Charlie Butt - Personality and Philosophy

Personality and Philosophy

Charlie was a major proponent of teaching people of all levels to row. He was happy to stop and talk with, explain, or coach any interested person or group. He shared the idea that it was the novice rowers who were the key to the continued success of a team. He also believed that rowing required hard work and dedication, and if one chose to pursue it that it could teach you things about life as well. He was known for having very strong and definite feelings about how the sport should be run and the direction it should go in. He was also a strong proponent of sculling and always incorporated it into his coaching. He believed that the fine skills and precision needed to scull well transferred directly to sweep rowing; he often credited the success of his rowers to their ability to row either scull or sweep. This rounded view point applied to all areas of his coaching style. Charlie was an early and continued believer in cross-training for success on the water, and health off. Coxswains were also held in high regard by Charlie. It was common for him to describe them as the "quarterbacks" of the crew. He was keenly aware that their skills could have a direct impact on the success of a boat. This worked directly into his philosophy that everyone on a crew was valuable and that a crew was only as fast as their "weakest link." Everyone who knew Charlie would probably characterise him as honest, direct, thoughtful, spirited, compassionate, energetic, dedicated, wise, intelligent, learned, a scholar of the sport, and sometimes cantankerous. Particularly notable was Charlie's high standard of sportsmanship. Charlie emphatically did not want his crews humiliating other crews on the racecourse by running up very large margins of victory. Charlie would get seriously angry if one of his crews won a race by much more than a length "open water" (about 10 seconds) over the next crew behind it. He called this "poking fingers in their eyes."

Charlie was one of the very few coaches in the world who never cut an athlete from the team. He made room for EVERY boy and girl who joined the team and provided races for them whenever possible. For example, in the 1965 season, after the crew had won the Princess Elizabeth Cup in England and interest in crew was at an all-time high, the W-L crew put eight eight-oared crews, two four-oared crews and a quadruple scull on the water, or 76 rowers and 10 coxswains.