The Daily Orange

Media Credit: Stephen Dockery

On the bank of a river in Racice - an industrialized city in the Czech Republic still wearing the affects of communism, Dave Reischman flew down a bike path.

The finish line appeared in sight, and excitement swelled in Reischman.

A bit strange considering:

a) He wasn't actually in the race.

b) The finish line was not on land. It was in the middle of the manmade river he rode alongside.

But this was the No. 11 Syracuse men's rowing coach's first time being involved in the international scene of men's crew at the 1993 Rowing World Championships, coaching a qualifier for the men's single sculling competition. And as long as Reischman's legs could keep up with the methodic movements of every rower on the waterway, he wasn't going to miss a race.

Why else would the head coach devote time leading up to the races fixing up a rickety Ukrainian mountain bike? Why else would he put up with the ragging from senior coaches for his borderline obsessive enthusiasm for the race? Why else would he log several miles a day to watch each 2000-meter sprint?

Why - Reischman knew that bike trail would provide him with a view to the quality of rowing that he'd never seen before.

"I'd be like 'Wow, did you see that?'" said Reischman, his face still becoming wide-eyed as he describes the scene in Europe from his office in the Archbold Gymnasium 15 years later. "And then I'd turn and peddle back to the start and catch the next race."

That's the fervor generated by a rowing maniac. One who prefers to spend his time picking the brain of former and current rowing stars. One who mastered terrain by bike just so he could get a better glimpse of the water. A bit geeky perhaps - after all Reischman holds a computer science degree.

Then again, there's that one time the head coach recalls he landed a computing job. All day he just fantasized about rowing. Lineups, strategies, rowing techniques. He couldn't get it out of his head.

Now he's brought that expertise, that obsession, to SU. In 2002, Reischman took over a once-great, now floundering program. He's turned it into the most successful sports team at Syracuse. His Varsity Eights crew has lost only one race during the regular season in the past three years. The team has won more hardware than the school had seen in its trophy case in more than a decade.

"Rebuilding is sort of a young guy's game sometimes," the 43-year-old Reischman said. "And I didn't know how many more shots I'd have at it. So I figured (Syracuse) was the challenge I was looking for - I couldn't leave it for someone else to do."

Continued...

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