Thoughts from the past

Xeno Müller, Class of 1995

When I was a freshman the first four or five days, the flood lights outside the buildings that were yellow, the humidity in the air at the end of the summer, I was in sensory overdrive. I was so excited to be there, because I finally found a home for me where people know what it means to hold an oar and to just train on a daily basis.

I was called the “fuzzy foreigner.” In my teammates’ defense, they got a Xeno Müller at age 19 or 20, probably really full of color. Colors that I was wearing were normal in Europe to train in, but the colors that they were wearing were probably darker colors. I was friends with the underdogs on the team, guys like David Monk and Sari Awad.

I remember sitting at the starting line my very first race as a freshman in the first freshman boat. Who else are we racing but Harvard. We are sitting at the stake, and I swear to you, I thought that our boat was vibrating. I want to illustrate to you that I was sitting in a boat on a race course, just itching to rip off that stake boat and to annihilate that boat from Harvard. Because when they showed up they were so shiny and clean and so well-dressed. We know that Brown is grunge, and that the guys wear two mismatching socks. I just remember sitting at that catch thinking, “O.K., these guys, I can count on. And we’re just going to destroy the other crew.” And we did.

I think I learned of different social dynamics and immediately became tolerant; because what was shown to me at Brown was how to be tolerant. I was really a sponge when I came to Brown. I really enjoyed having different views of life all around me, the different perspectives on sexual orientation, on rich people or poor people. And I’m not sure that another school would have delivered that experience to me in the same way.

When we rowed against Navy in 1993, in Camden New Jersey at the I.R.A.s, the Midshipmen were wearing shirts that said, “Made in America.” We had a couple of non-Americans rowing for Brown, and rubbing my nose in the fact that I was a foreigner really provided me with some motivation. I love this country. If I could be an American I would be. (Now I am as of February 2004)

My coach told me before the Atlanta Games final, “Xeno, this is your first Olympic final. Half of the field here is going to get an Olympic medal. If you’re in fifth place, go for fourth. If you’re in fourth, go for third. If you’re in third, go for second.” The hardest thing for me was to be patient until the final 90 strokes of the race. I remember counting the boats behind me in the last 250 meters. I didn’t want to make a mistake I had made as a 15-year-old in Switzerland. I started rowing with more torque – not with a higher stroke rate, but with more torque.

If Steve and Scott hadn’t affected me the way they did, I wouldn’t be the person I am today emotionally.

Xeno Muller, Olympic gold and silver medalist, indoor rowing, rowing technique.