Confidence In His Stroke

SINCE HIS ARRIVAL in the United States from Latvia in 1989, University of Washington rower Girts Beitlers has used a variety of experiences to adapt, adjust and succeed at life as a Husky athlete and in a foreign country.

Girts Beitlers is a Husky rower because he and his family went on vacation and never went home.

The Beitlers were citizens of the then-Soviet state of Latvia. While visiting relatives near Detroit in 1989, they decided to apply for asylum.

Girts was a late addition to the fateful family vacation. He was on the Soviet junior kayak team and the trip meant leaving at the height of the racing season.

"I almost stayed in Latvia because I was kayaking and summer was my racing season," he said.

The chance to visit the United States proved irresistible. So was the opportunity to stay in the U.S. once the family arrived: He was 16 and faced being drafted into the Soviet military in two years.

"It was very dangerous for boys," said his mother, Inara.

Girts' strange route to becoming a Husky isn't the only unusual thing about him.

He claims his adjustment to the United States was boosted last summer when he sold children's books door-to-door in New York state. His coach and friends cringed when they heard he had taken the job because it didn't seem to suit him.

Coach Bob Ernst asked, "Is this one of those jobs where they send you off to Timbuktu and you parade around?"

"Girts told me, `Yeah, but they train us.' "

"I was afraid it was going to be a disaster," Ernst continued. "But gosh, he came back last fall and said it had been a wonderful experience. He wears a watch for winning some kind of award. . . . I guess he actually made some money selling books. He told me he thought it made a lot of difference in his personality. I think it did, too. He's got a lot more direction and self-confidence now."

Girts said the summer job improved his English and his understanding of his adopted country.

Girts is a candidate for most-improved rower in the Husky men's program. He was in the junior-varsity boat last year and was hardly a lock for a varsity seat when school began in September. But he grabbed the seat as if it were his birthright and keeps improving as he has unlocked his potential.

"Clearly, he's got the weapons to be a big-time athlete," Ernst said. "He's a big, strong kid (6 feet 3, 204 pounds). He could develop into a national-team rower."

Until this year, Ernst said Girts was "kind of passive about his expectations. He was kind of worried about how he was doing in school, and I think the language thing is still a bit of a challenge for him. I don't think he saw rowing as high a priority as he does this year."

Girts agrees with that assessment. He said just before last Christmas "I decided I'm going to excel in rowing. I'll do anything I can to be the best."

That meant switching to a less-demanding major, a move that doesn't exactly fit the model student-athlete image the UW rowing program delights in projecting.

Girts already had switched majors once, going from engineering to architecture. Before winter quarter he changed again, leaving architecture and its all-night projects for speech.

He still hopes to be an architect, as his mother was in Latvia, but said he will wait until after his crew eligibility expires after next season to return to those studies.

Girts is no stranger to hard work. He said he earned his watch from the book company for working 80 hours every week.

"My first week was pretty tough," he recalled. "My first day I didn't make a sale until about 9 o'clock at night and that was just a cookbook. (And) That first day I almost got arrested."

But the near arrest proved just a temporary scare over a permit.

Girts' golden day as a salesman saw him make five sales and be invited to stay for dinner with a family that bought some books.

For many, an 80-hour week would be a killer schedule, but for Girts it actually was a reduction from his 1992 summer job. That's when he said he worked 120 hours a week gutting fish on a boat in Alaska.

"I couldn't eat fish when I got off the fishing boat," he said. "I wasn't allergic to it. I had just seen too many fish."

Girts' fingertips turned black and he lost some fingernails his first month on the boat. The tight-fitting rubber gloves he was given were too smalland didn't allow blood to circulate properly.

"When the skipper saw my hands and I told him that (small gloves) was the reason, he said, `Why didn't you ask for bigger gloves?'

Girts didn't realize there were other sizes. And fussing about it, he said, "didn't seem to be the right thing to do."

If the same situation arose today, Girts wouldn't be so bashful. After all, if selling books 3,000 miles from home and winning a seat with the Husky varsity aren't confidence builders, what is?