Sebastion's Folly

Swim Test    (Logan and Teddy)  "What are you doing in the pool with all your clothes on?"  It was a pretty simple question and it made really good sense too because I was just floating around in the pool with all my clothes on like a damned fool. the problem was I had been haunted by this kid for nearly three weeks now - catching glimpses of him here and there - in the gym, in the locker room, the hallway, the food court around campus. I really wanted to say something to him since he'd been haunting my thoughts all day for three weeks and no one could tell me anything about him because I was shit at describing him to anyone I could have asked about him.  I didn't know anything about him - was he a prof's kid or a student or what? Nothing at all and after my last crush on a professors kid - well - I wasn't going to let that happen again - if I could possibly help it!  "Um. Uh. Rowing team swim test." Pretty sure I sounded like a complete putz.  ...

The Big Eight +2 Charles  Eric  Liam  Noah Oliver Elijah  James  William  Benjamin  Lucas  It took a couple of weeks before it all fell into place but when it did it was a thing of beauty for sure. I had been part of a four that melded really well when we were all first semester novice rowers - the coach put us together with a good coxswain and told us to "Make it happen!"  We went on to have a great fall season, long head races,  and then the Spring season, short sprints, was really something. We used to row with the pack until about midway and then we'd start pulling away further and further ahead of them all.  We were pretty notorious too - all five of us were poorly closeted gay boys - as long as we weren't too obvious about it in public no one cared much. We were roommates  and boat mates and we spent a lot of time together on and off the water.  We weren't able to stay together beyond our novice season though - deman...

It was late afternoon by the time the regatta was over. Timmy's team had loaded their boats and equipment on the trailer and into the vans and the medals and trophies had all been handed out.  Timmy's eight took gold but the team was a distant third overall - good enough for them to pick up a team trophy and be happy. Last years squad was fifth overall and the eight was a distant fourth.  Later on we all reconvened at Timmy's folks place. Eight rowers and a coxswain and four "others" - myself and three boys who helped cary equipment earlier. So thirteen 12 and 13 year old boys - left pretty much to ourselves in the pool house while Tim's folks went out to a restaurant and our kid brothers had their own sleepover in the house. The housekeeper, Kay, was the only "adult" person around and I think she was just there to keep the house from burning down.  When I took my overnight bag to the back Tim greeted me. A big kiss on the lips and a hug. I guessed t...

Winter training had gotten underway - it was just after Thanksgiving and not exactly the "dead of winter" just yet but it was cold and wet and gray. The rowing team had participated in the last regatta of the Fall season and now we just got ourselves ready to take on the last weeks of the semester - grades were first priority but working out, conditioning, rehabbing sore bodies, became our emphasis.  Recruiting was another priority. If the fellas knew anyone who might be interested in joining and might actually want to sign up they would bring them to the student gym/field house and see what we could do to hook them in.   The squad worked out hard - sweat dripping, huffing and puffing, the occasional collapse to the floor - it was an odd sort of recruiting dance that the other coaches would watch and shake their heads. "I don't know how the hell you get away with torturing these boys this way and still keep getting them to join!"  "It's my sincere smile...

 My brother and I looked like brothers only he was, clearly, a couple years younger than myself. My cousin Timmy and I were the same age and we looked like twins.  We'd known each other from afar for many years. He lived in Ohio and I lived in Texas and we'd only see each other during short visits in the summer - when my family would travel north to our summer home.  Timmy went to the same school my father went to and he was rowing there also. It made me horribly jealous because rowing was just a summer activity for me and, of course, Timmy was living the family heritage and I could only read about it, hear about it and watch it from afar.  None the less we liked each other a lot. One summer we traveled through town and Timmy's rowing team had a regatta downtown. We got up early and went down to the boathouse and watched the team warm up and prep the boats. They won the first heat easily and then the second was close to start but they pulled away about halfway throug...

I met Peter in the gym in late December. The rowing teams "Holiday workout season" was pretty much done but we had caught his attention. He approached me one day as I was finishing up my personal workout. We chatted about crew and about how things were run - the fact that we'd be breaking up for Christmas and then coming back in January and doing a lot of hard core workouts - conditioning, strength, strategies - race and competition etc...   We quickly established he was a coffee lover and we'd gotten together a few times in the evening to compare notes. A lot of flirting and teasing went on and he had me wondering if I had misread the signals. He worked out with me a few afternoons in the last week before I left town - he wore short black shorts and a dark gray, long sleeved, shirt that zippered up the front.  "Are these the kind of shorts you want us to wear in the boat?" he asked with a sly smile on his handsome, boyish, face.  "Yes - those would do ...

 It had been an early Spring. Lots of sun and warm weather and since we had plenty of time before the first regatta we had an easy going practice week. Going over fundamentals and a little speed training and sitting up the boat and such.  We started the day out in sunny, darn right, hot conditions and so most of the boys were stripped down to shirts and shorts. We warmed up quickly and went pretty far up river and that's where we were when we noticed that there was weather headed our way.  We lined the boats up two to a row and sent them back towards the dock. "Make hast young man!" I laughed and sent the first two boats off and then the next two - the guys loved rowing fast and hard so everyone was still ok.  About half way back we connected with the rain. It was a solid, cool, rain but not much wind - it was going slowly up the river soaking us. There was no wind - no lightening - just this soaking rain that had us all looking like we'd been swimming. As fast as th...

 Billy had had a really tough day on the water. He wasn't hitting the catch with the rest of the boat, but then all four of the guys were hitting at will, he was going too deep and ended up catching multiple crabs and he buried his calves into the tracks so hard, and often, that blood was running down his legs and soaked his socks.  The boat was so badly sit up that all the guys came away with busted knuckles and deflated spirits. They were angry and embarrassed  and couldn't wait to get away. The rest of the program had seen the chaos and they pretty much stayed away from the guys - it was pretty much silent running for anyone around them.  I thought everyone was gone but when I walked into my office there he was. Sitting on the bench along the back wall. He was sort of hunched over with his face buried into his arm.  "Billy. Billy are you ok?" "No." He looked over at me and it was obvious that he'd been crying.  "That was a pretty shitty day out t...

 I was visiting a friend nearby campus. His family had an orchard and they grew apples, pears and peaches. It was apple season and I was in the habit of stopping off and picking up two or three baskets of fresh apples to hand the guys after practice. When I was at school, back east, we had a guy that used to show up after football practice and hand out apples to us. I never forgot how we used to devour those little apples and how one of the guys, who I hardly knew at the time but I had a crush on, just walked up to me with his apple and took a big bite from it and then he had me take a bite from it. We ate that apple together and there was no shortage of apples either. That was the whole purpose of the practice - that was part of how we connected as a team. He and I went on to become close friends after that.  Anyway when I showed up to pick up the apples my buddy introduced me to Joshua. He was sort of a character. He was sort of country but not really because he had some rea...

 Joseph had a way of looking right at you and never looking away - if he ever did look away he got you to look with him. As if it wasn't his fault you caught him looking - it was yours. He had eyes that pierced your brain - a smile that was just enough to make you want more but never too much. He had a body that was slender with budding muscles. He was a swimmer originally but I managed to recruit him away from the team - his would be coach wasn't too happy about that but he took it in stride.  "Joseph's a hot little fellow. Where do you think you'l use him?"  "Anywhere he wants me too!"  "You're am evil person."  I just smiled and nodded my head. Joseph came into the office with his gym bag in hand.  "Ok. I guess I have everything." He said and stood next to me.  We walked out of the office and through the locker room and as we headed down the main hall to exit he asked about getting some coffee. "Are we still on for cof...

  Dear Coach Cooper... The email began.  A few years ago my big brother rowed his novice season with you and your crew. He always told me how much he loved it and he still talks about it to this day. He left the school after his first year - transferred to a larger University that offered him an academic scholarship but no rowing.  Anyway he told me I should seek you out before deciding what school to go to after High School. He's taught me some basic stuff about rowing and training and he's always talking about all the times he used to go see you after practice, in your office and even at your home, and it sounds like the sort of thing I truly want to do also.  I know you can't offer scholarships or anything like that but I'm enclosing my academic record here - I'm not a brainiac but I'm not dumb either 😺 I'm also listing my athletics here - our school doesn’t offer rowing and there aren't any clubs nearby - but we, my brother and I, have a boat we use...

 It was the squads first road trip of the Holiday season. We had an ergatta in a town a few hours away from us but we didn't want to get up at disgusting early hours of the morning and cruise over there so we arranged to drive over the night before and stay at the facility available at the hosts campus. All told there would be sixteen rowers and two coaches just from our group. The place was really pretty comfortable and sense ours was the only team to travel, all the others were local, we had it to ourselves.  It wasn't fancy  just a typical long dorm style room with beds on either side and a long aisle down the center. It was the attic space over the old boat house. On the far end was a small seating area, like a little living room, with a heater and some shelves that had old magazines and books and some old photos. The chairs and sofas there were over stuffed and comfortable and we were asked to bring our own blankets and such - it was December and the last event held ...

 William was a devoted rower. He was one of the fellows that connected with me on multiple levels also. He was an athlete, for sure, but he really loved the boats and the process of rowing - of working out and recovery and all. He had a way of physically and mentally connecting with the entire process.  He knew I was good at massage and especially good at acupressure  points also. One day he came to me and said he had been especially sore. "It's been a crazy tough couple of weeks. I'm just feeling blasted - physically and emotionally I'm just feeling ruined right now."  "I can help with that if you want." "I do!" He smiled a little, a whence of pain on his face at the same time. "I mean I know some of the guys told me you could help."  "I'll help. Come by my place tonight and we'll see what we can do."  Eight o'clock sharp he was knocking on the door. He was always ready to go - even with the cooler weather alrea...

 Leo was a good boy. He used to workout hard - he took his rowing seriously but he never lost sight of the fact he was there as a student not just an athlete. He used to come over to my place when he knew the coast was clear and use my study to get his work done without being disturbed by the rowdies back at the dorm.  The school library was pretty good but so was mine and he seemed to really enjoy my dress code a lot more than he did the library. Even if other boys, or an another boy, was around it didn't really bother either of them. The squad was pretty much unfazed by the openness of my sexuality and that of the boys and no one ever really questioned the legitimacy of a boat line up once they got to see it in action - on the water - on race day.  I missed Leo once he moved on - he took everything he did seriously - and when he showed me his gratitude he was mind blowing. 

Tim joined the rowing team in the late Fall. That means he was just on time to get a few weeks on the water and found himself hooked. It was rough because there was no way he was going to make a boat for the last regatta of the Fall season but he stuck with it anyway - he was a wonderful coaches helper.  After the last regatta we go into what we call holiday training. We move indoors to avoid the cold weather and the training becomes mostly light weightlifting, erg work and running on the indoor track. It's boring  and monotonous and exhausting but it really is necessary if you want to be a competitive squad in the Spring.  Tim was in pretty good shape, like a lot of the squad at that point, but they had a real advantage over the poor guy. After one of our tougher weeks in December some of the guys came over to feast and hang out - we used the occasions for team building. Timmy kept falling asleep and I finally told to go in and get some shut eye in my room - No problem....

 Weigh and Measure Day was a day that came early in every boys time on the squad. We had to know just what it was we were dealing with so we took their weight and calculated their body fat percentage - we simply put them on a scale that did that for us -  and then we took key measurements.  We ran the tape around the chest - over their nipples.  Next around the body at the belly button - their official waist line.  Next around the body at a point a few fingers below the belly button - usually about where the pubic hair, if they had any, would top off.  The final measure was their butt - the tape ran around the body just above the boys cock - their legs together - standing straight up.  Some of the boys would offer to let me measure more and, eventually, wanting to be as thorough as possible, I'd take them up on the offer. 

 Jackson was a freshman when we first met. He had been on campus for about a week after having attended a special summer session and he was given permission to stay on in student housing during the short break between the last summer session and the start of the Fall term.  There was a hot tub in the student gym that few people knew about. The students weren't really into soaking in it anyway and the few coaches who knew about it usually didn't say anything to anyone about it - it was a sort of private/secret club.  Anyway one day I was off my game a little and decided to hit the hot tub rather than to workout - there weren't usually any students in the gym at that time of year so there wouldn't be any missed recruitment opportunities. When I got there - there was Jackson. He was naked and gorgeous and he had a look, not exactly a smile but not entirely surprised, on his face that just called out "I've been waiting for you!"  "Hello." He said wit...