Even if he’s spent the entire time going backwards to reach it.
The 2016 Staples High School graduate has just been named to USRowing’s national team. This summer, he heads to Paris to race in the Olympics.
Rowing is a natural sport for Bub — and not just because he’s 6-6. Both parents rowed at Boston University; his 2 older brothers were rowers too. Every year the family headed to Boston, to watch the Head of the Charles races.
As a freshman, Bub joined the Saugatuck Rowing Club program. It was a perfect fit.
“It’s such a great team sport,” he says. “You’re quite literally in the same boat as your teammates.” The people he met through rowing remain his closest friends.
Bub achieved plenty of success. He and fellow Staples 11th grader Lucas Manning won the Junior Nationals pairs race, then finished 9th at the world competition in Rio de Janeiro.
Oliver Bub (center), with Saugatuck Rowing Club coach Sharon Kriz and teammate Lucas Manning.
He gives much of the credit to SRC’s former head coach Sharon Kriz, and former assistant (now head) coach Dave Grossman.
“Their early guidance was so helpful,” Bub says. “I’m super grateful.”
Colleges came calling. He chose Dartmouth, whose coach was a 2-time Olympian. Bub earned Freshman of the Year honors in 2016-17.
But his senior season was canceled by COVID.
Graduating with a degree in economics, Bub took a job with Citibank’s Bay Area tech lending group.
In June of 2023 he was chosen for the senior national team, to compete in Belgrade. He a bold move: He left the industry, to train full time.
Oliver Bub, on the water.
Rowing is not a lucrative sport. USRowing and the US Olympic Committee offer small stipends. He’s lived off savings, in Oakland.
It’s a frugal life (though, Bub admits, “I do eat a lot”).
He spends his days training and racing with the California Rowing Club. “It’s a simple life. I don’t have the daily stresses that could get in the way of optimized performance,” he says. “I’m always keeping the end goal in mind.”
That goal grows closer every day.
Bub will spend the next 6 weeks training with the team in Oakland. (It helps that it’s now his home city.)
Then he’s off to Lucerne, Switzerland, where the US will face many of the boats they’ll see at the Olympics.
Back in the US, they’ll train at Dartmouth (another “homecoming”) and Princeton, then compete in Italy. After that: Paris.
Bub’s teammate in men’s pair is Billy Bender, a Dartmouth student taking his senior year off to concentrate on the Olympics. Last year, with another partner, Bender placed 5th in the world championship.
Oliver Bub and Billy Bender, earlier this month.
Bender and Bub’s aim is simple: to win a medal. “There’s no real difference after third,” Bub notes.
When that race is over — after 11 years of grueling work, for a few fleeting minutes on the world stage — Bub will …
Well, he’s not sure.
“It will be time to get back to work, move on with my career,” he says. “I probably should figure it out.”
While he expects to spend a year away from competitive rowing, he won’t give up certain routines.
“I enjoy exercising and working out, so I expect to continue that,” Bub says.
“And If rowing calls my name back — we’ll see.”
(Hat tip: Lisa Marriott)
(“The Olympics unites the world. “06880” does the same for Westport. If you enjoy our hyper-local blog, please consider a tax-deductible contribution. Click here to help. Thank you!)
The on-scene investigation of the “untimely death” of a 56-year-old woman — found yesterday at 11 a.m. — was completed at 12:45 this morning by the Westport Police Detective Bureau, assisted by the Connecticut State Police Major Crime unit. The investigation remains active.
The woman was identified as Jennifer Lindstrom, of 3 Oak Ridge Park. Westport Police responded to the residence after a housekeeper found her unresponsive at the bottom of a staircase leading to the basement.
Among the hidden-in-plain-sight treasures of Westport: Frazier Forman Peters houses.
Between 1924 and 1936, the architect designed and built over 40 distinctive stone homes in Westport (and more in surrounding towns).
On November 5 Histoury — a non-profit dedicated to significant buildings — offers a bus tour of 20 Frazier Forman Peters houses. Experts will offer commentary on their designs and histories. Several interior tours will be included.
Tickets are $75 for adults, $49 for students. Click here to purchase. For more information on Frazier Forman Peters, click here.
A Frazier Forman Peters house on Riverview Road with fieldstone facades, slate roof and copper gutters.
Here’s our first Halloween-related story of the year. (No, it is not Dunkin’s pumpkin lineup — although it is already available.)
This is about CLASP‘s “Rockin’ Halloween Bash.” Set for October 20 (Fairfield Theatre Company), it features lite bits from Little Pub, and live music from Band Central — the popular group made up of clients at the organization providing group homes and other services for people with autism and intellectual disabilities.
The 6th annual Westport Library event — the largest literary event in Connecticut — has just secured Stephen Graham Jones as moderator for the keynote conversation with Neil Gaiman.
Tickets are available starting at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, August 22. Click here to order. The event is free, but seats are limited.
In addition, Eric LaRocca will cap a full day of Saturday events with a staged reading of his new play, “Gentle Hacksaw.”
Tickets for LaRocca are $20, and are available now. They include a reception with StoryFest authors, small bites and a cash bar.
From left: Stephen Graham Jones, Neil Gaiman, Eric LaRocca.
A bit earlier than October — Sunday, August 27 — MoCA sponsors “Kaleidoscope,” a 1-day exhibition featuring works from MoCA Gives Back Healing Arts, as well as Camp MoCA Westport participants. Food trucks will be on site.
Oliver Bub is rowing his boat — all the way to Serbia.
Or at least, in the Balkan country.
The Staples High School 2014 Biology Student of the Year is part of the men’s eight team that will represent the US at the World Rowing Championships next month in Belgrade. He was an alternate on last year’s squad.
The 6-6, 205-pound Dartmouth College graduate was Saugatuck Rowing Club’s 2015 Most Valuable Oarsman. He lives now in Oakland, and rows for the California Rowing Club. (Hat tip: Lisa Marriott)
“Monarchs in Motion” — a free September 7 (6 p.m.) event at Earthplace — does not refer to King Charles’ recent ascension to the throne.
It’s about “understanding how insect movement and dispersal ecology informs conservation planning.” Speaker Dr. Kelsey Fisher is an “insect movement ecologist.”
There is space for 100 people. Click here to register, and for more information.
Earlier this month, the Westport Sunrise Rotary Club honored 34 members with Paul Harris Society awards.
They’re presented to Rotarians who give $1,000 to the Rotary Foundation. New fellows include Holly McCarthy, Mike Hibbard, Gail Lavielle, Jeff Cohen, Helen Garten, Anil Nair, Liz Wong, Tim Wetmore, Jacquie Masumian, Karen Klein, Jen Tooker, Bruce Paul, Ron Holtz, Yvonne Senturia and Barbara Levy.
Those honored for donating $2,000 were Tom Ayres, Jane Ross, Linda Bruce, Eileen Flug, George Masumian, Mark Mathias and Carole Rubenstein.
Donors at the $3,000 level were Bill Harmer, Ann Lloyd, Steve Violette, Joe Renzulli and Arnold K. Wolgast.
Sheilan Keenan contributed $4,000; Hal Levy and Rick Jaffe gave $5,000; Bob Galan, $6,000; Brian Strong and Arlo Ellison, $8,000, and — topping the Paul Harris Society list — Eric Zielinski and Martin Burger, at $9,000.
Tessie DeMattia — a chef who worked for over 40 years with her brother Frank DeMace, the founder of Mario’s Place — died Tuesday.
Tessie is survived by her daughter, Linda Voulgarakis (John) of West Haven; son James of Dummerston, Vermont; grandchildren Dawn Blinn, Libby Mazzella, David Aronson, Nikki Voulgarakis and Harry Voulgarakis, and 4 great-grandchildren.
In addition to her husband Liberty Michael DeMattia, she was predeceased by her daughter Sandra Blinn; siblings Dominick, Frank, Michael and Joseph DeMace and Marie Wallacem and granddaughter Jacqueline Perez.
A funeral service will be tomorrow (Friday, August 18, 11 a.m., Shaughnessey Banks Funeral Home, Fairfield). Friends may greet her family one hour prior to the service. Interment will follow in Oak Lawn Cemetery.
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