Dad Vail Regatta

For rowing aficionados planning to partake in the 75th annual Dad Vail Regatta, president Jim Hanna wants you to know that the race is still on - with just a few minor alterations. Yesterday, practices were canceled due to a mixture of inclement weather and river conditions, leaving questions about today's proceedings. Officials decided to push the start time from 7 to 8 a.m. to accommodate the hundreds of teams and onlookers expected along Kelly Drive today. In addition, teams will race in a head-to-head format as opposed to the traditional side-by-side style that, according to Hanna, allows for a "safer way to row given the current conditions.

  In the mid-1990s, after spending six years as the rowing coach at Cornell, Dave Kucik moved back to West Lafayette, Ind., because of a family illness. His sabbatical did not last long, as the Purdue men's club program was looking for a new leader.   "I took over a struggling team," Kucik, 57, said. "We had to show the kids a few things about putting holes in the water. "   Kucik has had the golden touch with the Boilermakers, who are now a consistent force on the national scene.

Temple men's crew coach Gavin White sees the Dad Vail Regatta as a competition within a competition. There's the team championship, and there's the varsity 8 title. On Saturday, Temple didn't win either. Purdue, seeded third in the men's varsity eight, won in 5 minutes, 42.59 seconds, just ahead of top-seeded Temple (5:44.83) and Florida Tech (5:46.19). The title helped the Boilermakers capture the men's point trophy with 25. Temple and Georgia Tech tied for second with 21 points.

The Schuylkill River will be covered with rowers participating in this weekend's Dad Vail Regatta, the biggest collegiate competition in the world. Kelly Drive will be closed to traffic today and Saturday to accommodate an expected 50,000-plus spectators. More than 4,500 rowers from over 100 colleges and universities will see quarterfinal action in 18 events from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. today. Saturday, the semifinals will be held from 8 a.m. to noon, with finals scheduled from 1 to 6 p.m. Spectators will find some big changes this year: Alcohol will be banned, with observers screened at the gates.

The unfamiliar sound of "Let's Go, Blue" filled the reviewing stand on Kelly Drive yesterday, where the 57th annual Dad Vail Regatta took on characteristics of a Big Ten football game. The University of Michigan, rowing in Philadelphia this weekend only because of a mailing fiasco, finished as the overall points champion of the Dad Vail and also won the women's division. The Wolverines varsity heavyweight eight for women beat Temple in a riveting race. Temple's men won their heavyweight race for the seventh straight year, and the Michigan men took second, holding off a determined Drexel crew at the finish line.

It might be too soon yet to think about winning. The junior stroke, Jenn Morreale, is the old lady of the group. The sophomore, Sarah Halek, came to Drexel from North Penn High and knew so little about rowing that she would point out the lighted buildings on Kelly Drive and tell her friends, "Look, that's Frat House Row. " The coxswain, Erin Pallone, is a freshman from Holy Spirit High in South Jersey, and she brought a Holy Spirit classmate,...

When the shock was setting in that their loved one, Scott Laio, was suddenly gone forever, that the unthinkable had happened, the Laio family members gathered in their Pittsford home on Sunday with the Rev. Michael J. Bausch. D.J. and Mary Laio talked about trying to find the positives in their son's life, which ended Saturday when the 20-year-old junior rower from Boston College died after a race at the Dad Vail Regatta. Through the tears and the pain, the Laios shared stories about some of Scott's antics, his infectious and distinctive laugh and the way he cared about others.

The eight-oared crews of Florida Institute of Technology, Temple, Purdue and Ithaca College won their heats yesterday in qualifying for today's varsity championship in the 48th annual Dad Vail Regatta on the Schuylkill. The regatta, with 3,000 participants from 76 schools, will continue today with 40 races, from 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., when the varsity eight championship will be contested. Coach Gavin White's Temple crew, beaten this season by only the powerful Penn varsity, scored the second-fastest time in beginning defense of its varsity eight championship.

It's back. The traffic-snarling, ever-expanding Father of All Rowdowns, the Dad Vail Regatta, returns to Kelly Drive beginning tomorrow morning, and the 59th version of the small-college big race is again looking to flood the banks of the Schuylkill. More than 400 crews totaling more than 3,500 athletes will begin making their way to the top of the Schuylkill race course above Strawberry Mansion Bridge starting at 7 a.m. They'll power their way past the statue of Jack Kelly Sr. to the finish line 2,000 meters downriver in the hopes of surviving until Saturday afternoon's finals.

While Gavin Adams has done well as a pharmaceutical marketing major at St. Joseph's University, he does not plan to immediately join the work world.   "I plan to do some traveling in Europe," the senior said. "Too many people, I think, go out and right away get locked into a career that might not be the best for them. I want to find myself, explore different opportunities. "   For now, Adams is focused on finishing his rowing career in winning fashion. The 6-foot-1, 195-pound Adams is a stalwart in the No. 4 seat for St. Joseph's eight-man varsity heavyweight crew.

During two days of competing in the Aberdeen Dad Vail Regatta, Purdue had to endure "a lot of hiccups," in the words of its coach. The Boilermakers sat their No. 3 seat on the men's varsity eight boat because of illness. They brought up a substitute from the junior varsity, which affected the JV. And in the varsity eight race, their boat struck a log in the river, knocking off the rudder and forcing the coxswain to stick his arm into the Schuylkill to make the turn at the Strawberry Mansion Bridge.

Drivers will encounter a few disruptions because of major events today and over the weekend. Today and tomorrow, part of Kelly Drive will be closed for the Dad Vail Regatta. This evening, the Phillies, the Red Hot Chili Peppers and any after-dinner Shore traffic might mean delays around the South Philadelphia sports complex. Sundaymorning, the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure will tie up streets and detour SEPTA buses as runners and walkers proceed from the Art Museum down the Parkway to Love Park, then on to Drexel University and back to the Art Museum, where Eakins Oval will still be off-limits in earlyafternoon.

Gavin White likes the idea of staying busy, especially at this time of year, when he can again take part in the Aberdeen Dad Vail Regatta wearing the Temple colors - this year for the 38th time as an Owls rower, assistant coach or head coach. White, who has led the Owls to 19 heavyweight eight titles at the Dad Vail, is in his 34th season as Temple's crew boss and still enjoys coaching. But health issues have raised the possibility that the 74th regatta, which begins Friday on the Schuylkill, could be his last as coach.

A section of Kelly Drive will be off-limits to cars for three days because of the Dad Vail Regatta. The closure, between Strawberry Mansion and Fountain Green Drives, was scheduled to start at 10 this morning. Reopening is set for 8 p.m. Saturday. Traffic heading toward Center City will be detoured south up the Strawberry Mansion Drive ramp to Reservoir Drive, south to Fountain Green Drive, then west back to Kelly, according to police. Outbound traffic, will be routed east on Fountain Green Drive to Reservoir Drive, north to Strawberry Mansion, then north on the Strawberry Mansion Drive ramp back to Kelly.

THE SCHUYLKILL is a sacred place to Jason Read. For as long as he has been rowing, the river has called to him in a special way, not just a place to work out on but an evolving piece of ecology. From the vantage point of his boat, he has seen it change over the years for the better. Only the other the day he happened to see a "turtle the size of watermelon. " New algae are growing. And he sees fish leap from the water that are big, with schools of smaller ones near the banks. Gazing out at the river one chilly morning recently at the Temple boathouse, he said, "The health of the river is improving.

Sean Gibel knows by heart his father's advice on rowing, that he must have the will to keep pressing and never slow down, regardless of how tired he is or his boat's standing in a race. "Whenever I faltered, he was there to say, 'Keep going,' " said Gibel, the senior stroke for Georgia Tech's heavyweight eight boat. Sadly, Gibel won't be hearing those words from his father when the Yellow Jackets compete this weekend in the 74th Aberdeen Dad Vail Regatta. Paul Gibel, 46, a star oarsman for Temple in the mid-1980s, died on April 6 after a three-year battle with cancer.

The return of single sculling to the Aberdeen Dad Vail Regatta last year after a 45-year absence was so well-received that officials had to cut off the number of entries in the men's division for this weekend's competition. "We were oversubscribed," said Jim Hanna, president of the Dad Vail Regatta Organizing Committee. The 74th Dad Vail, the largest collegiate rowing event in the United States with a record 127 schools this year, begins Friday on the Schuylkill. Of the 167 races scheduled through Saturday afternoon, 10 will consist of qualifying and finals in the college men's and women's single sculls.

Richard Walter O'Brien, 82, formerly of St. David's, a retired manufacturer's representative and sportsman, died of prostate cancer Tuesday, June 21, at Tranquility Hospice in Austell, Ga. Mr. O'Brien cofounded Sunday-O'Brien, a manufacturer's representative firm. For 30 years, he supplied electronic components and semiconductors to clients, including General Electric's aerospace division and Unisys. He retired in 1995. A native of Germantown, Mr. O'Brien graduated from La Salle College High School and served two years in the Marine Corps in Virginia.

Michigan and Purdue took the men's and women's varsity heavyweight eight titles and left the annual event on the Schuylkill River as the big winners at the Dad Vail Regatta. The Michigan men covered the 2,000-meter course in 5:48.05, followed by Florida Tech (5:50.97) and Delaware (5:51.66) for its third men's varsity heavyweight title in program history. The Purdue women finished in 6:38.49, ahead of Old Dominion (6:38.82) and Grand Valley (6:43.43). Purdue led overall with a total of 41 points, followed by Michigan (33)

One of the most courageous and inspirational among the approximately 3,100 athletes at the Dad Vail Regatta is a wispy Drexel freshman who weighs 112 pounds, most of it heart. Kerry Walsh, coxswain for the Dragons women's varsity eight, has leukemia. As she described it Saturday, the steroid treatment for the disease rotted out her hips and she had a double hip replacement while she was a student at Bishop Eustace. The condition, called avascular necrosis (AVN), is also affecting her other joints.