Last February, when social gatherings were still commonplace and before Covid-19 restrictions closed many local businesses, ORU held its second annual fundraising auction at the Lake Theater & Café in Lake Oswego. Among the most popular items that evening was an opportunity to choose a name for one of ORU’s new Hudson double sculls.
The winning bid came from the families of Gus Altucher and Simon Hatcher, two ORU athletes who together won gold at the 2019 Northwest Youth Championships (in both the Men’s Youth Pair and the Men’s Youth Double Sculls) and bronze at the 2019 Youth National Championships in the Men’s Youth Double Sculls.
On a recent Saturday, with full social distancing protocols in place, ORU officially christened the boat with several families who watched the ceremony and heard the story of how Gus and Simon chose the name. Gus told the story, while Simon participated via FaceTime from Vermont:
“In 2019, Simon and I were at the Youth Regional Challenge in Florida, representing the Northwest. When you are there, the race organizers provide a boat for you, so you don’t have to transport your boat from wherever you’re from… We ended up racing in a Hudson, it was a 2013, really nice, it was a beautiful boat, we were happy to row it.So getting ready for the race, we’re really tense as always…it’s a really intense start. The official calls the race start…it’s going really well. About 500 meters in were starting to gain some open water. About 750 meters in, all of the sudden, my shoe pops off the boat. It’s not like my foot came out of the foot stretcher; the entire shoe came entirely off the foot plate. And we still have 1,250 more meters to go! I’m pulling myself up with my other foot, and trying to get my foot to stay on the foot stretcher somehow.We did end up winning the race, but afterwards, we were not sure what to do with this shoe. The coach cut it out of the boat and gave it to us. And just totally by chance while were there, a legendary rower named Clark Dean happened to be there, too, helping with his home club. He’s a collegiate rower, and seriously it’s hard to express how much of an idol he is for U19 rowers. He’s legendary. So naturally Simon and I wanted to get his autograph. But we realized didn’t really have anything for him to sign. So we went up to him with the shoe from the boat. And now we have a shoe signed by Clark Dean. And so in honor of that event, we decided to name the boat “Signed Shoe.””
