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Woodrick's Decade as Tiger Boatman Marked by Artistry, Genial Approach
By Bill Alden
As a kid growing up in Princeton, Brad Woodrick loved tinkering with machines.
He put a motor on a skateboard as a grade schooler and spent hours helping his brother and father tend to their motorcycles.
After graduating from Princeton High in 1979, Woodrick worked as a machinist. In 1987, he was hired by the Princeton University athletics department to work on the school's baseball field and hockey rink.
In 1994, Woodrick found his true calling when he became the boatman/rigger for the Princeton crew program. Adapting his mechanical abilities to nautical machines, Woodrick took to his boats like a fish takes to water.
Looking back on his decade on the job, Woodrick makes it clear that he has fallen in love with his life at the boathouse.
"It's been a good ride," said a smiling Woodrick, leaning against a bench in his repair shop in a corner of the Shea Rowing Center on Lake Carnegie.
"I tell my wife sometimes that I wish I hated my job so that we could move to Florida because I love the warm weather. I'll never get rich here but it's been fun. What makes it so nice is the coaches. It's like a big family."
That boating family would grind to a halt without Wood- rick's tireless behind-the-scenes contribution.
During the season, Woodrick works 6-7 days a week, arriving at the boathouse at 8 a.m. or so and not leaving until after 8 p.m. on some evenings.
Saying that he does a bit of everything, Woodrick's job duties include, among other things, repairing holes, painting and buffing boats, installing and checking oarlocks and riggings, and servicing the coaches' motorboats.
With the sleek and brittle racing boats that are 60-feet long and weigh just 200 pounds gliding through the twig-filled waters of Lake Carnegie, Woodrick has plenty of business. He has a board on the deck at the boathouse on which the rowers and coaches request repairs.
Woodrick is basically self-taught since his predecessor had retired before he assumed his duties at the boathouse. He has picked up some valuable pointers by working at the New Haven, Ct. plant of Vespoli, the maker of the boats used by Princeton.
"Like any job I've learned tricks of the trade," said ¬Woodrick, a bear of a man who sports a shaved head, neatly trimmed beard and ready smile. "I know where you speed procedures up, like getting big heat lamps to dry the boats overnight."
In the view of Greg Hughes, the coach of the Princeton freshman men's heavyweight program, Woodrick has taken his job to a higher level.
"Brad is the foremost boatman in the country, for sure," asserted Hughes, as he looks forward to guiding his rowers into action later this month at the Windermere Classic in Redwood Shores, Calif. "His unique skill is his great background in bodywork. He's also an artist, he knows how to paint a boat so that it looks it's best."
Woodrick's stellar reputation among his peers is reflected by the fact that he served as the rigger to the U.S. national team from 1997 to 1999 and for the U.S. Olympic squad at the 2000 Sydney Games.
Woodrick counts the Olympics as one of the highlights of his career as a boatman. "The coaches and myself stayed in Olympic Village with the athletes," recalled Woodrick, who proudly notes that another highlight of his career is the fact that Princeton crews have won at least one national title in each year of his tenure.
"The opening ceremony was a rush, it was so much fun just walking into that stadium. The crew course was about 50 minutes away from the village so there just wasn't enough time to do everything. It was neat."
Hughes, for his part, believes it is neat having someone with Woodrick's genial nature around the boathouse. "Brad takes great care of us and he does it all with a great attitude,² asserted Hughes, whose top freshman boat last year won titles at the Eastern Sprints, the Intercollegiate Rowing Association (IRA) championships, and at the Henley Regatta in England. "He puts things into perspective for us. He keeps us cool during racing season and that isn't always easy."
For Woodrick, it is the relationships that have made coming to the boathouse for the last decade a pleasure.
"I really enjoy the students, a lot of them come back and see me," said Woodrick, whose personable demeanor may stem from his "Brady Bunch" home life in Robbinsville where he and his wife, who teaches middle school, live with their five children from previous marriages.
"When we travel to a race, the coaches and I usually go out to dinner. We all get along, we kid around a lot and try to make the job fun."
Woodrick has certainly made things fun around the Princeton boathouse in his 10 years on the job.
