Staff photo by Frank Wojciechowski

Princeton University junior Josh Fien-Helfman (far right) has traveled quite a path to become coxswain for the defending world champion United States Lightweight Eight crew.

By Justin Fell

PRINCETON - If the last two and a half years of Josh Fien-Helfman's life were a movie, it would be categorized fantasy.

Definitely fantasy.

The events that have taken the Princeton University junior from the depths of the rowing world to its pinnacle in that short time are that unbelievable.

How could anyone explain a kid who as a senior wasn't even in the varsity boat at an inner city Washington, D.C., high school first being groomed to be Princeton University's lightweight coxswain for his sophomore year and then selected after a three-day tryout to be coxswain for the defending world champion United States Lightweight Eight crew? Fien-Helfman left July 25 with the team to fly to Zagreb, Croatia, to help defend that title at the FISA World Rowing Championships that run Aug. 1-6.

"Each step was another shot from the stun gun," Fien-Helfman said. "I'm realizing there's not really any time to get caught up in this dreamy state. I need to just do my best.

"It's really a credit to the Princeton (University) rowing program. The coxswains who came here have all really developed here. In the past two years, I've been at every single level. I was just sort of in the right place at the right time -- five times in a row."

The string of coincidences came to a head over the past month. After closing a successful sophomore rowing year at Princeton, Fien-Helfman got a call asking if he'd try out for the men's under-23 national development heavyweight team.

"I abandoned everything - my home, my summer camp job, daily meals and a girlfriend," he said. "It threw my summer up in the air. But it was like a college all-star team."

Fien-Helfman traveled to Ithaca, N.Y., for the opportunity to cox for some of the top rowers m college. It didn't work out, but a better chance came from it.

"I got cut in that camp," Fien-Helfman said. "But the coaches at (the U.S. training facility) called and said for them to send down the coxswains that were cut to Princeton to try out for the Lightweight Eight.

"I got here on a Tuesday and they had to get their roster in by that Sunday. I had three days until the final selection to prove myself. I knew I had to be sharp."

U.S. Lightweight Eight coach Joe Murtaugh, because he is also Fien-Helfman's lightweight coach at Princeton University, consulted the rowers to ask for an unbiased selection. Fien-Helfinan was the choice.

"I went from being a U23 cut to making the world's roster," Fien-Helfman said. "I'll be the youngest guy by more than two years on the team. There are guys who have been training for 10-12 years for it. It's a little strange to be in a leadership position, but I think I'll be ready."

The coxswain is responsible for controlling the pace of crew over a 2,000-meter course. His commands are carried to the rowers by a small onboard speaker system. A small computer shows the coxswain the stroke rate, elapsed time and boat speed. He uses that information along with his own observations of the racing crews to vary surges of his own boat.

Fien-Helfman got his first coxswain experience at an unlikely source, Woodrow Wilson High, one of Washington, D.C.'s, 17 public schools. Wilson isn't exactly at a prep school for Princeton. In fact, Fien-Helfman is the only student from Wilson in the past three years to be admitted to the Ivy League school.

"Out of my class of 425, only about 200 graduated," the 20-year-old estimated. "Maybe half of them went to college, and 10 of them went to colleges you've heard of."

Wilson's rowing team was self-supported for the most part by parents of team members. Fien-Helfman, who was a solid wrestler and good soccer player, made a few practices as a freshman to try to stay in shape in the off-season. But in his sophomore year there, Fien-Helfinan, who was considered too small even to row for the lightweight team, earned the top coxswain role as he became more dedicated to the sport.

It's not an easy skill. And a lack of coaching and good equipment made it that much harder at Wilson.

"We had the worst equipment. We rowed in a hollowed out tree," Fien-Helfinan laughed. "We were lucky not to finish last in every race."

In his senior year at Wilson, Fien-Helfman lost his varsity spot, not because of a lack of talent or experience, but because a junior coxswain was 30 pounds lighter than him. He was stuck rowing with a mixture of poor rowers and novice competitors. Still, Princeton's freshman lightweight coach Kevin Cotter noted Fien-Helfman's experience on his Princeton application and called just to see if he would be trying out for the Tiger's rowing team.

Having already committed to wrestle at Princeton, as a freshman he attended both teams' practices in his first semester at Old Nassau. But the opportunity was there for national prominence with a good lightweight crew, so wrestling fell by the wayside.

"When I was a freshman they were grooming me to takeover the varsity as a sophomore," Fien-Helfman said of the rowing team. "I was the only guy with any experience, and the way Princeton likes to do it, they like to have a coxswain start as a sophomore and do it for three years. Within two weeks of coming (to Princeton) I went from an inner city team that had never won a race to being expected to take over. I just got lucky there that they were looking for a coxswain."

After his freshman campaign at Princeton, Fien-Helfman returned to Washington to cox over the summer with the Potomac Boat Club. When he returned in the fall, his experience and hard work showed and he won the coxswain spot for the varsity lightweight eight crew. He maintained that spot in the spring for the most important racing season.

After a rough start that included a first-ever loss to Rutgers and a loss by open water -- a significant deficit in rowing -- at the Harvard-Yale-Princeton race, the Tigers improved their speed coming into the International Rowing Association championships, the season-ending national race.

At the IRA championships, Princeton trailed by nearly a boat length with less than a quarter of the race to go when Fien-Helfman called for a stroke rate increase. Princeton closed quickly but was edged out by Yale in a photo finish.

"We had a really young crew," Fien-Helfman said. "We really had our speed by the end of the year. It really speaks to the kind of coaching we have.

"We really exceeded our capacity at the end of the season. It was amazing in that race the commitment we had to win."

Fien-Helfman hopes to elicit that same energy out of the U.S. Lightweight Eight crew that will row in the World Championships (the lightweight eight is not an event contested in the Olympic Games).

The U.S. will be challenged by Australia, Denmark, Spain, Great Britain, Germany, Italy, Japan and Netherlands.

"We think we have the speed we're looking for to medal," Fien-Helfman said, "But we think if we can pull it together we can win gold."

That would be a fitting end to the fairy tale that's played out in the past three years for Fien-Helfman.

"It's very Cinderella-ish," he said. "I just hope I don't turn into a pumpkin until after Aug. 6."

story by Justin Fell
photo by Frank Wojciechowski
For news in the greater Princeton area,
please visit http://www.pacpub.com

Return to the main page...