Nick Bowman Features Editor | 770-718-3426 | life@gainesvilletimes.com
She (Times
gainesvilletimes.com
Friday, November 23, 2018
Organization
honors Coach
Jim O’Dell
for key role in
team success
BY LAYNE SALIBA
lsaliba@gainesvilletimes.com
When Team USA won the
Nations Cup at the 2018ICF
World Dragon Boat Champi
onships back in September,
local coach Jim O’Dell was
ecstatic.
After all, he had been
a key part in organizing
the event that brought in
teams from 14 countries to
the Lake Lanier Olympic
Venue and one of the people
behind training the U.S.
athletes. And following the
event, at a volunteer appre
ciation dinner, Gainesville-
Hall ‘96 presented O’Dell
with a dragon boat of his
own.
“It’s so hard to put it
into words, because when
you volunteer to do stuff
like that, you do it without
regard for accolades, with
out regard for ‘atta boys,”’
said O’Dell, who served
as the regional coach for
the U.S. team. “You do it
because of a passion. And to
have something like that...
it means so much. And now
I have another tool at the
club to do more training in;
it’s just amazing.”
Local paddlers who train
with O’Dell made a world
of difference at the cham
pionships earlier this year:
Almost 30 members of
Gainesville’s Lanier Canoe
and Kayak Club qualified
for Team U.S.A. during
the world championships.
Of those, 15 were from
Gainesville.
And to mark the coach’s
impact on the event and
the team, his name printed
on the side: “Coach Jim
O’Dell.”
He wasn’t overly con
cerned about the name
on the side of the boat or
that it was donated in his
honor, though. O’Dell said
he doesn’t like talking about
himself that much.
He’s grateful and appre
ciative for what the dona
tion means, but he was
just happy to have another
dragon boat for the pad
dlers to practice in.
The boat came as a “total
surprise” to O’Dell. He said
it left him “speechless for a
few seconds” when it was
presented to him at the
dinner. Most people there
didn’t know it was happen
ing, but Jackie Hutton said
it’s something everyone
agrees O’Dell deserves.
“It really shows the
appreciation and respect
that coach Jim deserves,”
said Hutton, office admin
istrator with Lanier Canoe
and Kayak Club. “It’s nice
to be able to be recognize
him for his hard work and
dedication into the dragon
boat program.”
And the donation wasn’t
a small one — each dragon
boat cost more than $5,000.
“It just further exempli
fies how everybody in the
community feels about his
contribution,” Hutton said.
AUSTIN STEELE I The Times
Jim O’Dell, the high performance coach for the Lanier Canoe and Kayak Club, sits in a dragon boat on Thursday, Sept. 6. O’Dell has been a big part in
building a prominent program at Lanier Canoe and Kayak Club since the early 2000s, and in November he was honored with a dragon boat donated in his
name to LCKC.
‘It’s so hard to
put it into words,
because when
you volunteer
to do stuff like
that, you do it
without regard
for accolades,
without regard
for “atta boys.’”
Jim O’Dell
Regional coach, U.S. team
When the season gets
underway again, O’Dell will
get to see that boat out on
the lake, gliding across the
water as his paddlers work
to bring home more med
als and trophies. And for
him, that will be a surreal
feeling, or in his own words:
“It’s extremely humbling.”
“I mean, it still chokes
me up a little bit just think
ing about it,” O’Dell said.
“It’s funny because some
of my kids at the club, I
told them a while back —
somebody was having a
memorial service there
at the park — so I jokingly
told the kids, ‘When I die, I
want you guys to find an old
10-foot boat, fill it up with
combustibles, throw me out
in the lake and somebody
shoot an arrow, like a viking
funeral.’ And I said, ‘Now
I’ve got the boat.’”
He said he’s received
countless kind words from
athletes and parents. But
NICK BOWMAN I The Times
One of the dragon boats used in the 2018 ICF World Dragon Boat Championships this year on Lake Lanier was donated to
the Lanier Canoe and Kayak Club in honor of its coach, Jim O’Dell.
again, that’s not why he
does what he does. He said
that even though it sounds
cliche, he has a passion for
the sport and a passion for
the athletes, so he shows up
every day for them.
“You do it because you
love it,” O’Dell said.
Anything that comes
after that is just an added
bonus.
“And if you volunteer
like that, good things hap
pen,” O’Dell said. “And this
is an amazing, good thing.
And it’s such an honor to
be a part of such a great
community.”
The ICF Dragon
Boat World
Championships
came to Lake
Lanier in
September, the
first time it’s ever
taken place in the
United States.
The competition
included more
than 1,000
athletes from a
dozen countries.
SCOTT ROGERS
The Times
How the California wildfires became so devastating
While still trying to determine
what the cause of this devastating
California “Camp Fire” (at the
time of me writing this article), this
wildfire is the deadliest and most
destructive the state as ever seen.
Sixty-three people are con
firmed dead, 630 missing, 9,700
homes destroyed and 141,000 acres
incinerated. Ten percent of the
area’s housing was eliminated in
one day. And the fire is only 40 per
cent contained.
California has been taking a
beating with wildfires. Drought,
low humidity, high winds and a sin
gle spark from something simple
as a mower blade hitting a rock can
lead to unmitigated destruction. In
the water-saturated southeast, we
couldn’t get a wildfire started with
flamethrower. What is the real
story behind wildfires?
Without human interference,
lightning fires are nature’s way of
land management. The natural fire
cycle works as the land is primed
for burning by accumulating some
type of fuel on the ground. Fuel is
material that will cause a fire to
CAMPBELL VAUGHN
ecvaughn@uga.edu
bum more intensely.
In the Midwest, miles of dried
natural grasses are a great source
of fuel. In the Southeast, we are
naturally forested, so our fuel for
fire is what trees shed. Pine nee
dles and leaves dropping annually
from deciduous trees would make
up our catalyst for burning. When
the fuel is dry and the humidity is
low, a spark from a lightning strike
will easily cause a fire.
The fire will run unencum
bered until it hits a wet area, the
rains come, or it runs out of fuel.
Remarkably, fire is an awesome
way to rejuvenate the land. The
natural land was created to be
symbiotic. In other words, one
naturally occurring event should
in some way be a benefit (although
the dinosaurs may disagree).
Fire is good and if done cor
rectly, can reduce heavy mulched
understory of trees and allow
annual grasses and forbs to sprout
and grow. These grasses and flow
ering plants create a habitat for
wildlife which helps to diversify
these ecosystems.
So what went wrong on the West
coast? It was essentially the perfect
storm for an out-of-control fire.
These forests were in a record
drought and have not been man
aged with controlled bums for
many years. Decades of leaf mat
ter dried for months with no rain
made it easy for a match to get a
fire going in a hurry. The dry, thick
fuel made it too hot to control, and
the lack of rain and low humidity
kept the fire roaring. Strong winds
made the fire spread rapidly.
I called my friend, Bryan Ashe,
who owns Forest Management Ser
vices and asked him to give me his
thoughts on the long-term effects
of these wildfires and what could
prevent this from happening again.
He referred to Native American
history to best explain what hap
pens to the land and how best to
handle fires in the wild. Indians
would regularly bum tracts of
land to keep the understory clean
for easier movement. Wearing a
loincloth in a blackberry patch isn’t
ideal, so they regularly lit fires to
control the environment they trav
eled and hunted. After the fires
extinguished, native annual grasses
and forbs start to pop out and the
wildlife begin to feed again. Then
the Indians would hunt. These
frequent burns kept fuels to a mini
mum and wildfires scarce.
Forest management programs
recommend burning for pine forest
(particularly longleaf) but not for
hardwoods. I wanted to know the
effects of burning on these strands
of trees since the mountain areas
have such large amounts of hard
woods. Mr. Ashe said hardwood
trees can take some burning in the
winter but it is not ideal.
A slow-moving, cooler fire that
isn’t more than a couple of inches
high can be beneficial, but these
intense heavily fueled fires can
hurt mature hardwoods with thin
ner bark and kill them back to the
ground. Most likely, the intensity of
the fires west of us will have seri
ous impacts on hardwood forests.
This will probably also lead to
a more open forest allowing for a
new flora growing in the under
story. With these dry conditions
staying around, these problem fires
can persist.
Any time there is less fuel for
the wildfire then the chances of
the fires becoming uncontrollable
are fewer. The Forest Service
needs to have proper the resources
and have regulations allowing for
controlled burning or else these
uncontrolled fires will persist for
years to come. In the meantime,
keep praying for those poor people
in Paradise, California.
Campbell Vaughn is UGA Extension-
Agriculture and Natural Resource
Agent in Richmond County. He can
be reached at ecvaughn@uga.edu.
