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08/30/2018 12:00 AMBart Gullong has made a name for himself in the sport of rowing. After competing at Tabor Academy in Massachusetts and Marietta College in Ohio, the Old Saybrook resident helped start a high-school rowing program at Simsbury High School. Bart was also the head coach of the Connecticut College women’s crew, as well as the Blood Street Sculls in Old Lyme.
Most recently, Bart made a major contribution to the crew at Valley Regional High School that helped the program acquire its own equipment. As a result, the Warriors became an independent program that was no longer reliant on another school’s equipment in order to practice and compete.
Bart learned of Valley Regional’s situation through his business partner, Julianna Pisanzio. He then decided to make a generous donation to the Warriors through the Valley Crew Booster Club’s fundraising effort that was spearheaded by Tracy LeMay.
“I’m the chief investor at La Marea restaurant in Old Saybrook. My partner, Julianna Pisanzio, introduced me to Tracy LeMay, who is the head of the parents’ association,” Bart says. “We met over lunch and Tracy told me about what the Valley girls had to go through to row. It’s very hard for a program to succeed when they don’t have their own location and their own boats.”
Bart’s desire to help the Warriors stemmed from the example set by rowing icon, Fred Emerson, whose namesake appears on a boat house at Roger’s Lake. Emerson played a huge part in Bart’s involvement with the sport, and so Bart wanted to do the same for others.
“The history of this is truly goes back to a man named Fred Emerson. He was a resident of Old Lyme and he built his own boat house. He was instrumental in the forming and funding of over 60 rowing programs in the U.S.,” says Bart, 70. “He was the reason why all of the local rowing programs in this area exist. Fred loaned me boats so that I could start Simsbury High School’s rowing program in 1970.”
In 1971, Bart received the opportunity to coach at the fledgling Connecticut College women’s program, which was also started by Emerson. That led to even bigger and better things for Bart, who coached the U.S. women’s national rowing team in 1975 and 1976.
“Fred funded the Connecticut College rowing program, and I was hired as the head coach. I had also coached the Blood Street Sculls, which Fred founded. He was a huge supporter of rowing,” says Bart. “My program at Conn College produced four Olympians, and I was fortunate enough as a result to be the national women’s team rowing coach in the 70s.”
Women’s rowing was just getting started when Bart took up the mantle as head coach for these teams. In the mid-70s, there was controversy about whether women could handle a strenuous sport like rowing. Through the efforts of people like Bart and Emerson, the landscape of high-school sports changed nationwide.
“That was the dawn of women’s rowing. There was a lot controversy because we had women’s coxswains. The controversy became national news,” says Bart. “As a result of that, I ended up on the group that testified and helped create Title IX. It’s amazing just in my lifetime what women have achieved.”
Bart eventually stepped away from coaching in order to pursue his business endeavors. He helped to create a speedometer for rowers. After doing that, Bart branched out from crew and was involved in creating a substance that helped stop blood loss from grievous injuries.
“I left coaching and became an entrepreneur, but I always loved the sport and always stayed involved. One of the businesses I founded developed a speedometer and a workout metrics system for rowing called the Speed Boss. It took the metrics that you have on the rowing machine and put it on the water in real time,” Bart says. “I was also involved with the development of something called QuikClot, a fast hemorrhage halting agent. It’s embedded in a gauze. Combat gauze is the military version of it. Every soldier, marine, and most police officers carry it. The product has saved thousands of lives.”
Bart is always looking to make a difference, and his contributions to the Valley Regional crew serve as another prime example of that. LeMay saw Bart’s passion for helping others the first time she met him.
“When Head Coach John Laundon and I first met Bart to talk to him about the Crew Booster Club and our plans for the team, we were immediately overwhelmed by his passion for rowing and his incredible vision for paying forward the Fred Emerson spirit,” LeMay says. “Bart is also an amazing inspirational speaker when he talks to our athletes about what crew means to him and what it can and does do for them. It is clear through both his incredible generosity and spirit that he wants to help our athletes be the very best that they can be through rowing. I am honored to call Bart a friend.”
Bart has earned a great deal of respect for his coaching acumen, his generosity, and business savvy. Emerson inspired Bart’s generous spirit for the sport of crew, but Bart’s positive ethos runs even deeper than that.
“When I retired, I wanted to do something to honor Fred Emerson and give back to rowing all that it gave to me. It’s a sport that goes way beyond sports. It truly teaches kids what it means to find something more inside them than they thought they had,” says Bart. “At the end of the day, I took the concept of being a bridge builder to heart. Truth is I’m just an aging hippie from the late 60s—a part of those from that class that have the philosophy of leaving the world a better place when we’re done.”