About the Author
Karl Drlica's Biography
The author and Ilene Wagner, Aquatic Park, Berkeley, 1969.
Photo by Wayne Fogle.
The author rowed and sculled on Oregon’s Willamette River in the early 1960s as a college student. Dams in the Cascade Range had not yet controlled winter floods, and the wooden shells were continually threatened by flood debris and dead trees stuck in the river. Often neither could be seen, as scullers faced backwards and rowing practice usually extended well beyond sundown. Surviving river hazards was largely a matter of luck
After graduation from Oregon State University, he entered graduate school at the University of California, Berkeley. From that base he began sculling on Oakland’s Lake Merritt, soon noticing a beginning women’s crew from the Berkeley campus. He joined Art Sachs as an assistant coach for Cal Women’s Crew, a team the University refused to recognize. In addition to racing along the West Coast and in national regattas, the crew and the author joined with Berkeley “Save the Bay” activists to start a rowing club in Berkeley. A boathouse and dock were built at Aquatic Park in Berkeley, and after two years, Cal Women’s crew left Lake Merritt for Aquatic Park.
Art Sachs graduated in 1967, leaving volunteer coaching to the author and a rower, Ilene Wagner. For two more years they led a pre-Title IX team when society discouraged young women from active participation in cut-throat, varsity-level competition. The Cal team ignored society norms by focusing on off-the-water physical training and living the motto, “We row to race; we race to win.” Races were won, but by 1969 it was time for the author to focus on his biological research. The crew was dormant until after Title IX was enacted.
After postdoctoral training at the University of California, Davis and Princeton University, the author obtained academic positions at the University of Rochester and the Public Health Research Institute (New York City). The latter later merged with the New Jersey Medical School and subsequently with Rutgers University. During this time, he wrote three science books for lay readers, edited four technical books, and wrote more than two hundred scientific papers (h-index 66).
In 2010 the author and Ilene Wagner moved to California where he was faced with disposing of a large rowing archive inherited from his father. The senior Drlica and his predecessor had been head coaches at Oregon State for fifty years, and during that time they saved all papers that crossed their desks: news articles, correspondence, and histories they wrote. The collection provided a glimpse into twentieth century struggles with a river and with a University administration that felt rowing was too dangerous and expensive to maintain. The author could not throw the archive away without writing a summary, one that would include his own experiences on the river. The summary, which would also describe the early days of women’s competitive rowing, became Bitten by the Rowing Bug.
As a result of reliving twentieth century rowing, the author returned to sculling at Aquatic Park. He could not move the boat as fast as in the 1960s, but he worked hard enough to have a serious heart attack while on the water. The emergency response from the drowning brought him back from the dead and became the epilogue to Bitten. He continues to scull at Aquatic Park, and with scientists from around the world he continues to write scientific papers on antibiotics.