Charlie was always looking for a new way to promote rowing in the Washington area. Before his final illness, Charlie\u2019s enthusiasm was directed toward building a boathouse for Arlington schools along the Rosslyn shore between Key Bridge and the Roosevelt Island access area. Even from his hospital room he telephoned, with great effort, other members of the Arlington Boathouse Coalition to see how his project was coming along.<\/p>\n
Charlie\u2019s reputation as a coach was such that many people totally lost sight of the fact that he was an M.I.T. aeronautical engineer who worked (in addition to military service during World War II) 28 years for the Navy Bureau of Aeronautics before retiring in 1975. Back in the 1960\u2019s, we on the W-L crew occasionally went to pick him up for practice at the run-down old \u201ctemporary buildings\u201d that the Department of Defense had on the Mall near the present site of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. At his daughter Susan\u2019s wedding reception a few years ago, Charlie told me that he had been pleased with his career, had liked the people he worked with, and had been especially proud of his work on the F-14 Tomcat, the Navy\u2019s principal fighter over many years. (If you saw the movie \u201cTop Gun,\u201d you saw lots of F-14 action.)<\/p>\n
My first awareness of Charlie came through my older brothers, Ken and Allen, who graduated from W-L (rapidly pronounced \u201cdubba-yen-ell\u201d) in 1960 and 1962, respectively. I remember Pop driving me down for my first trip to Potomac Boat Club on a rainy Saturday in April 1958 to watch Ken race in W-L\u2019s 6th eight. The musty old building, incredibly long and finished wooden hulls hanging from racks and rafters, strange sliding seats, clogs, riggers, and enormous wooden oars with peculiar curving blades all worked their magic that day.<\/p>\n
Most outrageous was the crowd of that not so safety-conscious era. On that rain-swept day, several hundred high school students and parents overloaded the balconies and locker rooms and swarmed right up through the old wooden structure and out over the cast iron walkway onto the aqueduct abutment. It was a Fire Marshall\u2019s nightmare, but who cared? Dilapidated old Dempsey\u2019s on the other side of the abutment wasn\u2019t going to burn down until 1961, and, hell, everyone was having fun. Besides, the ratio of \u201cSenior Boat Club Members\u201d to high school rowers was low in those days.<\/p>\n
Later that spring came word that W-L\u2019s fast crew was going to race in the Henley Royal Regatta at Henley-on-Thames, England. That got everyone\u2019s attention in Arlington, and the name Charlie Butt became familiar at our house. The next year when I\u2019d tell my junior high school friends that my older brother rowed for W-L, their first question would be \u201cDid he go to England?\u201d No, not yet.<\/p>\n
Ken rowed for PBC during the summer of \u201958 (Charlie\u2019s junior programs were PBC\u2019s largest in those days) and gained 25 pounds growing and lifting weights. It was well known that Charlie always took the greatest interest in those who worked hard, and next season he awarded Ken the stroke seat of the W-L Varsity Eight. Ken kept that seat right on through W-L\u2019s next trip to Henley in 1960. By that time Allen was on W-L\u2019s 2nd eight.<\/p>\n
Before the crew left for Henley, I asked Ken about the possibility of my rowing and expressed my fear that the famous Charlie Butt would not want to see me, a puny 13-year-old, in one of his boats. Ken said, \u201cHeck, Charlie is the nicest guy in the world\u2013away from crew.\u201d In some perverse way that gave me courage to take the bus down to PBC while Charlie and the crew were in England. There I met many of the older kids who would be on Charlie\u2019s 1962 trip to Henley along with Allen.<\/p>\n
So I met Charlie during the summer of 1960 and was pleasantly surprised. He seemed just as interested teaching a bunch of scrawny pre-high schoolers in a \u201cruptured centipede\u201d (Charlie\u2019s term for a flailing and syncopated eight) as he did coaching high school seniors and PBC veterans.<\/p>\n
In the 1960s (as well as in the \u201990s) Charlie was a man who was constantly busy and often distracted. Charlie\u2019s pockets were crammed with notes about things he had to do, people he had to call, and boatings he had to make. And his car or van was always loaded with tools and materials for endless boat repairs and a motorboat gas can to boot. It was a time of wooden boats and oars, all of which needed an annual sanding and at least a couple of coats of varnish. Charlie must have considered the advent of plastic boats and carbon fibre oars a godsend.<\/p>\n
In 1964 Charlie told me he earned \u201cabout 13 cents an hour\u201d coaching W-L crew. He needed help, not only at the boathouse but also at home where many chores waited while he tended to coaching. Therefore, Charlie had a policy that anyone who consistently helped him with off-season work at home or repairs at the boathouse would be rewarded with being among the first on the water in February. Charlie\u2019s policy gave inexperienced boys a chance to row with varsity oarsmen, and some found their own route to the first boat in this way.<\/p>\n
For those individuals who were most dedicated to repairs in the off-season, Charlie made sure that they were presented at the Spring Sports Banquet with a miniature oar crafted by Pete Sparhawk, stroke of the \u201949 crew and Head Coach at Princeton. The oar, over 3 feet long and finely finished in W-L Blue and Gray, was coveted almost as much as a Nationals or Stotesbury Cup medal. It was a fine prize for any boy who may have been disappointed at not making a seat on a top boat.<\/p>\n
Charlie made it clear to everyone that our seats were up for grabs on a daily basis. During my junior year there was one memorable time-trial when we in the JVs held off the Varsity with a blistering sprint (we could take \u2019em on a start, too). Charlie shouted at the Varsity, \u201cYou damned clowns better get your rear ends in gear\u2013there are some guys in the stern of that JV who\u2019d love to have your seats!\u201d<\/p>\n
There were plenty of people to take other people\u2019s seats, as each season began with about 130 hopefuls. We would all stand with bated breath while Charlie methodically drew a note from his bulging pockets and read out the boatings for that day. We would either heave a sigh of relief or suppress our disappointment at Charlie\u2019s verdict and go fetch our oars. Charlie announced the boatings for the varsity boats (1st & 2nd eights, 1st & 2nd fours, lightweight eight, quad, and double), and an assistant coach took care of the others. We\u2019d launch our shells, row about a quarter mile from the dock, and then wait. And wait. And wait. I don\u2019t know why we were waiting. I talked to Br\u2019er Allen about this, and he also doesn\u2019t remember why we were waiting. But we agree that we waited and waited.<\/p>\n
Finally, Charlie would come out in the launch, and we would start with a steady state row. \u201cPaddling\u201d to warm up was not yet respectable, so we rowed at full pressure up into Fletcher\u2019s Cove at a low rating, say at 18-22 strokes a minute, to work on slide control while letting the boat run out.<\/p>\n
Charlie liked controlled slides. When our \u201964 crew won Charlie\u2019s eighth straight Schoolboy (later called \u201cScholastic\u201d) National Championship and was on its way to England, Charlie stressed to a reporter that we were fast because of our \u201cexcellent slidework.\u201d He maintained that slide control maximized the run between strokes, even at a high rating, and offered the best mechanism for ensuring efficient rowing and speed. He would still be right today, even though the prevailing wisdom no longer stresses \u201cfast hands\u201d, nor does it seem to put much emphasis on slide control. (If you think we rowed \u201cthat old boring style,\u201d we could start and finish at 42-44 strokes a minute and clear our puddles by nearly a foot for over 40 strokes at a stretch.)<\/p>\n
Charlie always found a way to wring the most effort from his crews. All pieces were handicapped according to the abilities of the crews involved. That meant that if the JVs were generally a length slower than the Varsity over a half-mile piece, they had to take a length lead at the beginning of the piece. That way they were forced to bust their humps to stay in front while the Varsity busted theirs to catch up. Ideally, the crews should have finished about even. Charlie seldom allowed two unequal crews to start even. That would ruin a good piece, because the faster crew would soon be loafing out in front while the slower crew would quickly resign themselves to their inferior status and row down to expectations. Better that both be gagging or rasping at the finish.<\/p>\n
Charlie unmercifully used this technique on us when we were training for Henley. Interval training was newly in vogue, and Charlie pitted us against the PBC Senior Eight. In 1964, \u201csenior\u201d meant \u201celite,\u201d not a bunch of old geezers or aspiring wannabees as it does today. The Senior Eight often contained former W-L Henley oarsmen\u2013John Jenkins, Allen Anderson, Frank Benson, Jan Nieuwdorp, Bert Thurber, Tony Johnson\u2013and other stalwarts such as George Baum and Jim Edmonds. Edmonds and Johnson comprised the U.S. Olympic pair that year. Charlie would pit us against this bunch in a series of alternating intervals of one minute \u201con,\u201d one minute \u201coff.\u201d Of course we were expected to take our handicapped lead for each \u201con\u201d interval. This meant that we were scrambling during every \u201coff\u201d interval to regain our \u201clead\u201d for the \u201con\u201d interval. Some deal! We got very tired. But it paid off later when we went against mortals of our own age group.<\/p>\n
Two memories of Charlie at Henley will stay with me to the end. Charlie used to say, \u201cI hate to lose.\u201d Before we left for England, Russ Carmody, our 6-man, had seriously injured his back. During our first four days at Henley, we had a substitute in the boat and things were going badly. Charlie was upset, of course, because it looked like we were going to lose. He decided to cox the boat, and was he cranky! I was sitting in the stroke seat, so I carried my head just a little lower to avoid scalp or ear damage that might result from any invective hurled toward the bow. The boat was moving like the proverbial wet log, and Charlie blew up. I can\u2019t remember the actual wording, but the rhythm and tone went something like, \u201cYou goddamned blibbidy-dibbidy, blankety-shittilly, dribbledy-blobs of a Horse\u2019s Ass.\u201d (I remember that part about the horse.) Charlie angrily barked for starboard to row and port to back as we headed back to the docks. As we turned, I looked up and saw three little old ladies sitting on the riverbank and staring in shocked amazement at us and our fuming coach. They looked to be in their eighties and wore wide-brimmed sun bonnets and flowing dresses that evoked the Victorian Age. I nodded their presence to Charlie, who rolled his eyes and emanated one of his wry grins. Our return trip was uneventful.<\/p>\n
My second memory was of the final in the Princess Elizabeth Cup. We had gotten Carmody back into the boat three days before the regatta started and things had definitely turned for the better. We\u2019d won four races. Now we were on the starting line with Groton School, a humongous but rather unskilled New England crew that was much taller than we were, outweighed us by about 11 pounds a man, used those new \u201cshovel\u201d oars, employed an asymmetric \u201cItalian rig,\u201d and rowed with the mystifying new \u201cslow hands\u201d style. During the semi-finals they had rowed times identical to ours for the Barrier, Fawley, and Finish (prominent points on the Henley course).<\/p>\n
Charlie was going to follow us along the course on a bicycle. We started with 30 strokes in the 42-44 strokes-per-minute range and settled in 1 to a 34 rating. That gave us our largest lead over Groton, about three-quarters of a length. Charlie faked his best English accent and mannerism as he shouted \u201cWell Rowed! Well Rowed!\u201d after us. I briefly looked out to check on our run, which was excellent, and glimpsed Charlie cycling beyond my oar tip as it feathered out of the water. Unfortunately, Charlie missed the finish, rowed at 44 and in our favor. In his words, \u201cI ran into a couple of guys and had to apologize.\u201d<\/p>\n
A year later I was on the PBC Senior Eight, and Charlie led us to race in the New York City Championships, which we won. On that trip he showed me a letter he had received from a female relative, perhaps an aunt. She had enclosed a news clipping about Karl Adam, who was then the world\u2019s most prominent rowing coach. Adam\u2019s new oars and training techniques had revolutionized the sport of rowing, starting with a West German upset of the U.S. Eight in the 1960 Olympics. The aunt had underlined a passage which described Adam, who was then 53, as contemplating whether he wasn\u2019t getting a little old for riding herd on a bunch of world-class German athletes. She was trying to get Charlie to consider whether he might not also be getting \u201ctoo old.\u201d<\/p>\n
But Charlie was only 45 and less than halfway through his coaching career. He had yet to develop the Occoquan facility or to set up the annual Scullers\u2019 Head of the Potomac Regatta. He would coach for 26 more seasons, benefitting many college teams far and wide with his graduate rowers. Many sets of siblings would continue to come under his tutelage, and many a struggling program would benefit from his advice or from the availability of an old shell or oars from W-L or PBC.<\/p>\n
Charlie invited kids from all schools, including my stepson Scott, to his PBC summer and fall rowing programs. Some of these kids wound up competing against Charlie\u2019s W-L crews, and others went on to become members of the U.S. National Team. It didn\u2019t matter to Charlie. Everyone was welcome.<\/p>\n
Several years ago I asked him how he kept it up. He said, \u201cWell, I\u2019m having a lot of fun.\u201d He never forgot that rowing was supposed to be fun. And he tried to make sure that regattas were fun, especially when organized for kids.<\/p>\n
A few years ago, there was a popular slogan that read, \u201cLife, Pass It On.\u201d Charlie passed his life on to thousands. This he accomplished through his enthusiasm, determination, kindness, and selflessness. Two of his offspring, Charles and Nancy, are following in his footsteps as rowing coaches.<\/p>\n
– Carl W. Anderson ’64[\/vc_column_text][divider line_type=”No Line” custom_height=”20″][vc_video link=”https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Eag7FjUiZy8″ el_aspect=”43″][divider line_type=”No Line” custom_height=”20″][vc_column_text]\n
The Charlie Butt Memorial Scholarship was established in 1992 to continue Charlie\u2019s efforts to assist young men and women by supporting them during their college years. The award is given to one boy and one girl W-L High School graduating senior according to the criteria listed below. The selection will be made by the family of Charlie Butt based on this application and the advice of the Washington-Lee crew coaches. The award is presented at the end of season awards banquet at Potomac Boat Club.<\/p>\n
Selection considerations:<\/p>\n
The W-L Crew program is incredibly grateful to the Butt family for their kindness, generosity, and support. Please consider donating to Charlie Butt Memorial Scholarship Fund.<\/span><\/p>\n All donations should be mailed<\/strong>\u00a0to Charlie Butt Memorial Scholarship Fund, P.O. 10999, McLean, VA 22102<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row type=”full_width_background” full_screen_row_position=”middle” column_margin=”default” scene_position=”center” text_color=”dark” text_align=”left” top_padding=”5%” bottom_padding=”5%” overlay_strength=”0.3″ shape_divider_position=”bottom” bg_image_animation=”none” shape_type=””][vc_column column_padding=”padding-2-percent” column_padding_position=”left-right” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_link_target=”_self” column_shadow=”none” column_border_radius=”none” width=”1\/1″ tablet_width_inherit=”default” tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default” overlay_strength=”0.3″ column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid” bg_image_animation=”none”][nectar_highlighted_text color_type=”regular” highlight_color=”rgba(52,82,255,0.43)” style=”half_text”]\n [vc_row type=”in_container” full_screen_row_position=”middle” column_margin=”default” scene_position=”center” text_color=”dark” text_align=”left” overlay_strength=”0.3″ shape_divider_position=”bottom” bg_image_animation=”none”][vc_column column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_position=”all” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_link_target=”_self” column_shadow=”none” column_border_radius=”none” width=”1\/1″ tablet_width_inherit=”default” tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default” overlay_strength=”0.3″ column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid” bg_image_animation=”none”][vc_custom_heading text=”Remembering Charlie Butt” font_container=”tag:h1|text_align:left|color:%23111f3e” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_column_text]…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"parent":171,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"page-left-sidebar.php","meta":{"footnotes":""},"yoast_head":"\nMany thanks to George Kirschbaum<\/span>, former W-L rower and coach, for documenting W-L Crew’s rich history.<\/h2>\n[\/nectar_highlighted_text][nectar_cta btn_style=”see-through” heading_tag=”h6″ text_color=”#111f3e” button_color=”default” link_type=”regular” alignment=”center” display=”block” link_text=”Help us fill the gaps” url=”\/contact-us\/” text=”Are we missing anything?” class=”cta-email”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row type=”in_container” full_screen_row_position=”middle” column_margin=”default” scene_position=”center” text_color=”light” text_align=”left” top_padding=”60″ bottom_padding=”60″ color_overlay=”#111f3e” overlay_strength=”0.95″ shape_divider_position=”bottom” bg_image_animation=”none” shape_type=””][vc_column column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_position=”all” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_link_target=”_self” column_shadow=”none” column_border_radius=”none” width=”1\/6″ tablet_width_inherit=”default” tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default” overlay_strength=”0.3″ column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid” bg_image_animation=”none”][\/vc_column][vc_column column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_position=”all” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_link_target=”_self” column_shadow=”none” column_border_radius=”none” width=”2\/3″ tablet_width_inherit=”default” tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default” overlay_strength=”0.3″ column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid” bg_image_animation=”none”][nectar_highlighted_text color_type=”regular” highlight_color=”#2f90c5″ style=”half_text”]\n
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