University of North Carolina Athletics
Ueltschey on Men's Soccer's Visit to University Lake
October 15, 2001 | Men's Soccer
By Michael Ueltschey, senior goalkeeper from Jackson, Miss.
On October 3, the Carolina men's soccer team went rowing. Upon our arrival to University Lake, we were introduced to head rowing coach Joel Furtek, who would teach twenty-five members of the men's soccer team to row.
We first learned that the boats we were going to row cost over $22,000, which made us all a little nervous about breaking them. Another matter of concern was that freshman Raymond Fumo had not learned how to swim and there were not any flotation devices.
To make matters even worse, the eight-man boats that we were going to row had a weight capacity of 170 pounds per person. Seven guys on the team were over this limit and thus our boats were capable of sinking. Meanwhile Raymond was getting taught swimming lessons by virtually every player on the team.
We finally got in the water and to everyone's surprise, rowing was extremely difficult. The purpose of our rowing trip was a team-building mission, and if we were to keep the boat a float we were going to have to act as a team.
Each player was assigned a position in the boat along with very specific instructions. What we all quickly learned about rowing is that one person on a boat can cause the boat to tilt and that keeping the boat perfectly balanced was our first objective. Once we were able to keep the boat straight (or at least kind of straight) we started our first few strokes.
We were awful, absolutely awful. We were lucky not to tip over, and thank goodness for Fumo, we didn't. Our instructor eventually worked out some of the kinks and we started to move in a slow but forward direction.
After this great accomplishment and many cheers from the dock, we took the boats back to dock before we could mess up again.
I am sure every member of our team will always remember that day rowing. There were a lot of laughs, a ton of smiles and twenty-five awful rowers.
There is also something that can be learned from this experience. The lesson is that our boat would not have moved forward if we had not had a knowledgeable instructor telling us what to do. Our boat would not have moved forward if each and every member had not kept the boat steady. Our boat would not have moved forward if each member did not recognize his role and act when called upon.
The Carolina men's soccer team must now take these lessons back to the soccer field and keep on moving the boat forward.
