“As one” sounds like a pretty standard motto for a team. But when that team has over 50 members, usually competes in pairs, or even single-handedly, and may be spread across three different cities on the same weekend, the concept of “as one” sounds not just strange, but outright impossible.
Yet Georgetown’s sailing team is making “as one” work. They are hoping to ride that mentality-and some favorable winds-all the way to a national championship.
Step one on the road to glory is practice, which is where six members of the women’s team were headed at 3:15 on a rainy Friday afternoon. Most of team, including all of the guys, was already scattered across the eastern seaboard for the weekend’s regattas, but the few sailors remaining were looking to squeeze in one more tune-up session before the next day’s competition in Annapolis, Md.
Any last minute adjustments can be crucial before a regatta, which consists of a series of 12- to 20-minute sprint-style races that continue all day. Each racer or boat accumulates points equal to their finishing position in each race, and when all is said and done the sailor or team with the lowest number of points wins. The team will compete in three or four regattas each weekend at the beginning of the season with the more important contests being held on a bi-weekly schedule.
Georgetown’s varsity sailing tradition dates back almost 70 years, but the organization has never been as poised for success as it is right now. It will not be easy sailing, but the team seems confident it can build on a best-ever second-place finish last year and unseat Harvard, the five-time reigning Fowle trophy champion. The Fowle, given annually to the top college sailing program, is a grand-prix style award decided on the basis of performance in six national championship events. With both the women’s and co-ed teams being ranked in the preseason top five this year, the team’s confidence that they can bring it home is warranted.
“We just have to make sure we qualify for all the national championships,” senior All-American Andrew Campbell (SFS ‘06) explained. Fowle points are based on the finishes of all six championship events combined, whether a team qualifies for all of them or not. “Harvard eats up the Fowle, and has for a lot of years running, because they have a broad skill base. They get people to every national championship, and don’t have to win, but are always getting points.”
Campbell took a huge step toward matching Harvard on that front two weekends ago when he qualified for the sloop (big boat) national championships in Michigan at the end of the month, which no Georgetown sailor has done since 1998. The past weekend in New York he won the Middle Atlantic Intercollegiate Sailing Association single-handed conference championship as well, earning a ticket to Hawaii and a chance to become the first three-time winner of the single-handed national championship.
Campbell, who Georgetown Head Coach Mike Callahan (SFS ‘97) called “the best sailor in college,” is one of the reasons the Hoyas have to feel good about their chances. The San Diego native comes into the season fresh off winning a gold medal this summer at the World University Games in Izmir, Turkey. He is not the only seasoned veteran, however, on whom the Hoyas’ hopes will be floating. Most of this year’s skippers are returning from last year, making experience one of the team’s greatest assets.
“On the women’s side, we’re returning all the same skippers,” Callahan said. “We’re really excited to have A-division skipper Derby Anderson back for a full year after being abroad, and with our other skippers Blair Herron and Jackie Schmitz, we have our best chance ever of winning a national championship.”
“On the co-ed side, besides Andrew, we hope someone can step up and do a good job in the B division. Chris Behm looks good right now. We have as good a chance as anyone at winning it all,” he added.
Team members admit that they thought last year was going to be a rebuilding year, but if the rebuilding years for Georgetown’s basketball team were as successful, Craig Esherick would still have a job. The sailing team lost a lot of key members after the 2003-2004 season, which ended in a second-place finish in the co-ed national championships. However, with more or less the same team returning that finished in the top five at all three spring national championships last season, calling this a “big veteran year” may be an understatement.
Yet despite their recent success, the team with one of Georgetown’s most legitimate shots at a national title this year flies-er, floats-largely under the radar. The fact is, the average Hoya just does not know about, or understand, sailing. So now is probably time to jump on the bandwagon.
Cutting a New Mast
Georgetown’s team wasn’t always so well put together. Less than 10 years ago, the team had six or eight boats in miserable condition and all the morale and work ethic to go with them. Callahan lived through those times, and he has been the driving force behind the program’s renaissance.
“My senior year, we would get six people to practice; we could barely have a functioning practice,” he said. “We had a lot of wasted talent with great recruits but no results. When I came back, I wanted to make sure every senior, when they graduated, had good memories of the sailing team.”
That philosophy has led to a complete overhaul of the sailing program. The team is now one of the largest in the country, putting 18-20 boats on the water every practice. Coupled with a sharp increase in university support, especially financially, the mentality surrounding the program has changed significantly. A culture of winning has made the prospect of competing at the highest level a reality.
“When I was here, we would go to 80 regattas a year on a $5000 budget,” Callahan said. “There were times when I would sleep in the van on the road. Now travel is fully funded. Kids come here now and expect to compete for a national championship.”
The team recognizes Callahan’s contribution as well. “Sailing centers across the world don’t rival what we have, and that can be almost entirely credited to Mike Callahan,” Campbell said.
This doesn’t make Georgetown’s facilities state-of-the-art, but that is no fault of the team. The only feasible location where the good winds and boat storage space combine for the Hoyas is at the Washington Sailing Marina, a mile south of Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.
“It’s really just a patch of grass with boats on it,” women’s captain Derby Anderson (CAS ‘06) explained.
As the team parks at the marina and prepares for practice on Friday, that proves true. The parking lot extends to the bank of the river, where it gives way to a few small docks, while to the side, the entire fleet sits on what is quickly turning from grass to mud.
“Most colleges have a facility with a house where they can change and somewhere they can bring their boats,” Derby said. “In that respect, we’re worse off than most other colleges; we just change in the parking lot. There’s really not much we can do, though, since the marina’s really the only place we can sail from.”
There is another small oddity that makes the Georgetown sailing experience unique: the proximity of the marina to the airport means that planes can affect the wind on the water, causing disturbances that look like little tornadoes. There is nothing the sailors can do about it, but getting caught up in one will spin your sail around, which has caused a few concussions, according to Derby.
More than offsetting the deficit in facilities, and already waiting when the girls arrive at practice, is the biggest addition to this year’s sailing scene: a second full-time coach, Bill Ward (MSB ‘96). Another Georgetown alumnus and former all-American, Ward was the head coach at Washington College before coming back to the Hilltop full-time.
“This year, having two coaches is the biggest change,” Callahan noted. “Having one coach for 50 people is impossible. With two coaches in the water, we can work in smaller teams. Split up working with teams, it really makes a difference.”
Also making a difference is the sheer amount of work the team puts into winning. The season starts the first day of school, runs straight until Thanksgiving break, and then breaks until late January, when the team gets back on the water until nationals in June. All told, this makes one of the longest seasons in college sports. Throughout the season the team practices four times a week, hits the weight room Tuesday and Thursday mornings, holds video sessions Wednesday nights and competes every weekend. Being a competitive sailor is, as they say, no day at the beach.
At this particular practice, the heavy wind and rain was keeping the team off of the water. At regattas this means time to wait around and catch up with friends on other teams, but at practice it meant some routine maintenance-including bailing the boats with makeshift buckets creatively fashioned out of old bottles of orange juice and Tide-and a soggy car ride back to campus. Relatively stress-free days like this one are not a habit for Georgetown’s sailors, though.
“On a windy day like today, you’re working very hard,” Derby said. “Your legs and abs and arms are killing you. There’s also a mental level, though. It’s a sport of athletics plus a little bit of chess.”
“Everyone thinks sailing is like drinking gin and tonics, laying out, taking it easy on the boat,” team member Seamus Kraft (CAS ‘07) lamented. “But it’s like any other sport. A regatta is an all-day event, and it’s a lot of work.”
“We’re not just laying out there in bikinis,” Blair Herron (CAS ‘08) added.
In for life
By the time they get to Georgetown, the work needed to stay at the top of their game is nothing new to most of the team members. The young seamen and women who will become the elite college sailors get their start in the sailing culture as young as six, seven or eight years old, often from parents who sail themselves.
Kids as young as eight are ranked, which may put a lot of pressure on such small children, but makes recruiting for college fairly convenient. Coaches can see how a prospective sailor has been ranked throughout his or her whole sailing life and often never even have to see them sail in person.
“Growing up all my coaches were college sailors, so college sailing was always the capstone for me,” Kraft said.
“There’s a pretty intense junior circuit for those who get involved,” team captain Dan Esdorn (CAS ‘07) said. “People like Andrew [Campbell] have been all over the world with sailing before college.”
There is life in sailing after college as well. Some of the best will go on to mount an Olympic campaign or even take a semester off to try and qualify, as Campbell did the fall of his sophomore year. For those who don’t have professional sailing in their future, the opportunity to compete on weekends and remain active in sailing is always there.
“It’s sort of like golf, a sport we will be able to do until our dying day. It can be as competitive as you want it to be,” Kraft said.
While at Georgetown, though, the team members are in an atmosphere they won’t find anywhere else, owing mostly to the team’s closeness.
“We’re a co-ed team across the board,” Esdorn said. “Guys and girls in the water together, in the weight room together, we party as teammates … other teams, even if they’re really close, are single sex. It makes a big difference.”
“We sleep with one another, too; you don’t even have to work to find a girlfriend,” Kraft joked, to the amusement of his teammates.
The general atmosphere meant a lot to first-year team member Nik Holtan (CAS ‘09). “Coming in, I always used to sail by myself,” he said. “Now you’ve got forty people ready to shake your hand and say congrats when you get off the water.”
“I also don’t think I’ve ever sailed with this many good people at practice,” he added. “Make a mistake, and you’re pretty done.”
That’s how it is when a team is among the best. So for the next nine months, they’ll practice, as one. They’ll compete, as one. They’ll party, as one. And, as one, they’ll try to be the first Georgetown sailing team ever to win it all.
