JulieLeung.com: a life told in tidepools

Another article in this month’s Brown Alumni Monthly peeks into the lives of Brown’s husband and wife pair of crew coaches in Rowing in Step by Scott Cole:

Brown’s most consistently successful team is led by a pair of coaches who are also husband and wife. How do they do it?

[…]

The Murphys’ success relies on a blending of the two coaches’ strengths. The varsity has thrived on John’s mix of technical expertise and an ability to connect with his athletes, while Phoebe prepares the novices by emphasizing fundamentals. “John has such a sense of people as people,” Phoebe says, adding that he seems to understand the pressures that Ivy League students must withstand and has a feeling for just how much to push them for maximum performance. John also has “a really good eye for boat motion,” Phoebe adds. “I’m terribly basic. John is always looking for things to refine.”
John asked the women if they were cookie bakers or warriors. The cookie bakers could go; the warriors could stay.

For his part, John credits Phoebe for creating well-trained, mentally tough rowers. She is known as intense and demanding, so much so, she admits, that John once warned her, “You can’t treat them as if they’re criminals!” Karen Prazar ’04, one of the tricaptains of the 2004 varsity Bears, says of Phoebe, “She’s able to take people who’ve never rowed before and in three months have them rowing as good as someone who’s rowed for four years.”

[…]

In Prazar’s view, the Murphys’ marriage has actually been fundamental to their success. “They’re very much individuals,” Prazar says. “They function well independently and they function together well. Even when you’re not a novice anymore, Phoebe’s there coaching. They have the same idea of what they expect from us and where they want us to go.” John adds that a key is the professional respect he and Phoebe have for each other: “I’ve offered many times to have Phoebe coach the varsity. A lot of schools have a second varsity coach. But she feels the novice program is such an important part of our program that she wants to handle that. We’re positively part of both squads. I ask her opinion of the varsity, and she asks my opinion of the freshmen. I really consider her the coach of both squads.”

Given that this spring is John’s twentieth season as head coach and Phoebe’s eighteenth as novice coach, people are understandably curious about how they’ve made the arrangement work for so long in their personal life. “We’re together a lot,” Phoebe admits. “People ask, ‘Don’t you see way too much of each other?’ But we’re so invested in what we do that it’s a positive thing. At the boathouse, we don’t like it to seem we’re married. During practice John does his thing, and I go out and do mine.” John adds that the couple is particularly disciplined about separating their personal life from coaching. “We could be at home having a long conversation,” he says, “but we don’t continue that conversation at work. When we’re at the boathouse, we’re not talking about our house needing to be painted.”

I’ve heard some people say that they would never want to work with their spouse all day long. I don’t feel that way. I’d love to work with Ted. I think it would be great fun. But I don’t see it as much of a possibility.

At times I’ve wished I were a programmer or computer scientist. Then I could understand him better. But Ted has told me at times that he’s grateful I’m not in the same field that he is. I think he likes it that I have different interests.

Yet I have my days when I wish we could work together. Blogging, so far, is about as close as we’ve come to this. It’s something we share, even do with each other, providing topics of our conversations. It’s helped build our marriage in various ways. Some acronyms have become more familiar to me, and we now share some of the same community and culture.

But more than in blogging, we get to partner together in marriage and parenthood. We get to be co-workers and coaches side-by-side in daily life.

What I like about this article describing the crew coaches is how they have unity together and separate strengths.

In Prazar’s view, the Murphys’ marriage has actually been fundamental to their success. “They’re very much individuals,” Prazar says. “They function well independently and they function together well. Even when you’re not a novice anymore, Phoebe’s there coaching. They have the same idea of what they expect from us and where they want us to go.”

I like to think that Ted and I operate this way as parents. Even though John is employed as the head coach, he respects Phoebe, asks for her opinion and considers her equal to him. “I really consider her the coach of both squads.”I feel Ted also treats me with respect, asking me for my opinion and encouraging me to be all I am. I’m grateful for the way we work together as parents. Sometimes he will step into a situation and help me. He’s my reinforcement: he backs me up and lets the kids know that he’s behind me; don’t mess with Mommy. He supports and encourages me. And sometimes I back him up when he’s taking care of the kids, coming into the conversation with my own perspective but the same priorities. We know we’re on the same page. We have the same goals and principles. We want the same vision and direction for our family.

In that sense, I suppose, we are coaching our own little crew.