It would be an understatement to say that parents often find it difficult to find common ground with their teenagers, so when Colette Bellefleur says that she and her 17-year-old son, Paul, have a shared interest that not only has brought them closer together but has been “absolutely transformational” for their entire family, you have to sit up and take notice.
Bellefleur, 54, of West Windsor, rows with the Mercer Masters program and her son, Paul, a senior at High School North, rows with the Mercer Junior Rowing Club, both part of the Princeton National Rowing Association. Earlier this month, in the very first regatta where both mother and son competed, both captured first place in their respective boats. And this was only the second race of Colette Bellefleur’s rowing career.
“The Navy Day Regatta (on Philadelphia’s Schuylkill River) is a big deal but I wasn’t nervous, I was excited,” says Bellefleur. “It’s a 4,500 meter race, and we won by 20 seconds. I felt relieved that I finished. I was also relieved that I didn’t ‘catch a crab’ and stop the boat. Paul rowed three hours later. His boat came in first in what was the first race with a new, young boat. We were ecstatic. Not only did we bring home one victory mug, we brought home two. Leo (her husband) and Francis (her younger son) were there and so excited for us. Rowing has changed all of our lives. I don’t even know how I can put it into words. It’s given us so much.”
Bellefleur never could have imagined that her personal journey as an athlete would actually begin with a broken back and one of the darkest periods of her life. It was just before Christmas in December, 2009, and the family had thrown a holiday party at their home in the Princeton Ivy East neighborhood of West Windsor. “It was one of those years when we had an amazing amount of snow,” she says. “Somebody got stuck in our driveway, and I went to help dig them out. I slipped, my feet went out from under me, and I landed squarely on my butt. I broke my L-1 vertebra, and I was in a back brace for the next four months.
Going from 100 miles an hour to zero was not easy for a woman like Bellefleur, who, just before her accident, had been traveling all over the world in her job as an executive in economic forecasting for IHS, formerly Global Insight. As she explains it, her group is responsible for gathering the data that her company’s economists use to do their analyses. “I was gone at least once a month for a week to 10 days at a time in places like China, India, Europe, and Washington, D.C. And now my doctor was telling me to go home, do not move, do not drive. You can’t take someone who runs around the world and take them to a screeching halt. It was really awful.”
Her husband of 21 years, Leo, who retired five years ago from his job in sales in the information services industry to be home with Paul and Francis, 16, stepped up even more to help out. “As wonderful as everybody was, when you are the wife and mother and you are in a house with one husband, two boys, and two male dogs, and everything is getting done but you have to see how everything is getting done and you can’t do anything about it, it was torture,” says Bellefleur.
Her four-month recuperation gave her plenty of time to think, however, and she came to the revelation that it was time to slow down a little bit. “The month of my accident, I had Christmas dinner. I had family and friends over, and even though I had pain, I kept going. It was ridiculous. My fall made me realize I wanted to pay attention to spending more time with my family. I wanted to change my job so I could stay closer to home.”
The four months were very difficult in another way. “I gained a lot of weight — not just because of inactivity but because I got depressed. I went to physical therapy but my back still was not back to normal. I was standing around moaning and groaning one day, when Paul said, ‘If you want to lose weight and get your back stronger, you should row.’”
Paul had started rowing with the Mercer Junior Rowing Club at Mercer Lake as a high school freshman. “He had tried basketball and soccer, but had never really been turned on by those sports,” says Bellefleur. “But when the boys were Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts, Leo used to take them to the park, and they would go to the boathouse, the one across from the MJRC boathouse. Paul remembers those trips and watching the crews on Lake Mercer. Recently he told us he knew he wanted to row when he was eight years old.”
It was a 70-mile Boy Scout hike before Paul’s freshman year that sealed the deal, according to Bellefleur. “Two boys were literally running up the mountain with their backpacks. Though Paul kept up with them, he was still impressed with how fit they were. He asked what they did and found out they rowed. He was out there rowing that fall.”
Paul now rows year round and hopes to row next year in college. “Rowing helps him academically as well as physically, with discipline and time management. Having to row six days a week keeps Paul focused on doing the right things in the right order. It makes him very aware of using his time wisely in the most efficient way possible,” says Bellefleur.
Seeing what a profound effect rowing had on her son’s life combined with his powers of persuasion convinced Bellefleur that she should give it a try. It was December, 2010, just about one year after she had broken her back. “The masters’ winter program had just started,” she says. “I E-mailed Sean McCourt (head coach of the Mercer Junior Rowing Club and director of programs and events for the Princeton National Rowing Association), and I started the second week of December with erging (using an indoor rowing device), weight lifting, and core exercises. I was there from 5:30 to 7 a.m. every day before work. Even before my body started to respond, I started to feel better. I was doing the right thing mentally and physically.”
She didn’t hit the water until this past spring, when the temperature finally got above 35 degrees, and she and her teammates went out on the lake for the very first time. “It was dark, the water was choppy, and I was terrified,” confesses Bellefleur. “But I kept coming back and getting in the boat. I realized I could do this. I don’t give up.”
Now she is up religiously at 4:45 every morning to be at the boathouse in time for her training regimen. Despite the early hours and the grueling pace, she is hooked. “I miss it when I am not there. I don’t ever want to move somewhere where I can’t be part of a rowing club. The camaraderie with your teammates is amazing. It’s a team effort. It’s not about being a hot dog. Everybody supports everyone. It is a fabulous sport, and you do things you never thought your body could do. Your coaches push you. These head races are long. I get up in the morning and sometimes I think it’s cold and pitch black, I’m nervous for racing, and I know my lungs soon will be burning. But I can’t wait to get out there.”
Remarkably, Bellefleur no longer has any pain in her back from her injury. “The workout strengthens your core. And when you strengthen your core, you have a strong back. As for rowing, it’s mostly all about using your legs.” She has high praise for all the coaches, especially her own coach, Rachel LaBella, who was co-captain of the MJRC program as a senior at High School South and went on to row Division 1 at the UCLA program, where she was voted captain and Most Valuable Oarswoman for the 2011 varsity season. Justin Mills, who also began his rowing career with the Mercer Junior Rowing Club, is the varsity boys coach.
Bellefleur grew up in Pennsauken, New Jersey. Her father was an asbestos insulator, and her mother worked in a sewing factory. She studied economics at George Washington University and then finished her B.A. degree in economics at Douglass College in 1978. She went on to earn an M.S. in economics at Rutgers University in 1981.
Rowing has become a family affair that extends beyond mother and son. Along with Nancy Gross, mother of MJRC senior rower Abbie Gross, Bellefleur’s husband, Leo, runs the team food tent at the regattas and volunteers as the grillman. His barbecue skills are superior to most; over the last year, he and two partners from Lawrenceville launched a barbecue catering business called the Blue Diamond Que. “It started as a hobby, which included barbecue competitions, and now it’s turned into a catering business for public events, corporate events, and private parties,” says Bellefleur. “They were a hit at the Princeton Chamber Midsummer Marketing Showcase and McCarter Theater’s inaugural block party, both this past summer, and they really love what they are doing.”
Francis, 16, is a sophomore at High School North, and he has also gotten into the rowing act. This past summer, he helped cox for the masters program. “Jenny Sichel, a professional coxswain, put him in a boat and taught him how to cox. He coxed for us the rest of the summer. It boosted his self-confidence, was great fun, and he became part of the Bellefleur gang that trundled off to the boathouse every morning. It was the first thing where his slight build was a benefit. It was an amazing experience for him as a teenager, telling eight people — adults — what to do. It was about him making mistakes and learning from them because people were teaching him and supporting him. The masters loved him and welcomed him. To see him get in that boat and try hard and do well, as a mom, I am so grateful. You couldn’t have bought an experience like that for a million dollars.”
Bellefleur recounts one experience that illustrates just how much closer rowing has drawn her together in particular with Paul. It happened at practice one day when she was rowing on the erg. “A lot of kids don’t want their parents anywhere near what they are doing. But Paul erged right beside me and was yelling at me to row faster. At the time I didn’t know it was part of the rowing culture, and I didn’t know whether to be embarrassed or cry because my 17-year-old son was yelling at me to row faster in front of everybody. But then I was rowing faster and so was everybody else. Later, one of the women came up to me and said, ‘your son being with you and with all of us is extraordinary.’ I didn’t realize what she meant at the time but now I do. Paul and I have always had a close relationship but this has been phenomenal.”
In addition to the Bellefleurs, there are three other families with both a parent and child involved with the rowing program run by the PNRA at Mercer Lake.
Paul will row with the Mercer juniors at the landmark Head of the Charles this weekend in Boston. His mother’s next race is the Head of the Schuykill the weekend of October 29. She is primed, she is ready, and she can’t wait. “Paul says everyone should row,” says Bellefleur. “It’s a religion.”
