OAKLAND – Mike Fennelly has a pretty simple explanation why he lasted so long as the rigger for Cal's crew program.

"I get along better with the boats than the people," he said.

Fennelly may be known partly for his sarcastic, gruff sense of humor, but his lasting legacy will undoubtedly be as the centerpiece of Cal Crew for the past 35 years. The caretaker of the Golden Bears' equipment and boathouse since 1981, Fennelly is retiring at the end of this year after helping the program reach the top of collegiate rowing.

"He's pretty much the soul of this program," Cal head coach Mike Teti said. "I don't believe any of the championships we've won could have been done without him. He's an institution."

Fennelly will be honored at a retirement party Saturday at the T. Gary Rogers Rowing Center in Oakland, the home of Cal's crew program. His last day on the job will be Dec. 30 – exactly 35 years to the day he took over for legendary boathouse rigger Matt Franich, who served as Fennelly's mentor.

"It sounds so cliché, but he's been the heart of the team for 35 years," said Cal assistant coach Scott Frandsen, a three-time Olympian who rowed for the Bears in the early 2000s. "I didn't know how much he took care of until I got on the coaching side of it. He makes our team run smoothly."

Fennelly has been a fixture at the Oakland boathouse for three and a half decades, working on the boats to make sure they run smoothly and ensuring supplies and equipment are in working order. He has transported boats and equipment to numerous races, and while the Bears were busy celebrating their many successes, he was loading the boats back into a trailer to get them ready for the next competition.

"When I think of Mike Fennelly, I could throw out a whole bunch of boilerplate hyperbole," said former Cal crew coach Steve Gladstone, who led the Bears to six Intercollegiate Rowing Association (IRA) national championships and is now the coach at Yale. "First and foremost, in my mind he is absolutely reliable and innovative in terms of how to get work done. In tight situations that happen from time to time, he has no parallel in my experience."

Fennelly rowed at St. Joseph High School in Alameda and originally attended Long Beach State. He ended up transferring to Cal, where he rowed for one year on the lightweight crew.

Truth be told, Fennelly had more of an interest in tools than rowing. During one summer while attending Long Beach State, he started making rigging tools in his basement. He came up with a tool that he thought Cal's program could use, so he went down to the boathouse and knocked on the door looking for Franich.

Franich liked the tool, and when Fennelly transferred to Cal two years later, he started hanging around the boathouse with Franich.

Franich gave Fennelly jobs around the rowing center, and after Fennelly quit school and became a lightweight coach for one year, he continued to do more.

One summer, St. Ignatius High School in San Francisco had smashed the bow on its only boat and came to ask Franich for help. Franich pointed to Fennelly.
"Ask him," Franich said.

Fennelly ended up fixing the boat. If that served as an audition to replace Franich, it helped. A year later, Franich retired after 32 years and Fennelly took over.

"I was lucky. This job has opened up once in the last 60 years, and I happened to be here," Fennelly said.

Turns out, everyone involved with Cal Crew were the lucky ones.

Fennelly may have not been one of the competitors, but that doesn't mean he wasn't competitive. He sweated over races, lamenting if the boats were going to hold up for some of the competitions. Of course they did, and he would celebrate appropriately.

Every year before the IRA national championships, Fennelly would hand-paint a sign that he would present to the team if it won the Varsity Eight competition.

Teti witnessed this for the first time in 2010 when he won his first IRA title at Cal.

"We wound up winning in a huge upset, and after I came back to the boat area, Mike is running full speed toward me," Teti said. "It's the first time I've ever seen Mike run. I thought he was going to give me a hug, but he pushed me aside. He kept running to the truck and pulled out a hand-painted sign that says, 'University of California, 2010 National Champions.' He's just holding it up, jumping up and down, tears streaming down his face. That's a dedicated dude."

And what if the Bears didn't win the Varsity Eight title?

"It's my job to be prepared," Fennelly said.

Fennelly lives near the boathouse in Alameda, in the same house in which he grew up. He says he doesn't plan on being a stranger after his retirement, and may even look for another job.

"I hear they are still looking for a chancellor," he said.