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About Me: Wedding & Portrait Photographer serving El Dorado Springs, Nevada Mo, & surrounding areas – Chance Thompson Photography gives you creative wedding & portrait photography in Missouri and Arkansas.

El Dorado Springs, Nevada, Stockton, and Bolivar Missouri Wedding Photographer Chance Thompson, owner and photographer of Chance Thompson Photography, is a creative, journalistic wedding photographer also specializing in portraiture for family, senior, and baby photos. From infant portraits to senior portraits, then to your wedding day and family portraits, Chance Thompson will strive to be your lifetime photographer. As a photographer serving the greater part of Missouri and Arkansas, Chance Thompson will give you a unique group of photos in the form of proofs that you cant get just anywhere. He treats his clients like they are his only customers so you can be assured to get the best possible from his experience as a professional photographer

Jeremy is a second-generation coach, learning from his father, Panagis Michalitsianos, an assistant coach at Cambridge University Boat Club. Known also as “Bob Michaels”, he was a coach for the 1992 Great Britain Olympic Team and coached the women’s pair for the team’s first-ever heavyweight sweep medal in 1991.  While on the national team, Jeremy occasionally coached crews at Lea and elsewhere, but his own coaching career did not take off until he moved to the United States in 2004.

It was fortuitous timing.  Said Michaltisianos, “I remember driving by the high school and seeing on the sign out front that said, ‘Well done, MHS Crew’ (after winning its first Stotesbury Cup event), and I thought ‘I didn’t know the high school had rowed’.”  Jeremy and his wife Lorna Rundle decided they wanted to volunteer coaching.  They sent e-mails to several clubs and schools in the area, including Montclair.  Michalitsianos recalls, “We also considered reaching out to Kearny High School, but Lorna and I received this e-mail from Mariann Higgins the next day saying, ‘Don’t talk to Kearny until I’ve had a chance to speak with you.’”

After some discussion, Jeremy and Lorna joined the staff in 2008 as consulting coaches.  During that winter training, “I quickly realized that there was huge potential [at Montclair] with the amount of kids, the amount of ergs, and ultimately when I saw the fleet of boats,” Jeremy said.  With subsequent coaching turnover, Jeremy became the head coach for the 2009 season.

Since then, Montclair Crew has enjoyed runaway success, including 16 New Jersey State Championships, 12 PSRA Championships, and five Stotesbury Cup Championships.  The team has won scores of medals since then as well.  I asked Jeremy why he thinks Montclair is so successful, and he attributed it to the depth of experience on the coaching staff, the backing from the school and the parents, and the enthusiasm of the rowers themselves.  ”All we’ve ever tried to do was bring the professionalism that I experienced as a rower to this team.  I think we set high standards [of our rowers], but I still train with them over the winter to show these workouts can be done and they can achieve the goals we set.”

The main challenge for the program, according to Jeremy, is maintaining the success the team has had and building even more depth and speed.  ”We’ve gotten so good so fast that I wonder how we sustain it,” Michalitsianos says.  ”But I absolutely love what I’m doing here.  I honestly feel like I’m the luckiest person in the world to do this job.”

We’ve been able to get to this event with the tremendous support of our parents. They are driving, they are sending foods, and providing support throughout the two day event.  And it’s a family affair: the aunt of one of our rowers has opened her home up as Blair Crew’s personal bed and breakfast, plus the two of her neighbor’s homes!  Quite a road trip adventure for our team.

The waters are fast and full. Let’s hope our rowers are fast and full of power!

Go Blair Crew!

Girls Senior Eight
C- Becca
8 – Lizzy
7 – Emmy
6 – Claire
5 – Louise
4- Madeline H
3 – Bridget
2 – Masha
1 – Rachel A
Alternates: Ellie M, Vivienne S*

Boys Senior Four
C- Elliot
4- Alex C
3 – Fernando
2 – Michael R
1 – Will K
Alternates: Henry L, James A
* not confirmed

Edward "Ned" Stotesbury

This weekend marks the 85th running of the world’s largest scholastic regatta, the Stotesbury Cup Regatta, held annually on the Schuykill River since 1926. The vast majority of the rowers in this weekend’s regatta, and even Philadelphians, have little sense of the legacy of  Edward Stotesbury. “Ned” Stotesbury, as he was known, was born in 1849 to Quaker parents in Wyndmoor, PA. He quickly rose through the ranks of the financial world at posts at Drexel & Co and J.P. Morgan. Eventually he served on the board of such companies as Lehigh Railroad, Reading Railroad, Pennsylvania Steel Company and Girard Trust to name a few. In 1927, his fortune was estimated at $100 million dollars although he lost most of that in the stock market crash and Great Depression.

The Stotesbury Cup

Mr. Stotesbury’s greatest legacy, at least to hundreds of thousands of rowers in the 85 years of the regatta’s existence, is the Stotesbury Cup Regatta.  In 1887, Mr. Stotesbury was elected to membership at Bachelor’s Barge Club (BBC), which today is the oldest, continually operating rowing club in America and is still located at #6 on Philadelphia’s famous Boathouse Row. Although he was not a rower, he was very active as a social member and eventually assumed the role of Vice President in 1924 and then President in 1927. He remained in that position until his death in 1938. It was during his presidency that Bachelors members went on to win medals for the 1x and 4- in the 1924 Olympics, a 1x in the 1928 Olympics and a gold medal in the 2x in the 1932 Olympics. In the first year of his leadershio at BBC, Mr. Stotesbury sponsored a trophy for scholastic 8+ on the Schuylkill. The first winner was West Catholic High School, who retained the title for 3 consecutive years, enough to retain permanent ownership of the cup. Since that time, the rules were changed that the cup would stay in Philadelphia, with the winners names inscribed on it each year. In the ensuing years, literally hundreds of thousands of rowers have come to Philadelphia from across the US and Canada to row in the Stotesbury Cup Regatta.

Today, Mr Stotesbury’s rowing legacy will the the 85th annual meeting on the Schuylkill River and over 5,000 scholastic athletes are slated to compete over two days. This is the 2nd great rowing event in Philadelphia in as many weeks. Where else can you see the highest levels of competiting in a sport for free.

You can read more about Mr. Stotesbury life and times here.

Tom Curry is a name that most recent rowers and parents are unfamiliar with, but his role in the formation of Montclair Crew was instrumental.  When he was not working as a trader for JP Morgan, he was one of the re-founders of Nereid Boat Club, working with a few other northern New Jersey rowers to literally rebuild what we now know as the Nereid boathouse between 1993 and 1999.  Though the club focused then, as it does now, on masters rowing (rowers aged 28 and over), Curry wanted to start a junior rowing program at the club.

“I just felt that you have to have youth in the boathouse, because they are the future of rowing,” Curry told me.  ”Look at the life lessons you learn from rowing.  If you’re feeling sick, or just plain tired, you still find a way to show up to practice and grind it out, and it’s those same qualities that stay with you long after you put away your oar.”

The obvious choice for starting a junior program at Nereid was local Rutherford High School, but that was a non-starter. “We approached them about the idea, and they basically said something along the lines of, ‘We’re a football and baseball town; no thanks,’” Curry said.  ”We decided then it would be better to try and pull from the other schools for a composite team.”  I asked Curry if he thought Montclair would have been able to partner with Nereid if Rutherford said “yes”.  ”I really doubt it.  Mariann Higgins knows how to make things happen, and would have gotten the program started no matter what, but Nereid wouldn’t have been a part of it.”

Rutherford’s loss was Montclair’s gain.  In late 2001, Mariann Higgins approached Curry about working to start a Montclair High School crew.  Says Curry, “It’s funny, because Mariann went to the Nutley/Kearny/Belleville boathouse first, and the didn’t have any room.  When she asked if there were any other clubs or boathouses in the area, the Nutley coaches said ‘maybe’ there was a place in Rutherford [Nereid] that would be interested.  Some of those guys helped me rebuild Nereid!  Of course they knew about us!  That had me scratching my head.”

That first year, 2002, the Nereid program had rowers from Teaneck, Rutherford, and Glen Rock as well, but “you could just tell Montclair had an espirit du corps about them, and it wasn’t just their numbers.  That ‘s why we took one of their crews to Stotesbury that year.  Even if we thought they might be overmatched (ed. note: Montclair was not) we knew that Stotes was an awesome experience, and to see how exciting the regatta scene is, creates a real passion for the sport.  Montclair more than any other school at the time, banked that experience into what is the most powerful program in northern New Jersey.  It’s really amazing what they’ve accomplished.”

Tom Curry is now the full-time executive director of the New York Rowing Association, and youth rowing evangelist.  To find out more, check out the NYRA website.

During my sophomore year in college, I travelled to Washington, DC on an October break to visit a high-school friend at George Washington University.  One day were were walking to get breakfast when I had my first and only albino squirrel sighting.  It is probably one of the creepiest things I have seen, and it destroyed my appetite.  You tell me that isn’t weird.  Especially the red eyes.

The bioloigcal equivalent of the Robert Stow

What does any of this have to do with Montclair Crew?  That albino squirrel reminds me of the team’s second purchased boat:  the Robert M. Stow ’37.  With its red striping detail–extremely rare among Filippi shells–and its knack for being a bad omen, this boat was pure evil.  I should know; I spent the majority of my Montclair Crew career at its capricious mercy.

The Stow was purchased in April of 2003 from Boston University, which explains the red striping.  I’ll start with some of the positives, because it’s easier to get those out of the way.  It had an impeller and Speedcoach bracket, so we could get splits and strokerate in the water. It’s a cool feature, except Montclair has never owned any Speedcoaches.

It was a heavyweight four, which is great except our crew rowing it was predominantly lightweight.  It sat in the water like a bobbing cork and was nearly impossible to set.  We rowed it as a novice four in ’03, and in what was probably our third or fourth time in the boat, William Conceicao said from the launch that this was the boat that would get us into the semis for the Junior Four event at Stotesbury (Spoiler alert: we placed 31st; semis were a no-go).

The Stow also has a key role in Montclair Crew’s most ignominious competitive performance: the men’s lightweight four at Stotes in 2004.  We had a solid run through the time trial, but right into the sprint, the seat of stroke Gabe Stone-Jansen jumped the slide, and he was reduced to rowing with no slide through the finish line.  We placed 13th, good enough for semifinals, we were forced from a lane 5 draw into a lane 1 draw.  But the Stow wasn’t done yet.

After locking into the stakeboat for the semifinal, the boat flipped.  I was the coxswain of the boat, and to this day I have no idea how it happened.  Most likely someone let go of an oar.  They had to postpone our race while we struggled to bring the boat into shallow water and bail it out.  That took about 20 minutes, and then once we started to row away from the shore, a low-lying tree branch shaped like a question mark had wrapped itself around the steering column of the rudder at the very tip of the stern.  The rudder was yanked hard to one side and all of a sudden we were pulling to port side on every stroke.  But the officials were done giving us time to get ready.  We locked into the stakeboat and started off with a busted rudder.

Then five strokes into the race the Stow’s steering cable snapped.

I was forced to pressure steer all the while we were bouncing off port buoys like a basketball.  Somehow, we managed to not place last in that semi-final, which is a testament to the skill and tenacity of the rowers. But the Robert Stow had completely sabotaged my last Stotesbury Cup Regatta.  But I’m totally not bitter about it, as you can tell.

After that year, the Stow was used by some women’s crews, generally in the JV four category.  Thankfully, the boat was sold after the 2007 season to NYRA, for some sum of money that automatically makes Montclair the winner of that transaction.  The team has since acquired many fours of superior quality than the Robert Stow, including two new Filippi fours this winter.  Good riddance Stow!  Unless anyone wants to defend this boat’s honor in the comments.

The Melton was purchased in May of 2002, but that almost did not happen.  When Montclair first decided to send a women’s JV quad to Stotes, the intent was to race a lightweight wooden shell from the swiss boatmaker Stämpfli.  However, less than a week before the race, a collision in practice collapsed the bow.

Dramatization of Stämpfli Collision

Scrambling for a shell in the days before the team had an equipment fee, some parents and boosters quickly raised six thousand dollars to buy a used Filippi shell from Malvern Prep in Philadelphia.  The delivery was scheduled for the Friday of Stotes time trials, and back then it was actually called the Father Melton. The Malvern coach could not believe a group of sophomore girls were about to race that boat–especially after having never rowed in it.  But they did, and they placed 11th in the time trial to make semi-finals.

For the next six years, the Melton remained mostly a women’s shell, serving the JV and varsity quads.  In the 2009, the boat switched over to the men’s side, where the men’s freshmen quad raced in it.  They had a wildly successful season, winning a silver medal at Stotes.  They just missed the gold by 0.34 seconds; the win went to…Malvern.  Did the Melton let its old family steal one?  Who knows?  These days, it is currently racing as a men’s JV quad.

The third time was the charm for Montclair Crew, as it won its first medals at the largest high school regatta in the country.  Montclair entered the same number of boats as it did in 2003, for nine crews total, but doubled the number of crews that qualified for semi-finals from two to four.  From those four, we had two crews make the finals: the girl’s lightweight four and the girl’s senior double.  The girl’s JV quad and the boy’s lightweight four were the other qualifying crews.  The girl’s JV quad just missed the finals by placing fourth, and the boy’s lightweight four had a semi-final adventure that deserves a whole other post at some point.

Like just about every MHS crew at Stotes that year, our girl’s double of Claire Higgins and Jacqueline Connor was not the favorite of that event.  It wasn’t even the favored crew on the Passaic; they had been chasing a fast crew from Ridgewood all season, the bow seat of which had won CRASH-B’s in the junior lightweight event that winter.  Montclair placed 4th in their time trial and moved directly into finals.  From there, they edged Agnes Irwin and Friends Select by 2.82 seconds to grab the silver medal.

The final even immediately before that was the girl’s lightweight four.  But rewind to the previous day, where Montclair, in its nascent rivalry with Kearny, squeaked ahead of them in the time trial by 0.76 seconds.  Kearny, who had won the NJ State championship that year, won their semi-final with the fastest time, while Montclair (Molly Jankolovits ’06, Erna Adelson ’04, Eva Hamden ’04, Shea Furey-King ’06) placed second in their other semi-final six seconds off first, but comfortably into the finals.

What happened next is Montclair’s first true highlight clip:

0.59 seconds.  I was cheering from the grandstands, it was impossible to see who had actually won.  Or maybe I just thought that because it seemed impossible at the time that Montclair could win a Stotesbury event in its third year.   But it did happen, and even though I was not in either of the two crews that medaled, it was exhilarating to see the program win medals in consecutive events.

This Stotes was significant for several reasons, beyond its most obvious one.  It established the girl’s lightweight four and and girl’s varsity double as its two most competitive events in these first ten years.  Montclair has won most of its Stotesbury medals in those two events.  This was also women’s head coach Will Conceicao’s first Stotesbury championship, including those he competed in as a coxswain.  Finally, this victory put gave Montclair recognition within the town, and got the attention of current coaches Lorna Rundle and Jeremy Michalitsianos.

Leave your Stotes ’04 memories in the comments below!

A senior salesman is working with the new salesmen in his office.  They all want to earn more money.  The senior salesman offers them a deal “If you each pay me $10 – I’ll tell you how to make 25% more money” (Note: this is obviously an old story – back when $10 was a significant amount.)  The junior salesmen agree.  The experienced salesman says “Work 25% longer.”

In today’s ‘something for nothing’ environment, a lot of folks would say the junior salesmen got ripped off.  I disagree. $10 (even back then) was probably cheap for the lesson they were taught.

Rowing takes a tremendous amount of time.  Most high school rowers have little time on the water compared to the time lost for travel, weather, waiting, equipment, physical training. etc.  For the total amount invested – so little is actually spent on the water.  One solution – of course – is to maximize the time spent on the water.  In general, this means preparing in advance, not wasting time, and taking every opportunity to be out on the water.

I thought of this post while watching one of the St Joseph Eights (I don’t remember which one) working their way back to their boathouse after their timed run on Friday at Stotesbury.  St Joseph’s is a team everyone should look to emulate.  Often as boats return to dock they will row 4 or 6 of their eight – leisurely heading back to the recovery dock.  St Josephs was rowing all eight – very slowly and deliberately.  I couldn’t figure out what they were doing – then I realized they were drilling on their way back to the dock. Here was a team with probably every advantage in terms of practice time, and they were still trying to squeeze out additional performance into what other teams consider ‘transit time.’  That… is impressive.

If you are looking to improve your performance, one obvious tip is to look at how you spend your time.  Are you maximizing your time on the water?  Are you maximizing your time in the water?  The great teams have figured this out.  Are you willing to be a great team?

Since I haven’t tried this before – I’ll try embedding the video in my blog:

I had a few random thoughts from watching this year’s proceedings:

1) If you are going to walk around the boats and launching area – it is your own fault if you get hit by an outrigger.  The team tents halfway down the course are the place to stop and have a conversation – not around the boats.

2) Indian Warbling War cries should be banned from regattas.  It was unique once – not continuously.  Next year I’ll be bringing blankets laced with smallpox to hand out to these individuals.

3) I don’t see the value of coxswains who turn the volume up to 11 then proceed to yell at their rowers every inch of the course.  Yelling is a tool to be used sparingly.  Occasionally, there is a narrator who describes everything to the rowers, or someone who memorized their speech beforehand.

I took a couple pictures at the regatta – shown below.  No close-ups of the rowers here.  Those are best taken by the professionals from Sportgraphics who put themselves on the pilings of the bridge near the start to get the really good photos.  I’ve gotten pictures from them and they are fantastic.

Friday Night Practice for the Regatta

The course is 1500 Meters long for all the races:

Looking Down the Course Towards the Starting Line

During the heats on Friday – everyone is waiting for a parking spot at the dock:

Boats Waiting their Turn to Dock

Thousands Line the Shoreline to Watch the Races:

Tents and People Cover Nearly Every Free Spot on the Course

With Nearly 1000 boats taking their turn – it can be a very long day:

Wake Me When its Over...

Hope everyone else who was out there had a great time!

To be fair – I didn’t watch all the rowers in the Women’s First Eight. I was just amazed by the time they posted. Hope everyone has a great weekend.

A theme on this blog is how we look at problems and challenges, how we frame them, and how we evaluate them. Like the race predictions, we want to look at the future – plan – and take every advantage to make our dreams come true.

Like any challenge, we want to understand the objectives we want to meet with regards to Stotesbury.  Do we want to win a race?  Do we want to achieve a “team best” performance? Do we want to give rowers the opportunity to experience Stotesbury?  Depending on the size and skill of the team, we might answer yes to just one – or perhaps all – of these questions.  When should we ask ourselves these questions?  At least at the beginning of the season.  “If you don’t know where you are going, any road will take you there.” – Lewis Carroll

Having set out these objectives, the team needs publish these goals and make the team aware of them.  This is a goal to achieve and should be treated like any other serious goal.  The goal needs be written down, communicated, and understood by the members of the team.  Now – instead of simply working towards the next race – the rowers are working to achieve a long term goal – improving as the season goes by.

Very few rowers can win a race at Stotesbury – but every team can plan.  Given goals, planning, and work – there is no reason why 5,000 rowers (yes – 5,000 in 2007!) can’t come away with a goal achieved and a sense of victory. Does your team have a Stotesbury goal?  Does everyone know what it is? Is it posted in the boathouse or on the trailer?  If your team does – congratulations on your forsight.  If your team doesn’t – starting today is better than not starting at all. Don’t waste this opportunity.   I will guarrantee you one thing.  The people who win Stotesbury 2011, are already thinking about it today.  For those of you going this year, best of luck – and enjoy a memory you will keep for the rest of your life.

 

 

Another right past the fireplace, and one went through the Cross Hall, past a small reception room (neither pictured), and into the Red Hall, with its 18th century English mantel and trumeau., and another gracefully curved staircase, in front of the false Nickels-Sortwell doorway centering the Garden facade

 

To the right was a large dining room, with English portraits purchased from Duveen.  The scale is deceptive.  Although the rooms look low, the ceiling heights were about 12 feet.

 

 

 

F

From the Green Drawing Room, one continued to the Garden Room, 60 feet long.  Borrowing design details from the dining room at Syon House in London, designed by Robert Adam, the version at Wingwood house was specially designed for the set of Adam furniture that furnished it.  The room was equipped with hidden speakers and a motion picture screen and projection booth, great luxuries for that pre blu-ray era.

 

 

 

Two Views of Mrs. Stotesbury’s Bedroom.  Her suite included a boudoir, dressing room, bath, and ‘hideaway’, with massage table.

The Apricot Guest Room

 

The overall massing of Wingwood’s garden front, with its wings forming a forecourt owes a great deal to Samuel McIntire’s design for the Elias Hasket Derby mansin of 1795 in Salem, one of the grandest houses of Federalist America.

 Wingwood, west front facing Eden Street. (Mattie Edwards Hewitt, from Freeman Auction Company Catalog)

Samuel McIntire.  Design for Elias Hasket Derby Mansion, (Cousins, ‘Woodcarver of Salem’)

The main block featured a two story colonnade, with balustrade copied from a house in  Lost behind the portico, was another, a copy of the Nickels-Sortwell portico and Palladian Window.

Something was lost in the translation–the composition was fussed up with two poorly scaled arched  windows on either side of the door, and two oval bathroom windows flanking the upper Palladian window.  Further, the door was false,  fronting the circular staircase in the Red Hall beyond, and the small arched windows were actually the doors to the hall.

Wingwood, false door on garden facade (R), and prototype at Nickels-Sortwell House (L)

No doubt the decision to remodel the Cassatt cottage rather than build anew, combined with the mid-design change in architects and program, and Mrs. Stotesbury’s general preference for grandeur, did not help the project.  It would probably have been better if the design had started from scratch. Nevertheless, Wingwood is an interesting footnote to an era and to it’s owner’s sensibilities.

Hitherto a reserved and prudent man whose greatest luxury was his fine stable, Mr. Stotesbury embarked on a spending spree with his new bride, building mansions and palaces from Bar Harbor to Palm Beach, buying Mrs. Stotesbury some world class jewelry, the yacht Nedeva, and non-stop entertaining.  After having Horace Trumbauer remodel his Philadelphia townhouse, Stotesbury then engaged Trumbauer to build Whitemarsh Hall in Springfield Township, PA, one of the largest and most lavish houses ever built in America.

By this time, the 20′s were roaring in, Mrs. Stotesbury began to think about upgrading her summer housing, and here our story begins:

Mrs. Stotesbury had fallen in love with the simple white clapboard colonial and Federal houses of New England, particularly the Nichols-Sortwell House in Wiscassett, and wished her Maine cottage to resemble them.

Came home and made a lunch of OATMEAL- since I didnt have it for breakfast I had to have it for lunch, duh!

it included 1/2 C oats, frozen cherries, blueberries, mangos, raspberries, and fresh strawberries with skim milk, buckwheat honey, and cinnamon! YUM YUM!

2 orders of business:

(1) My oldest sister, Danielle, is the coach of my high school’s crew team.  This past weekend they won the Stotesbury Cup Regatta- the biggest regatta in the WORLD!  Its a HUGE DEAL!  In high school I was close to being in the boat that won it, too..close is the key word.  I am so proud that my sister was able to win it.  Anyway… if you would be so kind as to go on row2k.com  and vote for Bishop Eustace as the CREW OF THE WEEK…that would be AWESOME! its on the main page to the right…thanks alot

Oh and here is a picture of my sisters and I- I am holding the Stotesbury Cup!

(2) Check out The Healthy Everythingtarian’s blog- Ive just started following it and its pretty awesome!

 

Have a good rest of the day!