feet/185 pounds
Residence: Princeton, N.J.
Greensboro connection: Grew up in Greensboro and attended local schools through sophomore year at Page
Education: Princeton University, 2006
Family: Parents, Mary (professor of business administration at N.C. A&T) and Fred (public defender and former Duke basketball player, 1967-69); older sister, Mary Laura.
Favorite TV show: "CSI" -- all of them
Favorite music: Akon, Teitur
Rowing accomplishments: Gold medalist in women's eight at 2006 and 2007 world championships; gold medalist in four and eight at 2007 national championships; won women's eight at 2006 NCAA championships with Princeton.
Off the water: Works at a start-up pharmaceutical company, Aton Pharma; plans to attend public policy graduate school some time after 2008 Olympic Games; was a national debutante in 2003.
Daily training schedule
7-8 a.m. -- Practice
8-9:30 a.m. -- Break
9:30-11:15 a.m. -- Practice
11:15 a.m.-2 p.m. -- Break
2-3:30 p.m. -- Practice