Document text
In 2002, my father, Sam S. Leake, and his friend, John Mullin, hatched the plan to convert the old, abandoned, graffiti-defaced, and dilapidated filter building on White RockThe Filter Building on White Rock Lake(see images before conversion) into a world class rowing club.They raised the money, oversaw the construction, and built the institution, thereby creating a flourishing rowing community in Dallas.A few years later, a group of covetous parents, including a plaintiffs attorney, in my native town of Highland Park, decided THEY wanted the boat house for their rowing program.These people joined forces with Chip Northrup -- an original donor to the project who apparently became unhappy with how the institution developed without his control -- and have been trying to seize control of the institution ever since.On August 6, Dallas sports reporter and broadcaster, Richie Whitt, wrote a devastating portrait of this grasping coterie titled “DALLAS’ ROWING ROW: GOOD PARTNERS VS. BAD PEOPLE.Whitt paints an ugly portrait of self-serving, egoistic, and ruthless people. He has also assembled solid documentary evidence that -- in addition to being shockingly rude--Chip Northrup is loose with the truth about himself and the facts of this saga, including his mischaracterization of my father as a former “Marine Corps drill instructor” (he was a Marine Corps helicopter crew chief).To me, the story is an expression of a larger social and cultural development that I have observed since I graduated from Highland Park High School in 1989 -- namely, our society is conspicuously long on money, self-assertiveness, and striving, but increasingly short on class.Click on the image below to read Whitt’s report.Subscribe nowShare