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		Tortorella Throws His Weights Around Putting some hefty goals within reach. By Paul Perillo Like many teenagers growing up in Rhode Island, Vinny Tortorella got a little restless as New England winters kept him from his favorite sport—baseball. But unlike most high school kids, he didn’t just sit around waiting for the snow and the cold to disappear. He did something to make the time go faster. “I ran into a coach from my Little League days during my freshman year,” Tortorella recalls. “He was the boys’ track coach. He asked me what I was doing that winter. Basically, I was just waiting to play baseball, so I figured I’d give track a shot.” And from these humble beginnings one of the most successful throwing careers in Northeastern track history was born. Almost from the start, Tortorella’s throwing-event results for Providence’s Classical High School were so impressive he never began his baseball career, opting instead to stick with track for the outdoor season. At Rhode Island’s 1995 freshman indoor state meet, he placed fifth in the hammer throw and fourth in the shot put. That spring, he finished first in both the hammer and the discus, and second in the shot put at the outdoor state meet. Even so, Tortorella didn’t see himself as a success. Classical High had a strong reputation in the throwing events, and he wanted to live up to that tradition. “I was used to having success in sports,” he says. “When things didn’t click for me immediately, I was thinking about quitting. “But I stuck with it and slowly built up my confidence,” Tortorella says. “As a sophomore, I threw the hammer fifty-seven feet and qualified for the state meet. I worked my way up to the point where I felt I had a good chance to earn a college scholarship, which was something very important to me.” By the time he was a senior in 1998, Tortorella was garnering attention from many colleges, including Northeastern. Mark Lech, then in his final season as the Huskies’ men’s track coach, liked what he saw in Tortorella. For his part, the 6-foot-2, 235-pounder was impressed with Northeastern’s package, especially the academic side. “Like most people, I was interested in the co-op program, and it’s really worked for me,” says Tortorella, a junior majoring in chemical engineering. “Co-op has allowed me to explore many different aspects of my major. I’ve had jobs dealing with the organic fields, the biopharmaceutical field, and processing and manufacturing as well. I haven’t decided which field I’d like to enter when I graduate.” Choosing a professional path is on the back burner for the time being. Right now, Tortorella is one of track coach Sherman Hart’s top performers on the men’s team, which captured first place at the America East indoor meet, second at the New England Championships, and a respectable twenty-first at the IC4As. “His biggest strength is his drive to succeed,” says Hart, LA’74. “He’s very confident, but not cocky. Nothing bothers him. Vinny’s been terrific. “He’s sort of a throwback to coach Joe Donohue’s days, in the seventies and eighties, when we had a lot of great throwers,” Hart says. “I was lucky to inherit a national high school champion when I took over.” By the middle of April, in the early days of the outdoor season, Tortorella had already racked up three first-places in the hammer (throwing farther than 200 feet three times), plus one first-place each in the shot put and the discus. This winter, during the indoor season, Tortorella put together an impressive string of first-place finishes in the weight throw, topping the field in the first six meets he entered before placing second at both the New England and the IC4As. Tortorella’s indoor performance gave him an opportunity to qualify for the nationals (where teammate Paul Klemic competed in the high jump). Despite beating the provisional mark needed for qualification, Tortorella failed to finish within the top sixteen and narrowly missed out. “I was close. That’s something that’s definitely within my reach,” Tortorella says. “I take my track career very seriously. My goal is to qualify for the 2004 Olympics.” Hart believes that’s a realistic goal for Tortorella, given his work ethic and desire. This thrower hones his technique with speed and strength exercises—running sprints and climbing stairs are regular parts of his regimen. And baseball? Tortorella says though he still misses it, he’s never regretted his decision not to play in high school. “I play a little summer ball from time to time,” he says. “But being where I am today is exactly what I had in mind when I did what I did.” A Deep Crew Row, Row, Rows the Boat This year, the Northeastern women’s crew is as talented as it’s been in the program’s twenty-five years. The big problem facing coach Joe Wilhelm at the season’s start? Selecting the eight best rowers for the varsity boat. Though Northeastern’s varsity eight crew has qualified for the NCAAs three times over the past five years, the Huskies have never done so as a team. In March, as Wilhelm prepared his troops for the spring trip to Elberton, Georgia, he believed that could change. “This is perhaps the largest and deepest team we’ve had,” Wilhelm says. “We graduated only three seniors from last year’s squad, and we fared very well during our fall sessions. Now we have to translate that onto the water.” Along with a formidable varsity boat, the coach also expects to have success with his second varsity and varsity four boats. Such success could earn NU its first-ever NCAA team invite, since programs are selected on the basis of strength of performance in all three categories. Wilhelm knows he has a core of six rowers to build around. Seniors Liz Dyka, Shawna Liff, and Stacie Wozniuk provide seasoned experience. Juniors Laura Nickerson and Cassandra Brown have rowed with the varsity in the past. And though sophomore Jen Carter was with the freshmen last season, this spring she’s ready to make the jump. “One advantage this year was the mild winter we had,” Wilhelm says. “We could get out on the water much earlier than we normally do because the river wasn’t frozen. We put the girls through a series of ergometer tests, which gave us a concrete measure of who was ready to step up. “We’re training very hard, and the rowing has been great,” he says. “We need to see the results from the varsity eight, and if that boat is fast enough, I’m cautiously optimistic we can get [to the NCAAs].” These are indeed heady times for women’s crew at Northeastern. The squad celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary on April 6 with an alumnae day, christening a new boat amid varsity victories over Dartmouth, Boston College, and Buffalo, followed by a evening banquet. Additional early-season wins over Wisconsin, Rutgers, the University of Pennsylvania, and Syracuse had carried the varsity eight to a 7–0 record by mid-April. Wilhelm credits the tireless recruiting efforts of assistant coaches Shelagh Donohoe and Jessica Lizzi for creating and developing this team’s all-important depth. (Of course, having the NU boathouse, one of the nation’s finest crew facilities, as a calling card doesn’t hurt much either.) “In the past, we’ve had trouble getting many of the first-time rowers who come to us as freshmen to remain in the program all the way through,” Wilhelm says. “Thanks to Shelagh and Jessica, we’re getting that accomplished.” This tenacity creates serious competition within the crew as well as a tighter bond between crew members, with no one boat receiving the lion’s share of attention. “In order to be successful as a program, you have to have that commitment,” Wilhelm says. “The coaches spend a lot of hours on the water working with all the boats, not just the varsity eight. “In turn, all the girls feel like they’re part of the squad and they all need to act as one. There’s a lot of competition out there, but Northeastern will continue to be among the groups competing for the national title as long as we maintain that kind of approach.”