Community college crew: Pirates will pay tribute with new racing

shell in spring

COSTA MESA - Orange Coast College’s crew program will honor former

oarsman Robert Thomas Jordan, every time the Pirates race this spring.

Jordan died in the Sept. 11 attack on the World Trade Center in New

York City. His family has established a memorial fund in his honor at

OCC.

Jordan, 34, who was a bond trader with Cantor Fitzgerald at the time

of his death, was an OCC student from 1987-89. He rowed for two years

with the college’s crew team, and went on to graduate from UC Berkeley.

He lived in East Williston, N.Y. and worked in Cantor Fitzgerald’s New

York City office.

Jordan’s family has established the Rob Jordan Memorial at OCC to

purchase a new, state-of-the-art, eight-oared Empacher rowing shell for

the college’s crew. The shell costs $35,000 and more than $27,000 has

been received by the OCC Foundation from friends and family.

The shell, to be named “The Rob Jordan,” will be delivered to OCC’s

crew next spring.

“That shell will be the best there is -- rowed by the best oarsmen --

in the tradition of Rob Jordan,” OCC crew coach and retired college

president Dave Grant said.

Grant spoke at the memorial service for Jordan on Sept. 29 at the

Norfield Congregational Church in Weston, Conn.

Grant related several stories about Jordan during the service.

“I was digging out some stumps in my garden and, though I’d dug them

out, I wasn’t strong enough to drag them to the driveway,” Grant said.

“Rob arrives on the scene and when I turn my back, he picks one up in

each hand and delivers them 100 feet away. I’m thinking, ‘This is a guy

on whose side I want to be on!”

Donations for the racing shell may be sent to the Rob Jordan Memorial,

c/o Dave Grant, Orange Coast College, 2701 Fairview Road, Costa Mesa, CA

92628.