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Amy Scherzer's diary

Heart Beat: A love for rowing

A surgeon and a Marine prove the couple that row together stay together.

By AMY SCHERZER
Published September 15, 2006

VIRGINIA PARK

Come Saturday morning at daybreak, you'll find Pam Baines and David Greco rowing the Hillsborough River. Herons stand guard, dolphins flip as the duo glide past the tip of Harbour Island, soaking up the sunrise and solitude.

"We work 10 to 12 hour days, but Saturday mornings are sacred," said Baines, an ear, nose and throat surgeon.

"There's lots of time to think, and not just about not flipping the boat," adds Greco, a Marine colonel.

Usually they row singly, in skinny racing sculls. Sometimes they borrow a double for the hourlong ritual that Greco says can be "peaceful or strenuous, relaxing or a total workout," depending on their mood.

The couple consider rowing a metaphor for life.

"You're facing backwards when you row, so you have to turn your head to see where you are going," Greco said.

In relationships, you "build on past experiences before moving ahead," she said.

Baines, 43, rowed as a kid. Her father, retired pediatric dentist Gary Baines, was a founding member of the Tampa Rowing Club and mentor to most of the local high school rowing programs. Her mother, Helen Baines, founder and retired headmaster of Bishop-Eton School, got him hooked when she met Olympic gold medalist Ted Nash and his wife in a prenatal class in Seattle.

"My parents were trying to sail around the world but they left in Hong Kong when she was seven months pregnant with me," said Baines, explaining how she came to be born in Seattle.

The Plant High grad had no time to row at Wellesley College nor at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. She finally took it up again after her residency training at Louisiana State University and four years in practice on Florida's east coast.

"I moved back to Tampa and opened my practice on Martin Luther King Boulevard and immediately started rowing Thursdays and Saturdays," Baines said.

Greco, 49, grew up in Norristown, Pa., a suburb of Philadelphia, and earned a degree in economics at Villanova University on a Naval ROTC scholarship. In 26 years in the Marine Corps, Greco was deployed to Europe and the Middle East, including Beirut in 1983 during the terrorist bombing of a Marine barracks. The explosion killed 241 Americans. Greco led the recovery operations.

Greco, who is not related to former Mayor Dick Greco, discovered rowing when the youngest of his two daughters was on her high school crew team in Virginia.

"I was a typical parent cheering on the sidelines and it looked so graceful," he said. Soon, he joined a group and learned to row too.

When he moved to Tampa, he spotted rowers and tracked them in his car, crisscrossing three bridges to the University of Tampa's boathouse.

That's where he first saw his bride-to-be. She was carrying her boat on her head. He watched her while chatting with her dad.

"I'm not a morning talker," Baines said. "But I heard David tell my father he was on active duty with CentCom. So I told myself, 'Be nice.' "

He called a few weeks later, not for a rowing date, but for dinner. That led to movies, sightseeing drives and beach visits where Greco ate his first Cuban sandwich.

On many Saturdays, the two launched together, rowed, then went their separate ways. She rushed off to make rounds at Memorial, St. Joseph's and Town 'N Country hospitals. Her diverse ENT practice includes pediatric and adult allergy patients and cosmetic surgery. Greco headed to MacDill Air Force Base, where he has been CentCom's deputy for coalition operations since January 2003.

"Our schedules were not conducive to dating," she said, especially as war began in Iraq. "Maybe a fast dinner and sometimes a movie."

After she bought a 1925 Cracker-style bungalow in Virginia Park, where they live now, they had lots of "project dates," she said. Greco and her father did many of the renovations.

It took a year until they could coordinate a vacation together, a medical meeting in Sun Valley, Idaho.

Toward the end of 2004, Greco bought a Harley motorcycle while based in Qatar and picked it up in Clearwater upon returning. Baines was fearful at first, but now dons leather chaps and hops on the back. They also sail and scuba dive in the gulf, but Saturday mornings are reserved for rowing.

During summer 2005, Greco bought and stashed an engagement ring.

"I'm debt averse. I couldn't give it to her until it was paid for," he said.

On a "perfect Saturday morning" that November Greco jumped out of the scull as soon as they hit the dock. He said he was going to the car to get a towel. He returned with a tiny white box as well. He was on one knee as Baines got out of the boat.

"He proposed right where we met," she said. "It was sweet and romantic ... if hot and sweaty."

They married Aug. 5 at St. John's Episcopal Church in Hyde Park, followed by a noon reception at the Tampa Yacht Club.

"We were toying with rowing away but decided to hop on the Harley instead," Baines said.

They let the captain steer the ship on their Caribbean honeymoon cruise, which doubled as a Greco family reunion with 25 relatives on board.

Amy Scherzer can be reached at scherzer@sptimes.com or 813 226-3332. Her Diary and Datebook returns Sept. 22.

[Last modified September 14, 2006, 10:02:16]