Ted Murphy '94 wins Olympic medal

By Adam Tanney | Monday, October 30, 2000

'By guts, I mean grace under pressure,' Ernest Hemmingway once said. Not only was Ted and Sebastian's move physically inspired, but watching from the shore they seemed to move so smoothly, so beautifully in tune during that last agonizing four-hundred meters that one might have described them as a work of art in motion.

Ted's classmates describe him as the epitome of the Olympic amateur athlete and the model Dartmouth man. He loved the outdoors and loved his classmates more. He was an avid golfer, a dedicated French drill instructor, and member of Chi Heorot fraternity. 'Ted appreciated,' says his father 'what Dartmouth had that Harvard and Yale didn't, which was an ability to be in harmony with its surroundings and yet still define itself. But above all he cherished the friendliness of the people at Dartmouth, people who were not pressured by the things that in the grand scheme of it all eventually fade away, but instead make their dreams and other people the concern of their lives. Watching life through Teddy's eyes you wish you were a racer. Seeing Dartmouth through Teddy's eyes you can't help but love the place.'

It was the winter of 1991. The entire entourage of Dartmouth's upperclass Varsity Heavyweight Crew Team traveled to Boston compete in the CRASH B's, the annual world championship of indoor rowing.

There was one team member who stood out in particular among the Dartmouth contingent. It wasn't because of his size. While he certainly was big—6''5, 215 pounds—an imposing physical stature is no anomaly among oarsmen. It wasn't necessarily that he, being a freshman, had willingly given up a weekend of revelry back at Hanover to torture himself alongside his upperclass teammates (who were required to compete in the excruciating races). One might even overlook the fact that Ted beat every member of the Varsity Team en route to eclipsing the 'magical' eight-minute mark for 2,500 meters—the mark of greatness for a college oarsmen at the time. But what no one could possibly overlook was what he did to surpass that 'magical' mark.

Ted had pushed himself so hard, so close to the bounds of human ability, that he had to spend almost an hour receiving serious medical attention after the race. To most of the world such is an act of madness, stupidity; to Ted's teammates it was an act of inspiring heroism.

In Ted's senior year of 1994 Dartmouth's award for 'athlete of the year' came down to a contest between him and Jay Fielder, currently quarterbacking the Miami Dolphins. In his advocacy of Ted, coach Scott Armstrong merely stated that he expected one day to see Ted on the Olympic medal stand. Fiedler won the award, but Armstrong's prediction came true. This past September, Ted Murphy '94, rowing the Men's Heavyweight Pair Without a Coxswain, won a silver medal at the Olympics—one of only six Americans to medal in rowing this Olympiad.

Ted first visited Dartmouth in the fall of 1989 with a friend who was greatly enthusiastic about the College. Ted accompanied him less for any interest in Dartmouth than to take a trip for a weekend. When he returned home, Ted exclaimed to all his friends and family that, though he had seen the school only once, he knew in his heart it was where he wanted to be.

Almost a year later, as Ted was standing in line for lunch at Food Court, a tall, smiling man asked Ted if he'd ever considered rowing. 'Yeah, I had a little,' he replied, 'but I'm also kind of thinking about playing baseball.'

'Well, baseball's a great sport,' Coach Armstrong replied. 'And I bet you could be a great baseball player, but I'll bet anything that you could be an even better oarsman.'

That spring in 1991 Ted earned a seat in the first freshman boat. Coach Armstrong later revealed that he promoted him more on the basis of 'gut feeling' than a proven ability to move boats. The team struggled early, but finished the regular season 6-2 and placed fourth at the Intercollegiate Rowing Association's championship regatta. It was Dartmouth's second-best freshman squad in over twenty years.

After the spring and winter of his freshman year no one could doubt that Ted had the heart to become a national team member. Ted spent the summer in Washington, D.C. training with other national team-level guys, where he pulled a time of six minutes flat for two thousand meters on the indoor rowing machine—the equivalent of a four-minute mile in running. Now, no one disputed that Ted had both the desire and the talent to one day wear the red, white, and blue uniform.

The 1992 season was unsurpassed in the history of Dartmouth Crew. Dartmouth Men's Heavyweight Crew had languished in obscurity for almost half a decade, producing crews which seemed more suitable for the river Lethe than the mighty Connecticut. Ted Murphy and his teammates were determined to change that. They were tired of Dartmouth losing, sick of being the joke of Dartmouth's competitors, and they were weary of making excuses.

A coach once described Ted personally as 'your average nice guy,' but, borrowing Abraham Lincoln's comment on Ulysses S. Grant, remarked, 'When it comes time to fight, the man fights!' And fight Ted and his teammates did. They astonished the league by achieving an 8-0 record in the regular season, but absolutely shocked the rowing world by winning the Eastern Sprints and tying Navy for first at the IRA championship.

Just as Dartmouth had risen from the doldrums of mediocrity to become champions, so too it seemed likely that Ted would ascend to the national team—until the winter of his senior year. Ted injured his back seriously and his rowing future appeared bleak. He skied, swam, and weight-trained throughout the winter but never rowed. The once unflappable, fun-loving guy his classmates loved turned quiet and morose.

Coach Armstrong hesitated to take him to spring training in Tennessee, for fear that he wouldn't be able to contribute. Armstrong worried that seeing everyone else rowing and racing would evaporate Ted's spirits for good.

Just days before leaving, Armstrong received a call—from Ted's father. 'Most parents,' says Armstrong, 'you expect to call you up in a situation like Ted's and say, 'Don't you dare put my son in any boats, you'll ruin his back for good, ruin his chance to ever row again, and ruin his life.' Not Ted Murphy, Sr. He's the biggest bear of a man you'll ever meet. He'll hug you and make you feel like the greatest person on earth in ten seconds, but not during this phone call. 'You must take Ted down to Tennessee,' he demanded. 'He's miserable without rowing, he needs to get back in the boat, he needs to race. You take him!'' And so it was decided.

Ted went to Tennessee. 'Maybe the therapy kicked in,' recalls Armstrong, 'but I suspect just being back in boats, becoming a racer again healed his spirit, and the back soon followed.' Dartmouth progressed to another exceptional season, winning a silver medal at the Eastern Sprints.

Ted thought he had achieved his dreams when he made the eight for the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. As elated as he felt to have made the boat, he was equally crestfallen when they finished fifth, leaving the games without a medal. But Ted's disappointment soon turned to determination. 'Ted wanted to medal for everybody that helped him and believed in him along the way including family, friends and teammates,' recalls one of his classmates.

At the World Championships in 1997 Ted won his first international medal, winning the bronze in the pair with former Harvard rival Adam Holland. Although Ted moved permanently back to Princeton, NJ to train full time with the national team camp, he was not invited to compete with the team at the World Championships in 1999—a potentially heartbreaking discouragement with the Olympics only one year away. He trained with impassioned ferocity in the fall of 1999 and the winter and spring of 2000, never forgetting the disappointment of 1996. National team coach Mike Teti designated him and Sebastian Bea, from the University of California, as the U.S. Training Camp's Pair.

Many of those familiar with international rowing immediately regarded this as a U.S. heavyweight man's worst chance to win a medal. But Ted didn't think, he just did.

First, Ted and Sebastian had to race the independent boat of former teammate and rival Adam Holland and Tom Bohrer for the right to represent the U.S. Ted and Sebastian had only a month of rowing together before they faced the gritty veterans. Having won the two qualifying heats, Ted and Sebastian met Holland and Bohrer in the final and beat them by a mere foot and a half. Not only did they win, they broke the world record time (which remained unofficial because of a strong favorable wind). Nonetheless, Ted and Sebastian knew they were fast. If no one else realized that, it was just fine with them. It would be their little secret.

Because the U.S. pair had done so dismally at the 1999 World Championships, America failed to earn one of the 16 automatic bids for the Olympic event. That meant Ted and Sebastian had to race at the Olympic qualifying regatta at Lucerne, Switzerland to earn one of the final two Olympic spots. Winning both their heats, Ted and Sebastian met the heavily experienced and heavily favored crews from Yugoslavia, Lithuania, and Croatia. Although the Europeans were surprised when the American boys crossed the finish line barely behind Yugoslavia and ahead of all other crews, few expected much from them in the Olympics. They were quite literally the last boat to qualify for Sydney. Most pairs at the Olympics row together for handfuls of years, sacrificing careers and a family in preparation for one chance at Olympic immortality. Sebastian and Ted had been rowing together for months. Moreover, unlike the U.S. which prioritizes the Eight and then the Four, countries such as France, Italy, Russia, and Yugoslavia put the two best sweep oarsmen in the entire nation into the Pair. If the U.S. failed to make the finals—let alone medal—nobody would have even thought twice—except, of course, Ted and Sebastian. They remembered that unofficial world record, they knew how fast they were and how much faster they would be. After all, they had only been together for a few months and were picking up speed every day.

Then disaster struck. Three weeks before their first Olympic race Sebastian suffered two protruding disks in his back. Ted rowed two hard sessions a day with a spare, and one light session with Sebastian. The back injury he had overcome in college, the disappointing finish at the 1996 Olympics, the failure to make the 1999 World's team—they had all empowered Ted. Again he got up after being slugged to the ground. Where other men might have been demoralized, Ted was determined, his resolve hardened. But this time it was his partner pinned on the mat with no chance of tagging him into the ring.

There is an ancient Chinese proverb handed down in the Dartmouth boathouse: 'Master,' said the student, 'I'm very discouraged, what should I do?' 'Encourage others,' the Master replied. His Dartmouth teammates had done it for him in the spring of 1994 and he had done it for others time and time again. Rather than draw into himself, Ted did the only thing and the most powerful thing he could do; he encouraged Sebastian.

With only a week before their first race, Sebastian recuperated enough to race. Just how fast they could go remained to be answered.

The first race was 'exploratory,' recalls Ted. 'We wanted to see what we could do, while making sure we took third to advance.' They finished two seconds behind Yugoslavia and a second off Russia, but comfortably ahead of the rest of the field. For the semifinal they drew Australia, Germany, and Yugoslavia.

'Everyone was talking about the powerful Aussies and Yugos,' said Ted's father. 'The Germans entered the Olympics as serious medal favorites and everyone thought they were primed to really fly in the semi.' While Ted and Sebastian knew they had more speed in them, they also knew this was no exploration; it was the race of their lives. And they raced it as such, establishing a lead from the first strokes of the race and holding it until the last five-hundred meters when Australia and Yugoslavia barely edged them. Yet they still captured a stop in the finals. 'We certainly didn't shut it down at the end,' recalls Ted. 'But we didn't take it up to our absolute highest gear either.' Ted's trip to the hospital tent, you might say, was yet to come.

The U.S. Men's Heavyweight Pair final epitomized the sport of rowing. There are few sports where the peak of one's physical exertion is sustained for as long as it is in a boat race, where the intensity of the racing demands that you give everything of yourself every moment, and then, finding yourself behind, somehow find a way to give more—because you must.

The race consisted of six boats, five of which were medals contenders until the last four-hundred meters of the two-thousand-meter race. The British jumped out to an early lead, followed closely by the Yugoslavians in second. France, Australia, and Ted and Sebastian followed, separated by inches at the halfway mark. With seven-hundred meters to go France took an incredible move, launching itself permanently into first. At the five-hundred meter mark, with less than a minute and thirty-five seconds to go, France led, followed by the gradually waning British, followed by the Yugoslavians, then the Americans in fourth and the Aussies in fifth.

Amazingly, the Americans were already rowing 39 strokes per minute, a cadence even Olympians rarely hold for more than their final sprint. But with four-hundred meters remaining, Ted Murphy and Sebastian Bea, beneath all the agony of their burning muscles, churning hearts and nearly bursting lungs heard a voice inside them which said 'Yes you can,' and they responded.

Ted Murphy '94 wins Olympic medal

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