Swede. The Great Dain.
Two great nicknames that are both too good to pass up.
Admittedly, the geographic connection of ?Great Dain welcomes Swede? or ?Swede takes over The Great Dain? sounds better to the ear than it appears to the eye, but even headline writers are allowed a mulligan when it come to spelling once in a while. So how about some slack.
Ron (Swede) Burak certainly would permit spelling?s equivalent of pulling a crab were those scribblers training under him at the South Niagara Rowing Club. While all for winning, the Welland-based club?s new coach and the Rowing Canada male coach of the year for 2012 wouldn?t leave them stranded on the dock if they gave it their all and never missed practice.
Burak, a one-time Olympic rower who won gold when the Pan Am Games were held in Mexico City and bronze when they were in Caracas, Venezuela, supports the long-term athlete development initiative that emphasizes a lifetime of fitness over a few minutes of elation on the podium.
?The popular yardstick is the podium, but what?s not as tangible is taking an unfit person and turning that person into someone who is fit. That?s one of our goals with this club,? said the retired Stelco pipefitter who has been answering to Swede for as long as he can remember.
?It was just one of those anomalies that stuck. I was tall and blond growing up. I?ve been ?Swede? ever since,? the non-Swedish Burak recalled with a laugh.
The general manager?s position with the South Niagara club is the 59-year-old Kirkland Lake, Ont., native?s first as head coach. However, Burak is no stranger to the commitment the sport demands and the training required to first train effectively and then row competitively.
He?s coached in the region for the past 12 years, at the high school level at Denis Morris, the club level with the St. Catharines Rowing Club as well as at Brock University where he served as lead coach responsible for the lightweight women?s program. Last summer he coached St. Catharines club?s flyweight women?s four and senior women?s light pair to gold at Royal Canadian Henley and guided the Brock women to an overall third-place finish at the Ontario University Championships.
Burak?s involvement in rowing dates back to the early 1970s when he was playing basketball and football at Beamsville Secondary School and was encouraged by some friends to go out for rowing. It was a sport he had never heard of.
?Rowing? I didn?t know there was such a thing, yet three years later I?m competing in the Olympics,? said Burak, a member of the Canadian men?s eight that finished eighth at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal.
Thanks to an understanding employer, he went on to row for the national team nine times.
?Stelco was good enough to give me leaves of absences whenever I rowed for Canada,? said Burak who lives in St. Catharines with Linda, his wife of 26 years.
While 59 may seem old for a first-time head coach in a sport that skews young, Swede has always been something of an ancient mariner when it comes to rowing. He was already in high school when he picked up the sport and was pushing 50 when he studied sports management as a full-time student at Brock.
?I was 48 and the oldest varsity athlete in Canada at the time,? he said.
A long-time member of the St. Catharines Rowing Club, Burak has been too busy coaching to row much since university.
?I don?t think I?ve been in a boat for 10 years. I?ve just been too busy.?
Now that he?s a head coach responsible for administering a club and mentoring South Niagara?s staff of lead coaches, Burak also expects that his days will be filled with unending to-do lists. But he will make sure that keeping his hand in coaching is near the top of that list.
?I think it?s important that I continue coaching,? said Burak, who since arriving at the Welland club two weeks ago has already been working with the high school crews at Jean Vanier and Lakeshore Catholic.
He also intends to continue working with Brock?s rowing team.
?I like to keep that relationship alive. I think it?s important to have a connection with a university program.?
bernd.franke@sunmedia.ca
VITAL SIGNS
Ron (Swede) Burak
Age: 59
Hometown: Kirkland Lake, Ont.
Rowing highlights: 1975 Pan Am Games, gold; 1976 Summer Olympics, eighth; 1983 Pan Am Games, bronze
Coaching highlight: 2012, Rowing Canada male coach of the year
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