Riverside lost a great oarsman and the world lost a greater man last week. I still don't really believe it. Jim was one of the fittest people I've ever met, in a sport full of ridiculously fit people. I fully expected to see him in the Grand Veteran Singles at the age of 80, and still look like he was 40. I expected him to rope his girls into rowing, and then see him beaming at their races. Never would I have ever thought that he would be gone at 54. What I will always remember is not his speed. It will be how humble and gracious of a man he was. He never bragged about how good he was. When he joined RBC, he never even mentioned that he had finished 2nd in his event at Head of the Charles the year before. Or that he thought he had a good chance of winning two weeks after he joined. (He did). You never really heard him talk about himself, at all. He'd show up, more often than not kick everyone's ass, thank whoever organized the workout, chat for a few minutes, and then rush home to his family. Rowing was just something he did when he could, but just a part of who he was. We actually got to train with Jim quite a bit this past year, and I am really glad we did get to get to know him a little bit better. I was really looking forward to seeing him on the water this year.

This is a gallery of Jim's time at Riverside, the first photo was taken when he was still at GMS in 2009, and the last photo is his last race for Riverside, in the mixed eight in 2018. Fittingly, both were taken at the Head of the Charles, which he excelled at.

Link to the gallery behind the slideshow is here, just in case you wanted to scroll at your own .