Doctor Rowing: The First Family of Rowing

In 2022, I attended a social event at the Cambridge Boat Club, and the talk, not surprisingly, turned to rowing. A stone’s throw from Harvard, a number of members remarked on the terrific crews that Yale had been boating.

“Sure, but isn’t it true that none of them are Americans,” said one old oar.

Grumbling ensued about the sorry state of collegiate rowing in the USA. You’ve heard it before: We are a training center for other country’s national teams.

“I know of at least one American in that Yale boat,” I said. “Nick Rusher, whose parents are both Olympians. He rowed at St. Paul’s School in New Hampshire and is now at Yale.”

While this didn’t exactly calm the roiling waters of dissatisfaction, it did get me thinking about a column.

I met Cindy Eckert and Jack Rusher back in the ’80s when both of them were National Team members. Cindy rowed at Wisconsin as part of their national-champion 1986 eight, and Jack had rowed in national-championship boats at Harvard in 1987, 1988, and 1989. Cindy won a silver medal in the coxless four at the Barcelona Olympics in 1992, and Jack had won a bronze in 1988 in Seoul in the eight.

That same evening at CBC, their daughter Alie was in the room, having returned from racing in the quad at the Tokyo Olympics, adding fuel to the fire of my column about the Rushers. I asked her if she would be willing to talk about her family and their rowing. “You’d better ask my mom,” she said.

I emailed Cindy, who said they’d prefer to wait until Nick had finished his rowing career. I put the idea on hold. But with Nick’s own bronze medal in hand from Paris—he was two-man in the USA eight—the time seemed right to talk about this extraordinary family.

“We didn’t want to jinx Nick by talking about his quest for the Olympics,” Cindy explained. Nick had rowed in the U23 eight in 2021 and the Senior National Team eight the next year and still had a couple of years to go at Yale. Beyond that was a hope to go to Paris.

There’s a third accomplished rower among the children— Kay, the oldest child, who rowed at St. Paul’s and Stanford.

How did all three take to rowing?

“We never pushed any of them to follow in our footsteps,” Cindy and Jack agreed.

“All three of them went to St. Paul’s and fell in love with the sport.” Jack said, “The coaches there were very inspirational, and our kids loved rowing for them as much as I did.” (Jack rowed for Chip Morgan and Rich Davis, father of my boss at Rowing News.)

At home, the Rushers kept their medals in a drawer, and Nick says as a kid he never realized how rare it was to have both parents be Olympians.

“It was great having them both understand just how hard rowing is,” Nick said, “and how hard it is to make a team.”

I asked them to reflect on the highlights of their years as über rowing parents.

“It started with the excitement of running down the beach, watching Kay and Alie’s St. Paul’s boat win at the [New England Interscholastic Rowing Association regatta] in Worcester. Later, they also rowed together at Stanford. It was thrilling to see them together in the bow pair of Stanford’s varsity in the 2016 NCAA championships. They didn’t win, but they led the field for quite a while, and on the video monitor which focused on the bows, there they were up in the bow, leading the pack.”

Alie chimed in: “There is no one that I would pull harder for. Kay was my idol growing up, and while we may have had our little sibling spats—she flipped me out of the pair once— I wanted nothing more than to row as well as she could.”

“Alie raced in Tokyo,” Cindy said, “but there were no spectators allowed; it was heartbreaking not to get to be there to support her. But Paris was a dream come true. I was more nervous for Nick’s race than I was for any of mine. As we sat in the stands, we just savored the 15 years of watching them row.”

The Rushers live on Big Cedar Lake in West Bend, Wisconsin.

“We loved seeing the girls out rowing together in a pair as they used to go back and forth,” Jack said. The neighbors would get excited about it, too. When they started to row, we had a Peinert single, and Cindy started a friendly family competition, timing who could row out to Penny Island and back. I thought they would think it was fun, but I later found out that they said it totally stressed them out.”

When I spoke to Nick, he was still high from the Olympics. “I can hardly put it into words; there’s a great sense of fulfillment. And having my whole family there and knowing what it means—fantastic!”

Nick wanted to take issue with the whole “why not more Americans in college crews?”

“I probably see it differently than some people; I got to row with and against Olympians in college. If I hadn’t been rowing with international oarsmen at Yale, I never would have improved the way I did. When I took my first 2K test freshman year at Yale, it was 6:23.”

In his years at Yale, Nick rowed in all five varsity boats, moving up through the ranks.

“Rowing with a gold medalist from New Zealand at stroke, me at seven, and an Australian medalist from the straight four behind me at six—well, those guys taught me as much about rowing as my coaches did.”

And how much did his erg improve while rowing at Yale?

To 5:58 at Yale, and now, with the help of the California Rowing Club, to 5:54.

What has rowing meant to the Rushers?

“It totally changed our lives,” Jack said. “For one thing, we would never have met.”

Cindy echoed this: “The people I have met and the traveling I have done—I never would have done any of that without rowing. It has been a really healthy focus for our family.”

“I’m so proud of both of them,” Kay said. “There’s never been a doubt in my mind that Alie and Nick would achieve their Olympic dreams, and it’s been one of my life’s highlights to watch and support that journey.

“I’ll never forget the day each of them made the team and called me. Nick’s is fresh in my mind because it was so recent—I started jumping up and down and screaming YESSS! It was amazing to watch Nick win a bronze medal, while sitting next to Alie and my parents. I remember grabbing Alie’s hand after the 1,500 and screaming that they were going to medal. I just knew it.”

Not that many families have four Olympians. Rowing has woven the Rushers together. There is a lot of love here—for rowing and for each other.

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