Huskies rower Lowell Neal tries to build a better oar

Lowell Neal is standing on a walkway overhanging the Montlake Cut, sprinkling handfuls of Cap'n Crunch into the water.

He wants to see if the results he found in the controlled atmosphere of a water tunnel match up with results in the real world.

Why Cap'n Crunch?

"Because it's cheap," Neal says.

Below him, Stephen Connolly and Jessiah Johnson, teammates on Washington's crew, are stroking their pairs shell through the cereal as Neal videotapes them from above.

This isn't some prank developed to break the monotony of the long difficult mornings in the boat. It isn't some revolutionary training technique developed by Washington men's coach Mike Callahan.

But it could lead to a revolution in the development of oars.

Neal, a junior aeronautical engineer, is mixing academics with athletics by looking at ways to optimize the propulsion of the blades. "You can only put so much force on the blade yourself before you start throwing your back out all the time," Neal says, "but there still has to be a way to get more loft on the water without ... losing some of that energy."

The cereal acts as a visual aid.

The Cap'n Crunch helps Neal see the way the blade is moving through the water. He is in the early stages of this experiment, analyzing videotape. But maybe, eventually, he will invent a better blade.

"We're using the whole university — that's the tie we want to have on the team," Callahan says. "We're academics and we're athletic and we're trying to tie the two together. When he told me about this experiment, I was really excited. I don't think we get enough interaction with the academic side. It would be nice to have a stronger tie with upper campus."

Maybe, some day, every boat will be using the Lowell Neal blade. Maybe his blade will revolutionize his sport the way new suits have revolutionized competitive swimming.

"I might find out that, for practical use, maybe there is some amazing blade shape that is much more optimal," he says. "Or maybe it turns out that it's just impractical for actual use and I'll just write a great research paper on how blades are currently optimized the best."

Neal is an extraordinary student-athlete. In addition to majoring in aeronautical engineering and being in the bow of defending national-champion Washington's No. 1 eight, he is an accomplished violinist and a member of the National Ski Patrol.

He's a rowing renaissance man — but had never had been in a shell before coming to Washington. And he's from New Mexico, not exactly known as the cradle of crew.

"Lowell is a very unique guy," says Callahan, whose team will compete in Saturday's Windermere Cup. "Very good rowers are very intelligent. It takes a lot of mental focus, and he's very intelligent.

"We have a strong walk-on tradition at Washington, and he contacted me by e-mail and said he wanted to try. He came here and took a walk around the boathouse, and nine months later, he's a national champion on the freshman boat."

Now, three years later, Neal might be good enough to row in the 2012 Olympics.

Callahan calls him a natural.

"We knew what we had almost right away," Callahan said. "His body unfolds in the right sequence, and that usually doesn't just happen. It takes a lot of coaching and a lot of experience, and he just kind of did it, right off the bat. He's one of the most natural guys I've ever seen taking a rowing stroke right away.

"He has a big potential, but he's also a guy who also has other options. It's like the national coach always says, 'We're not competing with other countries. We're competing with Wall Street and med schools and law schools.' The question will be whether he wants to make the commitment in his life to rowing."

Answering that question will be difficult.

"I have thought about that quite a bit and keep pushing back that decision, and I think I'll continue to push back that decision," Neal says. "Next year, after I graduate, I'll let you know."

In the meantime, he'll be rowing and throwing Cap'n Crunch into the Cut and trying to build the world a better oar blade.

Steve Kelley: 206-464-2176 or skelley@seattletimes.com