My grandfather worked on the tugs in Cleveland. He died in an accident while working out on Lake Erie in 1989, the year before I was born. That year, Ignatius guys also started rowing on the Cuyahoga River. My grandpa thought it was crazy and dangerous, according to my grandma.

My grandpa was an Ignatius grad, and he felt this way even though those kids on the river were fellow alumni. I can't imagine what he would have said if he had lived to see me join the rowing team. The crazy thing is, being on the river is the closest I've come to knowing him.

I remember my first early morning practice on the river, with the lights of downtown Cleveland flickering off the reflection of the water in the pre-dawn hours. I told my mom about it after school that day. She told me my grandpa would have seen the city the same way I had.

Frequently, we'd be passed by a tugboat, sometimes towing a freighter upstream or returning to the marina after hauling one out to the lake. I wondered how my grandpa, if he were still alive, would feel about rowing now that I was traveling on the same river as him.

I've heard stories about him from my grandma, my mom, my aunts uncles and older cousins over the years. My grandpa was a good man, hard-working, faith-filled and loved his grandchildren to bits. The tugs have long owned the river; and rowers have learned to share it with them.

Rowing and coaching on a commercial river can be challenging; the commercial traffic always has the right of way (rightfully so). But I'm glad it's evolved so much these past several decades. Every time I see a tug, I think of my grandpa. The river is what we share.