Tides turn for rowers

Richard Berg looks back with a smile on the days he would wake up in his Newport Beach bay front home confused, possibly irritated.

“I just kept hearing these people at a ridiculous hour in the morning hooting and hollering,” he said Thursday with a chuckle. He remembers walking out and seeing not a bunch of rowdy teenagers, but a line of disciplined young ladies working as a team gliding across the surface of the water. It was OCC’s female rowing team, a coach explained to him when he went to investigate.

“I started watching them and they showed me what the sport was all about. I decided if I could help them in any way, I would,” Berg said.

Since those abrupt wake-up calls more than 20 years ago, OCC’s rowing teams have been the main benefactor of Richard and Lynette Berg’s generosity. They’ve donated four boats to them so far.

The latest, set to be christened Saturday, is by far the most meaningful.

The boat is named the Robert Hubbard, named for Berg’s recently deceased brother.

“He was a Newport Coast guardsmen. He was one heck of a guy, a fourth-generation banker,” Berg said of his brother. “He did a lot of things he didn’t tell everyone about. Didn’t want to blow his own horn, very self-deprecating.

“It’s going to be nice seeing his name going down the bay every morning.”

The Robert Hubbard is the latest and greatest of the crew’s racing boats, and actually, in the world. It’s a German model called an Empacher. Basically, OCC Rowing Coach Laura Behr said, Berg just told them to pick a boat, any they wanted. So now the school, the only community college in the country with a competing crew team, may have a fighting chance against the Division I and Division II schools Saturday during the annual Berg Cup Regatta.

“This is our strongest year for us to win the cup, so we’re hoping,” Behr said. “Last year we won every single race except the [Berg Cup] race.”

A top-of-the-line boat would be a gift for any team, but considering OCC’s team has to raise funds for their equipment on top of school, practice and races, it’s a weight off their shoulders, the coach said.

OCC’s female rowers will begin competing in the bay at 8 a.m., with the varsity race for the cup scheduled for 9:40 a.m. The boats will launch from the Newport Aquatics Center at 1 Westcliff Drive, where the Robert Hubbard will also be dedicated after the races. Behr recommends watching the race from OCC’s School of Sailing and Seamanship, 1801 W. Coast Hwy. Public parking is available.

Reporter JOSEPH SERNA may be reached at (714) 966-4619 or at [email protected].