Oct. 14, 2009
By Jessica Rhoades
UCFAthletics.com
ORLANDO, Fla. (UCFathletics.com)- Newly hired assistant coach Joel Furtek proves to be just the addition the prosperous UCF women's rowing team was looking for. With countless years of coaching experience under his belt he is ready to lead the novice squad to victory. Along with a history of successful coaching, Furtek shows to be multi-talented with several hobbies outside the sport of rowing.
After taking on the role as coxswain for four years at Yale, Furtek had no plans of returning to the sport of rowing; but that all changed when he attended the University of Virginia as a graduate student.
"I had a four year career as a coxswain at Yale and thought I was done with that. Then I went off to work for the government for two years. There were some difficult times during my career there and I found that athletics always made me feel better." After realizing he did not want a future working with the government, Furtek attended the University of Virginia to obtain a master's degree in education. There, he accepted the task as the head novice coach and that is when Furtek got hooked on coaching.
Following his stint as an assistant coach at the University of Virginia, Furtek went on to be the head coach at UNC Chapel Hill for five years. As head coach he directed the start up of the Division I rowing team, successfully led the Varsity 4+ squad to a bronze medal performance at the NCAA Tournament and founded the Chapel Hill Rowing Camps for the Nike Rowing Camp System. Furtek left UNC when he felt the program was well established and made his way back to the familiar University of Virginia.
"As the head coach at UNC for five years I was working really hard and we were doing great things. We went to the NCAA, worked on personal and speed development and I was very proud of what we had accomplished. I just reached a point where I was proud of what I had done and the program was at a good place. I was going to step back and do something else. One of the options was to go to another school to become an assistant coach, let someone else take the big picture and run things and let me continue teaching through coaching. I was comfortable with the staff from Virginia so it was an easy transition back into that."
After coaching for 13 years with the ACC, Furtek was drawn to UCF's rowing program for its continuous growth efforts and promising success and was recently hired as the novice team's assistant coach.
"As a previous head coach I am looking for a place where all the pieces are there they just need that one more piece of the puzzle for everything to come together. When I met with Becky Cramer it was clear that that is what UCF's rowing team needed."
Needing nearly no experience to try-out for the UCF rowing squad, there is always a huge turnout at the annual meeting in August for interested participants. Try-outs typically last 14 days, where the decision making process takes action. Individuals who have never rowed before and are offered a spot on the team will be placed on the novice crew for a year, which is designed for first-time rowers. The varsity team is comprised of previous novice rowers and graduates of high school teams. With the novice team comprised fully of newcomers to the sport, Furtek expresses passion towards teaching the future group the competitive sport.
"Being the novice coach it is a terrific opportunity because I receive 100+ women who have never rowed before. They have no preconceived notion of what rowing is about. Imagine taking a college basketball team and teaching them how to dribble. It's fun every year because there are all these people who are excited about the sport, and we have the job as coaches to create the environment for them from scratch."
Out of the water, Furtek is a man of many talents. Next to being a well established and successful coach, he also finds time to dedicate himself to side projects, such as home renovation and restoring and rebuilding old trucks. Furtek hopes to continue renovating houses come next summer, but as a coach he only has a limited amount of free time to spare, so he focuses on one mission at a time. At the moment he is restoring a 1969 Chevy van. Finding time for Furtek's numerous hobbies is what's difficult.
"I don't have nearly enough time for my hobbies, but I can tell you when it comes time for me to retire I won't have any trouble staying busy. Being a coach takes a lot of energy. We have to project all the positive things we want from our athletes and elicit them, so every coach needs to find their way to recharge to go back out there again. For me, it's the solitary time, like renovating a house. I get visible results from the work I put into that project. With coaching many results are long term. The ladies won't race in spring season until March and championships until May. They may not hit peak performance until senior year and that's when we get our rewards."
In addition to proving great knowledge regarding rowing, Furtek spent many years as boatman and rigger at the University of Miami and the University of Virginia where he showed to be educated on maintenance, repair and assembly of all racing equipment. This worked in Furtek's favor when he spent a year preparing for the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta. There, he installed and removed the rowing, canoe and kayak venue.
"It was a neat experience to be behind the scenes at the Olympics. We were there the summer before as they built a rowing community over the lake and there we installed the rowing course. To see that all come together and then taken apart again is quite the experience. The world sees maybe a six-minute piece on rowing but there are weeks, months and years of work on both sides to make it happen. To get that view was great."
Ready for a change, Furtek enters the 2009-2010 rowing season with great expectations and a positive outlook for the future season.
"I love UCF, I love its age and its freshness."