I was sittin in a club one night, waiting for them to set up for Marsha Ball and some great Cajun music, after the warmup band was done. I love Marsha. I was with a buddy, and he had gone to the bar to get a beer. There was a group of fit-looking animated women at the table next to ours. I decided I would drink a second beer, and as my buddy looked back at me, I projected my voice over the hubbub of the club, without shouting, and told him to get me one too. He nodded. I have been able to do that since I was a kid. I don’t know how, I just started being able to do it. It must be my superpower. They loved me in the theatre dept, and in the several talent shows that I organized in college, because I can project my voice out into the theatre without a microphone.

The hottest woman from the nearby table got up and came over, sat down in my buddys chair, and smiled at me. Um. That has happened exactly twice before in my life. Both times, a woman wanting a light for her cigarette. She was slender but exuding fitness, and I was sure that she could wrestle an alligator if she were of a mind to. Very pretty, with pixie cut hair. Big blue eyes. She smiled at me with a smile so engaging, I immediately started thinking about wedding rings.

The Hotty: Hi! My name is Denise.

Me: Hi Denise. I’m Sam. Thank you for sitting at my table and giving it a moment of unbidden beauty.

I smiled back at her. I got the lines, huh?

Denise: (laughing): I haven’t heard that one before.

Me: I spontaneously created it in your honor.

See? I knew she would get around to why she sat down, in a minute, and meanwhile, what did I have to lose? A man is only as good as his dreams.

Denise: How did you do that thing with your voice? I noticed, but I don’t think anybody else did, except for your buddy at the bar.

Me: I don’t know. I can just do it when I need to.

Denise: We need you. Have you ever coxed an eight?

Me:  (laughing) Don’t get mad, but I don’t even know you yet, and it sounds kinkier than I usually get.

Denise: (also laughing) Do you know what a coxswain is?

Me: Well, I have read the word in stories, and have the impression that it is the tiny person who sits in the back of those long skinny boats with all the oars, and yells at the rowers. What does this have to do with your needing me?

And that was the beginning of my career as a coxswain. Denise sat there for half an hour and told me this story. She was a crew rower on a competitive eight, one of the long boats with 8 rowers. She rowed with a gay womens crew at Austin Rowing Club, and they had one more month to go before they flew over to Amsterdam, to compete in the Gay Olympics being held there. They had burnt out all their coxswains, and it had ruined their schedule of workouts. They needed coxswains badly, and were willing to train me for their workouts. Because of my voice. Just to help them keep working, up until the olympics. By then their competition coxswains would be back in good health and take them to victory.

Ok by me. I showed up the next morning at 5am at the rowing club. There were Denise and her crew, and two mens crews, gathered in the boathouse. Denise said I should watch the mens crews get their boats off the rack and down to the dock, and launched, and then all the men down into the boat simultaneously. She said they would wait for the men to launch, and then I would come back in, and take my shot with them. She told me not to worry because they were used to doing it, and could keep me from making a mistake.

Them are some real long skinny boats, that all 8 rowers lift out of the rack in unison, then lower down on their shoulders, walk to the dock, and then roll it down in unison to the water. Then they mount all the oars, and on commands to keep them in unison, step into and lower themselves into the seats. The whole process requires unity of motion. The boats are heavy and fragile. The only one who can see everything at once is the coxswain giving commands. Lots of commands. “Hands on! Ready and UP! Step out! Down to shoulders! Head out. Stop. Ready to roll! And roll! One foot in! And down!” Phew! There was so much to pay attention to. And that was just getting the dang thing on the water. Then I had to get in the little seat in the back where the boat gets narrow, and be balanced so I didn’t tip the boat. Then a whole new set of commands to get the boat away from the dock, and the crew ready to row it.

It was nerve wracking the first day or two. The women were patient and gentle with me. I didn’t make too many mistakes. I liked it right away. Where else can you get to boss around a bunch of athletic women, and have them row you up and down a beautiful river at dawn, with ducks and swans and joggers on the shore? Especially if you are a morning person like I am. I liked it a lot.

I started getting pretty good at it. I was coxing them 6 days a week in the morning. They rowed evenings too, and when I got confident of doing it, the mens crews would call me to substitute for a cox that was sick or couldn’t make it for the evening row. I probably rowed 8 or 10 times a week. The rowers were good, and serious, and they were happy to have me with my Sam brand of humor. A cox basically talks the whole row, from taking the boat off the rack until you put it back on the rack. While on the water, the cox has the only forward view, and also the only view of all the oars at once. It is the coxswain’s duty to give the commands to individual rowers to help everybody row in unison. And the first time I got all the women rowing almost perfectly, I almost peed my pants from the thrill of this long boat literally flying down the river, every oar in and out together, and the women really putting in the force.

So I did that until they all flew off to compete. They took some medals. And had a good time in Amsterdam. The last day I coxed them, after the row several people were waiting for me after I got the boat put up and hugged the crews and wished them good luck. The people waiting were members of other crews who didn’t compete like the gay crews, but rowed recreationally, some competing in the local regattas. They all wanted me to be a fill in cox, some in the mornings and some in the evenings, available at short notice. I work for myself, so I had the flexibility to meet those needs, and before long, I was coxing 5 or 6 times a week for various crews. I got a reputation for being a fun cox, and had the chance to cox most of the crews at the club at one time or another. It is a great way to start a workday. Get up early, go yell at a bunch of people while they row you up and down a sunrise river that runs through the middle of a waking up Austin. Go home, eat breakfast, and get on to work in a positive frame of mind. I enjoyed it immensely.

After 6 months, I wanted to row too, and being a cox, I could take a learn-to-row class for free. So I did that. I wasn’t a great rower, but I learned to be a pretty good one quickly, because of a year of coxing good rowers. My coxing experience in helping rowers row in unison helped me be able to row any seat in the boat. I was in demand, now, as a fill-in rower, when somebody in a crew would not show for the row.

One day the club coach quit, and there was a learn-to-row class starting the next day, and they had nobody to teach it, so I volunteered until they could get a new coach to take over. I taught the class from the cox’s seat in the boat, once they were able to put the boat in and get in. Recreational rowers are a whole different critter from athletes practicing for the Gay Olympics. And newby rowers who have never been in a boat before are even more different. Holding their attention required patience and creativity.

My philosophy of teaching rests on the simple idea that you do whatever it takes to hold the attention of your class. I did that with the LTR classes. I joked and cajoled and yelled, and lectured. Whatever it took.

One day during a row, Dan could just not get his hands level, and almost tipped us over twice. If you dig your oar in too deep, it is called catching a crab, and it jerks the boat down on that side, freaking out all of the other 7 rowers who weren’t expecting it. I had corrected him both times. Gently, but firmly. The third time he caught a crab, I stopped the row, had them rest their oars and hydrate. Then, out of frustration, I looked at Dan, and said, “Dan, if you raise your hands again in the middle of your stroke, I will totally yank your pants down and spank you on the bare hiney when we get back to the dock.” I projected it 30 feet to where his seat was, near the bow of the boat. The crew was stunned. Then they laughed. It worked. When we started rowing again, he did a lot better. Dan was a 35 year old lawyer, and I doubt anybody had said something like that to him in years, if ever. I don’t know where it came from. Sometimes the devil lives in my mouth. It was so effective, I put it in my toolkit of things to keep a crew’s attention. I used it whenever necessary. Word got around, and the club board of directors called me in.

Gruff serious board member: Sam, what is this we hear about you threatening rowers?

Me: It is true. I sometimes tell a rower that I will spank them on the bare hiney if they don’t get with the crew and row properly. I am guilty. If I were you, sir, I would yank my pants down and spank me on the bare hiney right now.

I said it with my most innocent face. Mr. Board member didn’t know what to do with that. A couple others were hiding their laughter.

Me: Have you ever had any other complaints about me sir? Even one?

Mr gruff serious board member: Well, no, but we don’t support threatening rowers by the cox. Even humorously, as you evidently take it. It lacks decorum. We are a serious rowing club, Sam.

Me: Ok, will there be anything else?

There wasn’t. And I got up, smiled at the board, and took my leave. I didn’t really stop using it. I never had to spank any one, not that I would ever lay my hands on another person in violence.

Now that I was teaching learn-to-row classes, and they still had not hired a new coach, there was a new pressure on me to cox for the new crews formed out of those who had taken learn-to-row classes and wanted to keep rowing.

One day I was with a graduated class of LTR folks who were celebrating their newly learned abilities at Friday’s with Margaritas and baked potato skins, and they asked me to cox them for 2 months, once a week. I agreed, and they started throwing in names, so they could get t-shirts made to wear for the rows. Someone suggested The Bare Hineys, and everybody laughed, and The Bare Hineys rowing crew was born.

A couple months later was the twice a year Big Regatta put on by the club. University of Wisconsin sent a crew. So did Boston College, and some other well known rowing crews from around the country, as well as most of the Austin Rowing Club crews. The Bare Hineys wanted to compete in the recreational class race, so we practiced and when the day came, and the stakeboats were lined up across the river, backed into one slot was my crew. And who should be announcing the crews lined up, but Mr. gruff serious board member. You could hear through the speakers how much it grated on him when he had to say… “In slot one, University of Wisconsin; in slot two, POSH; in slot three, Berkeley College; in slot four, The… um… Bare Hineys; in slot five, Baylor…” It killed him. Such an irreverent indecorous name in a serious sport.

I also coxed the Dunkin Rownuts, and The Crew Formerly Known As (and there was an ankh), like Prince.

Shortly after that regatta, I took up with bad people, and before I knew it, I was running the Mexico Projects, which had their work weekends in Mexico at spring break and Thanksgiving, the same weekends as the rowing club regattas, and so, I drifted away from the rowing club after my coxing agreements ran out.

Why be normal?

If you aren’t having fun, you aren’t trying hard enough.   <3