This week, I sat down with one of the crew team’s finest, co-captain Matt Carey ’07. Carey, a veteran of the team who has been on the varsity eight since his freshman year, provided the Argus with an exclusive interview about his role on the crew team this year.
VC: So tell me about yourself. Why do you think you’re special, tough guy?
MC: You mean besides my huge lungs and my ridiculously-low resting heart rate? Nothing really. I won the New England Championships as a freshman in the varsity eight. This past summer I rowed for the Penn Athletic Club in Philly and won the under-23 lightweight eight at Canadian Henley. Basically we were one of the fastest club lightweight boats made up of guys under 23 years old in North America. I finished about 30th this year at the indoor world championships for lightweight men, which put me in the top 20 collegiate lightweight rowers. This year, I’m rowing with the varsity heavyweight eight in the seven seat.
VC: So you say you’re a lightweight. You a lightweight when it comes to getting your groove on on a Friday night?
MC: Well to answer that question, I’ll have to consider my party as another sport. It has its own season and for me, the party season is definitely the fall season. In the spring, it’s all business.
VC: Tell me about your typical fall Friday night. Do you party it up with the crew guys?
MC: Well, after like two hours of steady rowing, our favorite way of replenishing our carbs is definitely with a few drinks [Editors note: Matt is referring to Hi-C]. We spend a lot time working together and a lot of time partying together. It’s a beautiful thing.
VC: OK tough guy, back to rowing. Who’s the most underrated rower on the varsity eight?
MC: I’d say Kim Davies [’07]. That girl is an animal.
VC: So a girl on the men’s boat, eh? I’ll bet she kicks your ass in the water.
MC: Yeah, actually that’s her job. She’s the coxswain. She steers the boat and makes the calls. Personally the guys always respond better when it’s a girl telling them to push harder.
VC: Oh yeah? You too tough guy?
MC: That’s right, baby.
VC: So looks like you guys have the New England Championship Regatta coming up in two weeks. What can we expect from you guys?
MC: We have unfinished business with Williams. We were ranked ahead of them all season for a reason, and we just came up short in the final sprint by 1.6 seconds over a six and a half minute race this past weekend. 1.6 seconds is an agonizingly small margin and everybody is really fired up to see them again. It’s our motivation when the lactic acid takes over during our threshold work.
VC: So you’ve had a relatively successful season. What is the key to your success?
MC: I love the guys I row with. Everybody has a great sense of humor. When we have a bad day on the water, and that’s very rarely, everybody is able to leave it out there and move on and learn a lesson from it. That’s the key at this level; the people who are able to learn from their mistakes and make the best of a rough situation are the ones that are going to come out on top. I’m also really proud of the freshmen. We’ve been expecting a lot of them and they’ve delivered so far.
VC: I’ve heard that a lot of interesting items have been found in the Connecticut River lately. Found any dead bodies?
MC: Yes, actually this week there was a body in the river. We found a couple bodies in past years but this was the most interesting story I’ve heard. What happened was a guy jumped off the Harbor Park Boardwalk because someone dared him to for a shot of vodka…and then he died. No joke. He was so drunk he couldn’t swim.
VC: Oh my God. Which rower would most likely pull that same jackass stunt?
MC: [Brian] Studwell ’09, if I didn’t throw him in first. I own that bitch.
VC: Studwell is my bitch too, funny thing you say that. So do you have a master plan with rowing, even after college?
MC: Absolutely. I want to take it as far as I can go. Ultimately that means earning a spot on the United States lightweight team but we’ll see. It’s a long road.
VC: Anything else you’d like to add?
MC: We live the Bihvharian code…it never stops
Leave a Reply