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During a run with coxswain Chase Phillips shouting out encouragement
Chase (right) coxswains the Men's Varsity 8 as they row along the Occoquan River
BELOW: Sophomore Chase Phillips (left) and junior Steve Mikalisko play before their fellow classmates at Woodbridge High School's International Festival.
Chase waits for the rest of his crew team |
His crew, Woodbridge High School's Men's Varsity 8, placed third in the first heat of the regatta. Chase felt they had a good shot at winning the finals. It was the weather that won, however. A sudden storm blew in; the regatta was canceled.
Back at Oxford House, the boathouse the Woodbridge crew shares, Chase eased himself out of the shell. He adjusted his crutches, hoisted himself up and started directing operations to store the boat.
Chase is 16, the only son of Charles and Susan Phillips of Lake Ridge. He was born with spina bifida, which means his spine never fully developed.
His first major surgery occurred a few hours after he was born. There have been seven more operations since then. One left him in casts and a wheelchair for nearly a year.
But he'd much rather tell you about his passions--crew racing and music.
Five varsity rowers on his boat, the Claire Moulen, will graduate this month. So the first priority of coxswain Chase and the three remaining rowers is to recruit "horsepower" before the fall season starts.
"We're looking for guys about 6 feet 2 inches tall, 190 pounds, muscular, with strong legs and arms, exceptional mental attitude, motivation and determination to win," Chase said.
Candidates must learn to row and get used to regular weight-lifting sessions.
Chase's dad, Charles Phillips, compared the team to that of a B-17 crew, where 10 people depend on each another for survival.
Chase knows from going to spring nationals that teams with taller rowers have more momentum and win more races.
At 5 feet 1 inch tall and 101 pounds, Chase never expected to be recruited for crew. Yet he's ideally suited for the position of coxswain. He asked the coaches for a chance to try out as a freshman, and made it.
Coxswains need to be light and know how to steer the sweep-oared boats. It's up to them to motivate the rowers to victory.
His first season, Chase was coxswain on the Men's Mid-weight 8 team. He moved up to varsity last year.
Head coach Tom Moulen, a physics teacher at Woodbridge High School, is a graduate of Mary Washington College. He was introduced to the sport there when he joined the small rowing club.
"One of the oldest rowing race courses in the country was founded on the Rappahannock near Fredericksburg in the 1880s," Moulen said, "but the course was wiped out in the Great Flood of 1889."
Crew was founded at Woodbridge High in 1981 as a varsity sport, supported by an active and loyal group of parent volunteers. Last year, the 128 team members named their new Dirigo Scorpion racing shell "Claire Moulen," in honor of the coach's mother, who had just died.
That boat, with Chase as coxswain, was timed as the seventh-fastest during 1,500-meter trials last month at the 75th annual Stotesbury Cup Regatta in Philadelphia.
"Chase is an aggressive athlete, and he is starving for knowledge," Moulen said. Chase has a good rapport with the crew, Moulen continued, but must keep his temper in check. Being on crew has helped Chase find himself, Moulen said.
Phillips said his son's determination to be on the crew didn't surprise him.
"As a young child, Chase didn't sleep well," Phillips remembered, "and one night he said, 'When you're asleep, you can't do anything or learn anything. The only good thing about it is that when you wake up it's another day.'"
"He wanted to play Little League baseball on a regular team when he was about 10. I told him that I would take him to talk to the coach, but he'd have to make all the arrangements with him," Phillips said.
The coach allowed him to play. They agreed that, because Chase would have to put his crutches down in order to bat, he needed a designated runner to first base. Then Chase could pick up his crutches and make the other three bases on his own.
"The members liked having Chase on the team because he would get hits. He batted a .700 average and drove in some runs," Phillips said.
Chase has lived in the same house in Lake Ridge subdivision all of his life, and has gone all through school with friends he met in kindergarten. He was manager for his middle-school baseball team one year, and for several years he swam on a local swim team.
Michelle Bowser, who also lives in Lake Ridge, has known Chase since first grade. She is also a sophomore at Woodbridge High School, a rower on the Women's Midweight 8, and she plays viola in the orchestra, where Chase is first violin, fifth chair.
"Chase has always been treated like everyone else and included in all of the activities. He's just a nice guy and very talented," she said.
She recalled that during most of their sixth-grade school year, Chase wore casts on both legs and had to get around using a wheelchair.
"He told us that he might be able to walk after the casts came off, but it didn't work out that way and it was disappointing," she said.
Phillips said that up until the surgery that left him in casts, Chase's right leg was paralyzed, but he had partial use of his left leg, which he used to great advantage. He was determined to learn how to ride a bicycle using just his left leg.
"He practiced outside at night because he said he would be embarrassed if someone saw him fall. Once, he did fall and, as he was getting up, he laughed and said, 'I thought that I did that rather gracefully.' "
Chase eventually rode so well he could jump the bike on a ramp.
Following the surgery that left him in casts and a wheelchair, Chase couldn't regain the full use of his left leg.
"I just feel lucky that I'm not bound to a wheelchair," Chase said. "I have good parents and friends and I'm treated well. I'm in good spirits. I just figured out a way to ride a Jet Ski, lying down."
His parents have taught him that a person has to play the cards he's dealt. It's up to him to make the best of his talents.
Phillips noticed when Chase was small that he didn't bang the keys on his mother's piano as most children do. He tried to pick out tunes. At the age of 7, he was playing a guitar. At 9, he was taking lessons.
"He came home from a lesson one day and said, 'Dad, you're not getting your money's worth; my teacher couldn't help me with the one part that I'm having trouble with.'"
After that, he started taking lessons from Matt Mills at the Classic Acts Guitar Shop in Oakton.
Mills said Chase is incredibly curious. For a teacher, "that's a joy. He asks me question after question about the music, and it is so much fun, because it gives me a chance to talk about it.
"Chase definitely has a natural talent and an open mind. He loves music and he puts so much feeling and emotion into each note. He is quite a good player and improviser, a quality that I do not see that much. If he keeps advancing, he should do really well."
Chase switches from acoustic to electric guitar, depending on the music--progressive rock or jazz, Latin or neoclassical jazz, hard rock or rock. He even plays in the dazzling shred style, which was popular in the 1980s.
Stephen Mikalisko, who plays clarinet and saxophone in the marching band at Woodbridge High School, met Chase when he was a freshman. Stephen was amazed by Chase's knowledge and taste in music. Since they both played guitar, they started getting together to jam.
Stephen said Chase introduced him to all the jazz he had heard through Mills. Soon, Stephen was taking classes from Mills, too.
Kate Dail, a language teacher at Woodbridge High School, said she heard Chase playing Latin guitar last year, and the music was so beautiful she made him promise to play at the school's International Festival this May.
Chase kept the promise. And he asked Stephen to play with him.
Together, they worked up their own rendition of "Mediterranean Sundance" with the Latin/jazz influences of Al Dineola and Santana.
While Stephen was strumming a solo during their performance, Chase changed the distortion setting on the amplifier so that he sounded like Jimi Hendrix. The crowd went wild.
"The clapping was amazing," Stephen said. "After the show, students came up to us and told us that they were completely surprised that we could play like that. I never expected such a response to our music. It was great!"
Chase started taking violin lessons when he was in the fifth grade, and he is now in the upper level of the high school concert orchestra.
His teacher, George Hearne, said Chase has a good ear and a good feel for the music. He's interested in classical music and is a dependable player in the orchestra.
Chase took time out of his busy schedule this year to write for the Woodbridge Crew Web site and to learn to drive his mother's old Honda Accord, equipped with a hand clutch for him. Now he drives to and from school, and to the boathouse for practice.
Last summer, the money Chase earned working at his father's office paid for the Taylor acoustic guitar he'd been coveting.
He'll have plenty of time to practice this summer. As soon as school is out, Chase is scheduled to undergo his ninth surgery.
