Former Olympian Hecht Keeps UC Irvine’s Crew Afloat

Forty years ago, Duvall Hecht sat in a Stanford crew racing shell, squinting as a hot morning sun flashed off the ripple-free waters of Newport’s Lido Channel. “I was thinking, ‘Good God, what a wonderful place to row,”’ he said.

Twenty-eight years ago, when he heard that the University of California was opening a campus in Irvine, Hecht found a way into Chancellor Dan Aldrich’s office. “This school has to have a crew program,” he said, the visions of that morning in 1952 replaying in his head.

Twenty-three years ago, the pressures of the securities brokerage business forced Hecht to resign his position as coach and leave the UC Irvine crew program he had started.

And four months ago--after the success of his Costa Mesa audio books firm enabled him to--he returned to Irvine as crew coach and savior of the program he founded.

At 5:55 every morning except Sunday, Hecht returns to Shellmaker Island in Back Bay. He smells the pungent salt air, runs a hand over the smooth shells in the boathouse and for 2 1/2 hours encourages young men to give their all and rejoice in it.

Life has been pretty good to Hecht. In his youth, he experienced the thrill and adventure of being a Marine pilot. He felt the exhilaration of winning an Olympic gold medal as a member of the United States crew in 1956. And he still found time to earn two degrees in journalism from Stanford.

He spent middle age making millions from Books on Tape.

And now, at 61, he’s able to make sure his dream lives on. In fact, it becomes reality six mornings a week, right before his eyes, just like that morning in 1952.

Hecht is a dreamer and a doer. He certainly wasn’t the first person to notice crew workouts would be a lot nicer in the channels of Newport Bay than the wind, fog and waves of San Francisco Bay.

And he wasn’t the first to wonder why someone didn’t get the rights to a book, hire an actor to read it and record it on an audio cassette.

He was, however, the first to do it.

“It was the early ‘70s and I was marketing director for Bateman, Eichler, Hill, Richards,” Hecht said. “I was living in Newport Beach and driving to L.A. and I was tired of music and news. So I wrote off for all the information I could get on what I could listen to in the car.

“You could get language tapes, the Bible on tape, self-help tapes, tapes on how to close an insurance sale, but I wanted something that would help me get through life today. I wanted modern, current literature.”

Hecht approached several publishing firms about buying the rights to full-length readings for audio tape. Most were less than enthusiastic about the idea.

“When I went back East to talk to them about it, they said it didn’t make any sense,” he said. “They asked me who would use it. I said, ‘Commuters.’ They said, ‘No, commuters read the New York Times.’ ”

Hecht was sure there were enough people sitting behind a steering wheel for a couple of hours a day to make the business go. A few publishing companies decided it was at least worth a try and so, in 1976, Books on Tape was born.

The first year, with a modest advertising campaign, the company’s revenues were $17,000. Hecht stayed in the securities industry for another eight years while his “side” business grew. And grew.

Hecht now has 60 employees working in his Costa Mesa facility. In 1991, Books on Tape--which sells but mostly rents books on a monthly basis--had a subscriber base of 75,000. Revenues were $7.5 million.

The building is a converted sail loft. Hecht proudly shows you the spot on the wood floor that covers the pit where the sailmaker once stood to use the entire floor as his table.

His office is highlighted by crew memoirs, a model of a Corsair similar to the one he flew in the Marines . . . and a plywood desk.

“I made it myself and it still works,” he said. “Bankers like it. They say, ‘I guess you’re not going to go bankrupt, Duvall.’ ”

If not for Hecht’s powers of persuasion, you might not be able to listen a book on tape . . . or row a boat at UC Irvine.

A week after his first brief meeting with Aldrich in 1965, Hecht took advantage of a fortunate twist of fate to ensure a crew program at Irvine. Returning from the Bay Area, he found himself seated next to Aldrich on an airplane.

“I was 32 and full of beans about what I wanted to happen,” Hecht said. “Poor Dan had every kook and nut in Southern California telling him what should happen at his campus, but he was my captive audience for an hour.

“He was the kind of man who always said, ‘Let’s see how we can make that work.’ ”

Aldrich listened to Hecht’s pitch and said he would review the plan, and if he liked it, would match any funds Hecht could raise. Two days later, Hecht presented Aldrich with a 40-page proposal.

Aldrich gave his approval, Hecht launched a fund-raising campaign that raised $25,000 and the program was born.

Hecht, however, needed one more bit of luck to give the Irvine crew a home. Wandering around the Back Bay in search of place for the team’s boathouse, Hecht ended up in the office of Bill Boland, owner of the dredging firm that leased Shellmaker Island.

On Boland’s desk was a model of a Corsair.

“He was a Marine pilot during the war and we fell into each other’s arms and talked about the Corsair,” Hecht said.

Hecht explained the need for a boathouse site. Boland thought about it overnight and agreed to let Irvine build on the island.

“Can you imagine what it would be like to get a boathouse on Back Bay now?” Hecht asks. “You probably couldn’t do it today.

“It was heaven-sent.”

Last November, it was Hecht who came to Irvine’s rescue. And it wasn’t just pennies from heaven.

Athletic Director Tom Ford called Hecht to request financial assistance for a program that was about to become a victim of budget cuts. He got more than money.

“We were at the 11th hour with the program,” Ford said. “We were at the point of trying to find a volunteer coach to take over. We had been working with an alumni group that would help raise funds only if we agreed to hire a full-time coach and fund the program at a certain level, which we just couldn’t do.

“I called Duvall to ask him about fund-raising and we decided to meet. When he told me he would like to volunteer his services as coach with no compensation, it was all I could do to keep from coming over the table to hug him.”

When Irvine’s new/old coach returned to Shellmaker Island and saw the condition of the equipment, he almost wept.

“Three years ago, reduced funding meant they had to fire their rigger, the guy who maintains all the equipment,” Hecht said. “The program was falling apart, literally.”

Hecht, who figured there were others in the area with time to donate, decided finding a volunteer rigger would be easier than finding the funding to hire one. So he placed an ad in a local shopper.

Randy McFerrin, a 45-year-old lifetime resident of Newport Beach, had recently sold the family paint business.

“His wife read the ad and said, ‘Randy, call this man and get out of the house!’ ” Hecht said, laughing.

The boathouse is now “so spic and span you could eat off the floor,” Ford says.

“Without Randy, we wouldn’t have a program,” Hecht said. “The boathouse is his place now. He brings food for the ground squirrels and ducks. And he’s methodically refurbished every hull.”

Hecht, meanwhile, has worked on resuscitating the program.

“The morale is so much better now,” Ford said. “Duvall is a great technician, he still competes himself. But he’s also very good with the athletes and they’ve responded really well. He has that quiet confidence and they respect him a great deal for what he’s doing.”

Irvine has won once and lost twice this season and the team is hopeful of a good showing at the San Diego Crew Classic Saturday and Sunday in Mission Bay. Just showing up might seem like achievement enough, but Hecht sees big things for the program and he doesn’t want to hear any complaints about a lack of funding.

“After 25 years, if the Irvine crew, with all its alumni and past Olympians, with all its history and tradition, can’t make it on its own, then maybe we don’t deserve to make it,” he said.

“We’ve got vitality back in this program, and if I can’t turn it around in four years and get the kind of crews this program deserves, then I’ll find someone who can.”