Coaching has meant different strokes for Dietz

Jim Dietz does not know quite when the change occurred, but there was a definite shift in his focus somewhere during his five decades in the sport of oars -- from a hard-driven, dedicated athlete, winner of 18 Head of the Charles races, to a coach of the same stripe.

``That's just how your life evolves," said Dietz, who is in his 12th year as coach of the highly decorated University of Massachusetts women's rowing team. ``At one point in my life the race was everything. It was all about winning the race. But now your dreams are more about the athletes you coach winning races. It's more important for the young than for the old."

Dietz has had a fair amount of experience both as a rower and coach. Having rowed since 1964, beginning as a 16-year-old competing for the New York Athletic Club, Dietz has won 45 United States and 37 Canadian national titles. He was a member of seven world championship crews, and won his first Head of the Charles in junior singles, then went on to win seven championship singles, seven championship doubles, and capped his winning ways with a masters singles title when he was in his 40s. He is considered by many the greatest sculler of his time.

Coaching, however, changed his focus. After nine years at the Coast Guard Academy, he moved on to Amherst, where he started the women's program. His record as a coach, if shorter than as a competitor, is equally stellar, as he has molded his program into one of the elite in the nation, with such results as seven consecutive Atlantic 10 championships, and conference coach of the year honors in four of those seasons.

While much of the team effort is aimed at the spring sprint season, Dietz has a passion for Head of the Charles, which he describes as a blend of the elite and everyman, and as one of the great fall festivals.

``The flavor of this regatta that makes it so great is that you have every level of rower there," he said. ``You'll have a Mahe Drysdale from New Zealand -- the current world champion -- racing in the championship singles. And you'll have high school scullers in their races, and veterans in their 80s. In one weekend you'll see some of the greatest athletes in the world, and then there'll be young kids in there racing with their current national champions on the same water. That really lights young kids' minds up. That's how the sport progresses in America."

In the Head of the Charles, which will take place Saturday and Sunday on the Charles River, rather than the relatively short sprint races of spring, which match boats head to head, the 3-mile course with timed starts introduces a level of uncertainty, and that, Dietz said, brings excitement.

``It's a very difficult race," he said. ``There will be 60 rowers in a race and they hand out one medal -- for first. But there's something even more demanding than in spring racing and summer racing, which are 2,000 meters. In this race, you never know what the competition is doing. You may know, if you start in the front of the pack, what the first five or six rowers are doing. But there's always this intangible that there's a [boat] in the back of the pack that no one knows about that's coming incredibly fast. So you can never take it easy. If you want to win the race you're always looking for that next gear. That's why everyone always hits their PR [personal record] at this race."

Former members of Dietz's teams remember his booming voice, inspiring personality, and a whistle that every rower listened for out on the course.

``He had a whole rowing vernacular," said Katie O'Brien, a Shrewsbury native who, though now a law student at Suffolk, still has hopes of getting to the national team level. ``And whenever we were in a race and heard him whistle through his fingers, we knew that was the signal to pick it up and sprint to the finish. The boat would just take off. No one wanted to disappoint Jim."

O'Brien said that sometimes when she was training, ``He'd be coaching me and I'd realize that I'm next to Jim Dietz, this legend. Some people would kill to get to row with him."

Always an eights rower, O'Brien said Dietz called her one day after she had graduated from UMass and suggested she get into singles rowing, his forte. She resisted, saying she didn't know anything about singles sculling. ``He came by and dropped me off a boat and said, `Go learn,' and I did," O'Brien said. ``I remember when I was a [high school] senior looking at colleges. UMass was not my top choice then, but having Jim for a coach made it the best decision I ever made."

O'Brien, along with several present and former UMass students, will be rowing for Dietz's teams this weekend.

``As a rower, Head of the Charles is just the holy grail," Dietz said. ``There's an excitement you won't find in any other race. You wanted to win it every fall and get a PR. The prestige of winning this regatta, especially these days, is just awesome."

But to Dietz, as with most rowers, the sport is well beyond the competition, or any one race.

``Rowing is a lifestyle," he said, ``and a lot of these oarsmen live that lifestyle for a long time. You get used to getting up in the morning and get in your rowing workout. You have to keep yourself fit, and it's a sport you just do and love to do all your life. And, of course, every fall, this [Head of the Charles] is the pinnacle of that sport."

Tony Chamberlain can be reached at chamberlain@globe.com.