[ad_1]
At 91, Pennsylvania kayaking mentor Dave Kurtz remains to be educating youthful paddlers.
Pennsylvania to Idaho an extended street journey, particularly for a Honda Civic with tons of of 1000’s of miles behind it.
It was the summer season of 1996, and Robbie Fulton was 13 years previous. He solely began paddling just a few months prior, in April, after a person got here to his center college in State Faculty, Pa., and gave a presentation on slalom boating. That man was now behind the wheel, driving him to Idaho. His identify was Dave Kurtz.
Kurtz was a coach. In central Pennsylvania, he was the coach, and Robbie had been taken by the pitch he delivered at his college. A couple of days later, Robbie reported to Bellefonte, Pa., climbed into certainly one of Kurtz’s handmade slalom boats, and pushed off into the Spring Creek for the primary time.
It was a catastrophe.
“I wasn’t within the water however half-hour and I flipped 15 occasions,” says Fulton. “Paddling actually didn’t come pure to me. It took loads of work and loads of observe, however I cherished it a lot that I caught with it and labored actually onerous to grow to be the paddler I’m now.”
Beneath Kurtz’s tutelage, Fulton labored onerous. He realized. He improved. He nonetheless couldn’t roll, however his steadiness and strokes had progressed to a degree the place, by that summer season, he was able to compete at junior nationals in Idaho. Kurtz, Fulton, and one other native boy loaded up the coach’s previous Civic and set off throughout the torso of America. That they had made it about midway and had been passing by way of a small Minnesota lake city when the automotive broke down.
Too removed from both State Faculty or Idaho, they might solely wait. However there was a lake close by, and thus, there was a chance. Kurtz and the boys pulled the boats from the decommissioned automotive and pushed out into the flat water. It might be a pivotal session for Fulton.
“Dave simply took me out in center of a lake and taught me methods to roll on the market,” he remembers. “As a result of each time I obtained out of the boat I needed to swim to shore. After I feel the third time of that, I realized methods to roll.”
Each the trainer and scholar nonetheless paddle at present, Fulton at age 39 and Kurtz at…91. The previous is an environmental scientist, whereas the latter continues to educate, serving to central Pennsylvania youth get into the world’s rising group of grownup boaters.
“There are such a lot of Dave Kurtz alumni paddlers within the State Faculty space,” says Fulton. “I really feel like we’ve got this nice little whitewater group in State Faculty that in all probability wouldn’t exist with out him.”
Kurtz arrived in State Faculty for graduate college in September of 1954. His campus tour information, a member of the Penn State Outing Membership, invited him to return alongside for a river cruise that first weekend on the west department of the Susquehanna. Kurtz accepted. It was the start of an period.
“I ended up paddling each weekend in 1954, and I haven’t stopped since,” says Kurtz
Within the years that adopted, Kurtz would qualify for 4 separate World Championships. He would participate within the first descent of the higher part of the Youghiogheny River. By hand, he constructed a few of the first fiberglass-decked canoes in the USA. In 1964, he based Sunnyside Paddling Park on Spring Creek, the place he targeted on teaching and mentoring aspiring paddlers.
Kurtz gained his first educating expertise by way of the Outing Membership, and because the years progressed he developed his personal system for teaching and branched out to working with State Faculty youth. He estimates the variety of Dave Kurtz alumni to be someplace within the tons of.
“I by no means married and had children of my very own, however one of many causes I spend time teaching is that when these children are with me, they’re my children,” he says. “I’m liable for them. I’m seeing how they react to fascinating conditions and the way they study to, effectively, be a superb boater.”
The key to his efficient teaching is the truth that the game didn’t come simply to him. He can relate to children like Robbie Fulton who wrestle to remain upright upon their first introduction to transferring water.
“I used to be a sluggish learner, so it took me some time to study a few of the methods of paddling,” Kurtz says of his early days with the Penn State Outing Membership. “However, I went on a variety of river journeys again then, nearly each weekend once they had been provided. You construct up some approach ultimately so that you simply get higher and you may deal with tougher water.”
Kurtz has based a number of groups and educational golf equipment, the latest iteration being the Mach One Slalom Workforce, which he began in 2000 with the intention of working with youngsters on the technical components of slalom competitors. Kurtz’s assistant coach, 22-year-old Alden Henrie, is a Mach One product and one of many crew’s strongest testaments. Like Robbie Fulton, Henrie struggled his first time within the water, however below Kurtz’s watch, he labored his approach up the ladder of proficiency. Since his first introduction to the game within the late aughts, Henrie has competed in two Junior World Championships and two U-23 World Championships. He made his third and remaining U-23 championship look this previous August in Poland.
“If it wasn’t for Dave, if it wasn’t for the slalom course in Bellefonte that he first put up, there wouldn’t have been anybody from central PA getting anyplace near with the ability to compete on the nationwide slalom crew,” says Henrie.
Kurtz’s work extends past the riverbanks. He lately put the ending touches on a paddling museum that may open quickly close to Spring Creek and he has plans for a brand new Mach One Clubhouse overlooking the slalom course. It’s a plateful, however he doesn’t let it reduce into his teaching time. Make a journey out to Spring Creek on any given day and you will see the 91-year-old coach whisking throughout the water in a ship of his personal design, weaving by way of the slalom gates as if he had been a 22-year-old graduate scholar. Educating, however nonetheless studying. The river is his classroom and nothing, not initiatives nor age nor Minnesota marooning, will hold him from it.
Cowl picture: Picture by Luke Vargas.
[ad_2]
