Woodbridge student does it single-handedly

By Josh Eiserike

Published: March 30, 2008

Yonas Habtemichael is hibernating in his green Woodbridge Senior High School crew hoodie. He's sitting hunched over at the stern of his racing shell facing eight lightweight oarsmen. They're plowing down the Occoquan, preparing for the first race of the season.

Yonas' face is buried under his hood. He yells out instructions to the rowers over the roar of the coach's motorboat. He's setting their pace so they'll get the right amount of strokes per minute.

Yonas, 18, is the only senior on the Woodbridge Crew team, and one of the varsity coxswains (coxswains steer the racing shell). On a typical day he won't go home after crew—instead, he heads across town to Manassas for fencing practice, where he is one of the Green Ronin Fencing Club captains. That's about five hours a day after school he spends dedicated to sports, and he does it all with one hand.

Yonas was born missing his left hand.

***

Yonas is soft-spoken with a sly sense of humor and is extremely athletic. As best as he can re-member, he was never teased about his hand.

"People were really understanding, even back in elementary school," Yonas said.

He was always an athlete, playing soccer in elementary school and running track in middle school. He said his missing hand only prevented him from playing baseball, but that never both-ered him.

"I don't really like baseball," Yonas said. "My mom wouldn't let me play hockey, but that's for another reason I guess. She didn't want me to get hurt."

Green Ronin Fencing Club coach Daniel Brown said that when Yonas was younger, he was em-barrassed by his missing hand, but has since learned to get over that.

"He learned that he was an athlete," Brown said. "I think he had the miscon-ception that he couldn't be an athlete. He was small, he was skinny, he was missing a left hand."

Brown said that size, height or strength doesn't matter in fencing.

"Only two things matter, that you're smarter, that you're faster," Brown, a science teacher at Woodbridge Senior High School, said. "The blade doesn't dis-criminate."

Brown also said that opponents often underestimate Yonas because of his missing hand.

"But that's a wonderful thing," Brown said. "He moves in such a way that his opponents have trouble figuring out where to put their blade."

Yonas started fencing in summer 2005 at a fencing camp run by Brown, which became The Green Ronin Fencing Club.

"The academy is kind of a home away from home for me," Yonas said.

During a seven-lap warm up around the Prince William Fencing Academy, he holds pace out front, making the jog look easy as others struggle to keep up.

"He's very athletically minded, overall," Brown said. "Fencing taught him that no matter how much natural talent you have, you have to put in work."

***

Yonas began to look into crew by the end of middle school. It seemed that everyone he spoke with thought someone of his stature would be perfect for the coxswain position.

"My orthodontist told me to do it, and my math teacher in eighth grade, and a whole bunch of people told me to do it," Yonas said. "The main reason [is] because back then I was really, really small. That's a good quality for a coxswain, because it weighs down the boat less."

His cousin was a coxswain for the University of Pennsylvania, which factored into his decision.

Barking orders and keeping pace on the river was a natural fit. Yonas said ever since he was younger, he'd be the one of his friends making the decisions, deciding what to do.

"I guess I have good leadership skills," Yonas said. "I just enjoy running things. It's part of my personality."

But there's more. Yonas said the real rush comes from going into a race with a plan and that subsequent surge of adrenaline found in racing.

"That's the fun part of being a coxswain," Yonas said.

Hopefully, he'll take these skills with him beyond the spring crew season and to college. Yonas applied to both Virginia Commonwealth University and George Mason University. He hopes to continue crew and fencing in college, but said he might have to hang up his weapon due to time constraints.

***

It's Monday afternoon at the Oxford Boathouse. The Woodbridge Senior High School Crew team is days away from its first race of the season. A hundred or so students from various area high schools socialize, wait for instructions and, eventually, get their boat—called a racing shell—onto the water. Yonas is not feeling well, so he's planning on skipping fencing later this particular evening.

But skipping crew isn't really an option, even with the cold winds on the Occoquan.

"If I'm not here, I lose my spot," Yonas says.

He straps into what is called a "cox box," a speaker system that amplifies his instruc-tions to the rowers.

Although Yonas can row with one hand, he prefers the coxswain job.

Head coach Mike Malak circles the two varsity racing shells in a motorboat, barking instructions into a megaphone.

"[Yonas] needs to be a good communicator as well as a good craftsman," Malak, who also works for the Social Security Administration, said. "He steers well. He needs to work on his communication. He relates well to them (the oarsmen) on a social level, but needs to be more serious… These oarsmen, it's not that hard to distract them… He's pretty much a coach in there."

Malak, in his third season as Woodbridge crew head coach, said the job of a coxswain is more mental, but there is a physical component as well. Plus, a good coxswain can earn the respect of his or her crew by doing exercises and drills along with them, as an effective way to bond with the oarsmen.

"[Yonas] keeps us motivated and keeps us focused on tasks for the race," said teammate Eddie Medlin, 16. "If you mess up, he motivates you to try again and not get discouraged."

***

Malak is keeping the heavyweights out on the river longer, but practice is over for the lightweight shell. Most of the oarsmen are dripping sweat and have perspiration rings around their armpits as they carry the racing shell back to the boathouse. For Yonas, free of sweat stains, it's been more of a mental workout than a physical one. He supervises the oarsmen hoisting the $30,000-racing shell to its place 20 feet above. Then they go home.

Staff writer Josh Eiserike can be reached at 703-878-8072 or .