Charley McIntyre -Teacher, Father, and Friend passed on to his Eternal Reward on Wednesday, October 29th, 2008. He was a man for the Ages.
Teacher, thanks for taking us to the sea, and showing us how to feel the boat run through the water. Thanks for taking us to the mountains, to feel the skis glide through the snow. Your careful eye and steady hand enlightened our senses.
Father, thanks for lighting the way and leading us down the path. Your comforting presence always lifted our hearts. Your courage teaches us to be strong and stay the course.
Friend, to young and old, your tall tales and anecdotes made life interesting. Your honest opinions were refreshing.
You will be missed.
Charley McIntyre
1922-2008
10 comments:
My thoughts are with your family.
Charley was the most calm, patient teacher of a classic, meditative rowing technique. I treasured his patience - though he could lose his temper with those who were not on his team - but with us, he was loyal and patient, a wonderful teacher. His passing feels like the passing of an era. I feel blessed to have known him and to have rowed with him. He is already sorely missed.
I was also struck and touched by his great equanimity when he went through trying personal times. He personified in his personal life the patience he tried to teach us as rowers. He had grace! We all loved Charley. I even dusted off my discarded Catholism and went to an All Soul's mass which featured Mozart's Requium, dedicating the evening and music to Charley. His memory will always be with us as we seek to perfect the glide and the grace which he taught so well.
Michele Coad, and her daughter Rosa.
Thanks Charlie for creating Charley's blog! Your post is beautiful and I especially love the photo! Your dad looks so peaceful and happy. I hope to see more from your big trip to Europe.
I am such a lucky Sister to have shared my life with Charley (BoBo to me) He was such a loving Brother who would call and ask if I had a minute and then tell me a joke or read something from a book or paper and say he had just read that and it made him think of me. We talked hours about his children, his love of rowing, my careers, and my fears. We would share long talks about the political problems of the wrong people running the country of late.He was so very much an admiring and supportive friend. Seldom has one been so blessed as I. I keep counting those blessings trying to make this pain go away. I'm delighted to know about the "row-by" scheduled for the week after the church service. That is the most perfect tribute I can think of....so much above anything else. Barbara
What Charley gave he received back in abundant friendships and love. He deserves nothing less and I for one am so grateful to have been able to be exposed to a small portion of his life experience. I'll see you in the next life Charley! Your loving nephew/son, Michael McIntyre
Charley recruited me to the Ancient Mariners Rowing Club - or more aptly allowed me to drop by and row with them - one day at Green Lake in 1991.
We got to know each other, watched rowing videos at his house when we lived in Madison Park and Charley, more than anyone, filled me in on rowing history from his days with Jack Kelly to the present.
Charley also was always encouraging even to toward us "raw" Port Townsend rowers. There's a picture of him encouraging Lorna, one of our rowers, at the Everett Salmon Row in 2003 at http://www.pocockclassic.com/McIntyre.html
We will miss Charley.
About Charley
Over the years, many scullers on Lake Union came across Charley, in his beautiful cedar Pocock. Resting on our oars, we heard more than one good story about rowing past. Some of us were lucky enough to hear more stories over coffee – about Charley’s connection to east coast rowing. At first, I honestly didn’t know if all of his yarns were true --- who was this little bearded guy?
His stories really came alive for me one morning at Voola’s Restaurant, with his sidekicks Frank Cunningham and Stan Pocock joining us for breakfast. Although they clearly had more rowing fame than Charley, it was captivating to see them also hang on Charley’s every word. Two things became very clear that morning when eating at George Pocock’s old hangout: 1) they had very low quality standards for coffee; and 2) all three of these guys shared a magnificent past about the passion, technique, and history of US rowing.
Frank is the brilliant sculling coach, rigger, and writer; Stan, one of the most magnificent boat builders and rowing technicians of all time. But Charley was the historian – the connecting thread between rowing past, present, and future. While Frank and Stan helped many of us become better rowers and apprentice coaches, it was Charley who used stories to invite each of us to become tiny threads in the tapestry of American rowing. In his story telling Charley wasn’t trying to impress people with his rowing prowess; rather he told stories, like a great Indian chief, to pass on tradition and make us future story tellers. For Charley, the rowing stories were as important as race day, a tuned boat, or a powerful catch. Without the stories, rowing is just boats, stroke motion, and medals. With stories, rowing is about passionate people who dared to dream dreams and pay the price to make them come true. Through stories he could hook us to people most of us had never heard of or met: Kelly, Hanlan, Burk, Nash, Bigelow, Enquist, Tytus, and more recently Harville, Norelius, McDougall, and other women rowers.
So thank you Charley for your wonderful stories about rowing and rowers. So here’s my story about Charley that I would like to pass on…………..
During the week of Seattle’s Goodwill Games, Charley called me spontaneously one morning to come rowing with some folks from his rowing past. I showed up, wiped my eyes, and was shocked to see on the dock an older version of the 3 time Russian Olympic sculling champion, Vjach Ivanov. It was him. We climbed in the 8, and rowed up and down the Montlake Cut.
After that, Charley invited us to lunch with Ivanov. Not at Voola’s. I sat across from Ivanov, who was seated next to Charley. I spoke no Russian; he spoke little English. But somehow he and Charley managed to laugh incessantly at indistinguishable one-liners. They were like school boys, swapping barbs with lots of 4-letter words scattered in between. A bit nervously, I decided to ask Ivanov what it was like rowing with us in the morning. He stared at me for a moment, jumped out of his chair, put his hands on his thighs, clenched a lit cigarette between his teeth and snapped. “you rew [row] like sheet [shit]….. no puuuuush [push with the legs]” And with that he sat down and continued his laugh fest with Charley. It was very clear --- Ivanov, perhaps the greatest sculler of all time, loved Charley and loved his stories. We did too.
Jim Clark
It was the summer of 1992 and I was looking for an activity for our gangly pre-teen son whose height had exceeded my 5'10" by age 12. I never considered rowing. Coming from the Midwest it appeared to me that you needed to be short and squat to fit in those skinny boats. But, as soon as I was informed otherwise I sought a teacher. One name kept surfacing. Charley McIntyre. And, as luck would have it, he lived in our Madison Park neighborhood and was willing to teach someone as young as John to scull. As John said in an earlier post, the first few summers may have been more about water fights than the finer points of sculling, but Charley's patience and tenacity won out and the lessons began in earnest. John became a serious protege to Charley's tutelage. And he had so very much to share. From middle school through high school John rowed under the CMRC banner and had many successes including being the inaugural recipient of the Runstad Scholarship to the UW.
Charley was so much more to our family than merely a coach. We attended races together, had lively conversations about politics and religion, shared current reading lists and yarns about Philadelphia and rowing. Charley was an important figure in John's development as a rower and as a human being at an impressionable age. We are so grateful to Charley for his gifts - of gab, of intellect, of character, of dedication and of humor. The waters of Lake Washington and Lake Union are stilled by his passing.
"To laugh often and love much; to win the respect of intelligent persons and the affection of children; to earn the approbation of honest critics and to endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; so give of oneself; to leave the world a better place, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; to have played and laughed with enthusiasm and sung with exultation; to know that even one life has breathed easier because you have lived - this is to have succeeded." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
If this be true, Charley McIntyre was, indeed, an unquestionable success.
M.M. McIntyre
One of my earliest rowing memories dates back to around 1971, when I was fourteen years old and just learning to scull at the Seattle Tennis Club. One pleasant summer afternoon, I was thrashing along by myself in a single when Charley happened upon me. After observing from a distance, he pulled alongside and kindly offered a few words of advice on my technique. He continued rowing alongside me for several minutes, offering further encouragement before pulling away with impressive strength to finish his row. I have never forgotten that moment and Charley's interest in helping me begin to learn the art of rowing. In the thirty-seven years since that day, I've watched Charley do the same for countless others. He was a legendary figure and his spirit will always be with us whenever we are on the water.
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