Paul Teti hadn't planned on going to the Olympics in Beijing. He didn't expect to compete at that level again.
But Teti couldn't give up rowing, a sport he'd been involved with since high school. Once on the familiar waters of Princeton's Lake Carnegie, his Olympic aspirations came rushing back.
About a year after rededicating himself to rowing, Teti qualified for the United States men's four at the Olympic Games, which begin tonight.
Teti will row in preliminary heats on Saturday afternoon -- early morning here in New Jersey -- for a chance to advance to the semifinals on Wednesday and Thursday. If the boat doesn't directly qualify, it will compete in the repechage, a second-chance round, on Monday. The A-final is scheduled for Aug. 16 at 4:50 p.m. Beijing time.
All the heats are scheduled to stream live online. Normandy Real Estate Partners, where Teti is a vice president, is planning to install a television in its Morristown office specifically so co-workers can watch him race. They're also planning a party at an outside venue.
The American four -- Brett Newlin, Giuseppe Lanzone, Teti and David Banks -- won the bronze at the FISA World Cup in Lucerne, Switzerland, earlier this year. But Teti said there were eight or nine possible contenders for the gold, including defending world champion New Zealand, Australia, Great Britain and Holland.
"It's going to be really tight racing," Teti added. "It's going to be really difficult to progress through the preliminary stages, and even more difficult to win a medal. That's the Olympic Games, what you sign on for when you throw your hat in the ring."
This is Teti's sixth Olympics, his third as a competitor. His older brother, Mike Teti, is the coach of the United States' men's eight in Beijing. The elder Teti led the eight to a world record and a gold medal in Athens four years ago, the first time the United States had won the Olympic title in the event since 1964.
Paul Teti is the youngest of 10 children, with a 20-year gap between the rowing Teti brothers. Mary Grace Barbye -- the eldest of seven sisters -- and her son Eric will represent the family in Beijing, along with Paul Teti's fiancée, Carrie Heinz, a teacher in Westfield. One of Heinz's "primary responsibilities" has been to keep his seven sisters informed of Teti's progress all year, a process that involved many phone calls and e-mails.
"It's really nerve-wracking," said Barbye, who also is Paul Teti's godmother. "I'm looking forward to celebrating with my brothers when they're a little more relaxed. They've been training for so long."
Life on the road
Teti juggled rowing and his job at Normandy for more than a year, driving from his adopted home in Morristown to Princeton and back again every day. A vice president responsible for managing leased properties in northern Virginia, Maryland and Washington, D.C., he spent a day or two each month visiting those areas as well.
However, Teti hasn't been in Normandy's Morristown office very often this year. Instead, he's been working from home -- he and Heinz moved to Belle Mead last spring -- or occasionally in the firm's Bridgewater office. Teti stayed in contact via e-mails and conference calls as he tried to both work and train full time.
"It's really neat to have a guy actually at the Olympics," said Normandy principal Raymond Trevisan. "He had several long discussions about him competing, and we were 100 percent behind it. You only get so many chances at this kind of thing. We encouraged him to do it."
Teti joined Normandy shortly after returning from Athens, where the lightweight four had placed a disappointing ninth. The company had only a half-dozen employees and Teti dedicated his time to building it. Though he was staying in shape and even rowing occasionally, going back to the Olympics "was the furthest from my mind."
At least, until the spring of 2007, when he met David Banks.
A 25-year-old Stanford University graduate, Banks had been cut from the national team. He needed technical help -- Teti's specialty. They began rowing together, and "it was one of those combinations that sort of clicked." Teti and Banks began training regularly at 5:30 a.m. -- instead of 7 a.m. with the rest of the team -- so Teti could get to work in Morristown.
Veteran coach Ted Nash began working with them in the fall, giving progress reports to the other national team coaches, including Teti's brother, Mike. Yet Paul Teti himself "didn't see it as a possibility."
Nash called Mike Teti and said he must invite the pair to the national team training camp at Clemson University in South Carolina. Nash didn't think they'd qualify for the four, but maybe they could go as a pair -- which he coaches.
"(Paul) is so classy an oarsman, and has such great technique, even when he's not in shape he can beat most people," said Nash, a 1960 gold medalist in the men's four who is at his 11th Olympics.
"Both men are tremendously spirited guys. They have a focus on what they're doing, but they do it in such a way nothing rattles them."
Nash wasn't at all surprised, since Teti grew up rowing on the crowded Schuylkill River in Philadelphia. He earned a spot on the U.S. Junior National Team while competing for Monsignor Bonner High School. Teti went on to Princeton, as well as the U.S. Senior National Team.
Teti was part of the gold medal lightweight four at the 1999 Pan Am Games, and placed sixth in the lightweight four at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney. He finished second in the varsity eight at the 2001 Intercollegiate Rowing Association Championships. He won the four and finished second in the eight at the 2002 U.S. Rowing National Championships.
Though the tenacious 6-foot, 160-pound Teti isn't as big as some of his teammates, Nash said, "He has technology in his head that tells him if the boat is doing well or it's not." Sitting in the second seat from the rear, he's able to easily share that information with Banks, who is immediately behind him and responsible for steering the crew.
Added Nash, "If I had to pick the top five valuable guys of the 50 guys we have here, he's definitely in the lead."
Teti and the rest of the American team left for China on July 25 to acclimate to the 12-hour time difference, as well as the weather conditions -- "a little bit humid, but not so bad" -- and reportedly poor air quality, about which Teti had few complaints. They established a training camp in Shunyi, the Beijing neighborhood about 45 minutes from downtown where the rowing venue is located.
"Even now, it never seems realistic to want to go to the Olympics," Teti said. "That continues to be a dream even after you've been there. It was a gradual hook."