Ocean of Dreams

The alarm goes off each day at 4:15 a.m. In the quiet of darkness, Anne Rumsey pulls on her sweats and heads 10 miles south to the Los Angeles Harbor, where she and more than 50 other men and women gather for another two-hour practice session.

They are members of USC’s crew teams. In contrast to football and other big-time sports, theirs is a lonely, grinding endeavor. Practices are held six mornings a week. No scholarships are awarded. Glory is rare: The USC team is something less than a powerhouse. “We’re building,” says Coach Dave Nesbitt, a former star collegiate rower.

Still, the crew members arrive each morning, often in darkness, to open the day with stretching exercises followed by brisk workouts in the harbor.

It’s not a pristine setting. Noisy freighters blast past the rowers. The water often glistens with oil patches. Odd pieces of debris float in the paths of the fragile shells.

But there are moments . . . skimming softly under empty bridges, shafts of dawn sunlight turning the horizon to gold and those wonderful moments when everything clicks and eight rowers race on as one.