Rowing Groups Face Stricter Safety Regulations

Parents of Coach Pursued Changes After He Drowned in the Potomac in 2004

John Steve Catilo died after falling overboard while coaching crew. (Family Photo - Family Photo)

Rowing organizations across the country will soon be subject to more stringent safety rules as part of a settlement between U.S. Rowing and an Alexandria couple who sued the regulatory body after their son, a rowing coach, drowned in the Potomac.

John Steve Catilo, a University of Virginia premed student, died almost three years ago while coaching crew. His family also sued the Alexandria Crew Boosters, the club where Catilo worked.

In addition to paying an undisclosed sum, the two organizations will recommend that coaches wear life jackets and use lanyards, or engine kill switches -- requirements that the Alexandria club instituted after the accident.

U.S. Rowing will also request that all rowing organizations follow those rules and will post Catilo's story in perpetuity on its Web site. The Alexandria club will name its next racing shell after him, install a plaque in his memory and contribute to a scholarship fund in his name.

Catilo, by all accounts a good swimmer and an experienced rower, fell overboard on June 25, 2004, while coaching a group of 13- and 14-year-old beginners. He resurfaced at least twice before drowning. Police said a life jacket would have saved him, but at the time, the club did not require coaches to wear them.

For Catilo's parents, insisting on the changes was a way to bring something good out of their son's death.

"There was nothing we could humanly do for anyone to bring him back," said Maria Aurora Catilo, his mother. "I told [the club] that I want to institute changes in their procedures so this tragedy doesn't happen to any family again."

Keith Smith, president of the Alexandria Crew Boosters, issued a statement Friday announcing the shell, plaque and scholarship and expressing sympathy to the Catilo family. U.S. Rowing did not return calls for comment.

The settlement, which was signed Tuesday, came a few weeks after the family of David E. Rosenbaum, the New York Times reporter who was slain last year, agreed to drop a $20 million lawsuit against the District in exchange for a promise to repair its emergency services agency.

The Catilo family, originally from the Philippines, said it decided to pursue the changes a few months after the accident. "We are one family, we are immigrants, and the only way we felt we could make a difference on an individual basis was to take it to the legal level," Maria Catilo said. "We didn't want changes made on an ad hoc or voluntary basis."

For that reason, the family included U.S. Rowing in the suit, said Bruce J. Klores, an attorney for the family. "Until the main organization took a stand on this, we still ran the risk of this sort of being a piecemeal thing."

Now, he said, the changes would affect rowing clubs and scholastic programs across the country.

Although coaches are required to use life jackets and lanyards at regattas, rowing organizations have been able to make their own rules about use of the items during practice, Klores said. He added that life jackets were particularly important for coaches, who also function as safety officers for rowers, most of whom don't wear the vests because they impede performance.

"A sizable percent [of coaches] don't use them," he said. "Many of these people are athletes, they're good swimmers, they're crew people, they're young -- left to their own devices, they wouldn't wear them."

Now, "none of these clubs are going to get insurance unless they comply with these guidelines," Klores predicted, adding that most clubs get insurance through U.S. Rowing.

As part of the settlement, U.S. Rowing will recommend that coaches wear life jackets and use lanyards and will make safety videos that depict coaches wearing the jackets. It will also send fliers to its members about the recommendations.

The Alexandria Crew Boosters also agreed to rename the club's safety manual after Catilo and continue to follow safety rules it instituted after the accident.

Catilo's mother described her son as someone who wanted to make a difference, volunteering at hospitals and, a few months before his death, traveling to the Dominican Republic to help orphans. The settlement is part of that continuum, she said.

"I think that one of the big differences that he made in his short lifetime is the institutionalization of safety rules and regulations in the sport of rowing," she said. "So even in death, he's making a difference."