Getting The Best Of Both Worlds At Cal

When the COVID-19 pandemic first hit back in early 2020, it had various implications for different people. For some, it meant not being able to be around friends and family for an extended period of time. For others, it meant losing a job, closing a business or just being stuck in an area.

For student-athletes, it meant adjusting to a new routine where they couldn't be around teammates, access training facilities and ultimately having their 2020 season canceled.

But for Gus Rodriguez and Christian Tabash, graduate transfers on the Cal men's rowing team, it also provided the opportunity to re-think how they wanted to finish off their collegiate careers. Cal was the perfect fit to allow them to pursue graduate degrees while also providing an environment that would help them prepare for the 2024 Olympic Games.

Rodriguez was a member of the Brown University rowing team at the time and had to make a decision in the spring of 2021 about how he wanted to spend his senior year. After three months at home, he decided to defer his senior year as the status of that year's Intercollegiate Rowing Association (IRA) Championships were up in the air. Rodriguez didn't want to risk a year of training without being able to compete in the sport he loved. Ultimately, he and a teammate got a job at a papermill in Providence and made the best of the situation.

"We were living in Providence with all of our teammates who were still enrolled at the time while we were working full-time," Rodriguez said. "We got to enjoy the year with some really good friends, find a way to train, while also preserving the chance to have a somewhat normal final year at Brown."

With limited access to facilities, Rodriguez had to come up with a creative way to train.

"I had to train in our basement," Rodriguez said. "We made it like a whole erg (rowing machine) room. My friend got this paint to seal the basement and made it an extra room in the house. We brought four ergs and set up a weight rack."

When his roommate re-enrolled at Brown, Rodriguez remained committed to training by himself and it paid off. He ended up being selected to compete in the U23 World Championships in Racice, Czech Republic in addition to being named 2021 USRowing U23 Co-Athlete of the Year after rejoining the team at Brown for his senior year in 2022.

After graduating from Brown, Rodriguez still had an extra year of eligibility left due to COVID and was looking for the right situation that would fit his needs while preparing him for a 2024 Olympic run. Knowing the caliber of the rowing program at Cal, the first call he made was to Cal men's rowing head coach Scott Frandsen.

"I saw Cal as a great opportunity," Rodriguez said. "I get to be at Haas [School of Business] and train with guys who are on other national teams. The talent at Cal is unmatched. Scott fosters a really competitive environment and gets the most out of his guys."

Rodriguez is currently pursuing a one-year entrepreneurship degree at the Haas School of Business and views this year at Cal as a pivotal stepping stone on his Olympic journey.

"It has been a great opportunity for Gus to complete his collegiate career here at Cal," Frandsen said. "He is able to pursue a graduate degree in Business while also joining our squad and training with some of the best young rowers from across the US and around the world. Gus integrated into the team seamlessly and has added a lot to our top group already."

Like most people, Tabash who was rowing for Harvard at the time, figured the pandemic would be fairly short-lived and that he could go back to a normal routine soon.

"I just remember there being a lot of uncertainty," Tabash said. "A lot of us held on to some hope that there would be a quick turnaround. As the dust started to settle it became pretty clear that this pandemic was much bigger than we could have expected."
With many facilities closed down due to the pandemic, Tabash had to expand where he was willing to train, even if it meant leaving the country.

"I heard from some of the guys I was rowing with [at Harvard] that there was a club in London that was operating with strict regulations but operating nonetheless," Tabash said. "There wasn't anywhere in the US with a similar setup."

He would spend the next year training at the Tideway Scullers School in London in the seniors program, which consisted of an elite group of rowers that won multiple gold and silver medals from the Junior World Championships, competed for their respective countries at the U23 World Championships and have Olympic aspirations.

Like Rodriguez, Tabash shares Olympic aspirations, having competed numerous times at the national and international level and notes that Cal was a perfect fit to get him where he needs to be.

"With it being in the pre-Olympic cycle and me having one year left of eligibility (due to COVID), I just thought why not train and compete in the top program in the country," Tabash said. "The standard here is so high that I would be improving at a similar rate to anyone else training for the US team."

Tabash is completing the graduate certificate program in business administration and will follow up with the entrepreneurship certificate next spring.

It seems fitting that Rodriguez and Tabash both ended up at Cal as they got to know each other first when they both competed for the US at the 2017 World Rowing Junior Championships. They re-connected in the summer of 2021 when they were invited to the USRowing U23 Men's National Team Selection Camp in Boston and actually lived together during the selection process. The two kept in touch ever since.

"(Rodriguez) called me up in August of 2022 when he found out I was going to Cal and we were both pretty excited that we were going to be teammates, which had never been the case before," Tabash said.

"Christian got in touch with us very late in the spring, expressing his interest in pursuing the graduate certificate programs and rowing with the team," Frandsen said. "What a great late addition to our top group. He trains incredibly hard and has really molded his intensity well to fit in our team culture.  I'm thrilled to have Christian and Gus training with our squad this year, pursuing graduate degrees from Berkeley that will help with whatever professional goals they have after rowing, while also taking significant steps towards their dreams of competing for the US team at the Paris and/or Los Angeles Olympics [2028]"