An aggregate resource for all those riding in the 9th seat
Best advice you have for a novice cox seat racing aiming for a varsity boat?
Focus. Be determined. Keep your nerves in check. Make your calls strong and your actions aggressive. Be smart. Be safe. Do what you’ve practiced and what you know how to do. ACT like how you think a varsity coxswain should act. Conduct yourself accordingly on the water. Be a good sport, win or lose. Give feedback and accept it in return. Be confident in your decisions and commit to executing them.
Can you explain what a scrimmage is like? If it’s different, how is it different from other races? Preseason kind of race, right (like other sports)?
Scrimmages in crew are basically like scrimmages in any other sport. They’re a test run to see how what kind of impact your training has had thus far and what kinks, if any, still need to be worked out. (That’s how we always approached them in high school/college, other teams might look at them differently.)
They’re about 98% the same as a regular regatta. How they’re run individually is up to the teams racing but for the most part things are usually pretty lax. Some of the scrimmages I’ve participated in were run specifically for the races, not so much everything else (getting lined up, following a time schedule, etc.). There were never any hard and fast rules on “this is when this race will start, this is when you need to launch”, etc. – whenever you and the crew you were racing got to the start would be when the race would begin. Other races were very strict, just like at a regular regatta. There were official start times, official starting procedures, etc.
Related: I’m a novice rower and I’m racing in my 1st head race this weekend, any tips? I’m freaking out!
For rowers, there isn’t much of a difference between a scrimmage and an actual regatta – you’ve still got to row 1500m or 2000m. The coxswains will be the ones that notice the subtle differences because they’ll be the ones who have to deal with them. How things are done though should be explained at the coxswain meeting (if you have one) but if they’re not, just talk to your coach. He/she will have all the information you’ll need.
Part of coxswain selections are how safe you are and if you can keep the boat safe in different situations. How would coaches determine your safety-ness?
In no particular order, I’d look at:
Whether or not you follow the traffic patterns (and before that, if you know what the traffic patterns are)
What your steering is like (are you a straight shooter or a drunk driver?)
Related: How to steer an eight or four
How you handle high-volume days on the water when there’s a lot of traffic (i.e. on any given day you’ll encounter numerous other crews, launches, sailboats, tour boats, duck boats, kayakers, SUP-ers, etc.)
Are you calm in stressful situations or do you easily lose your composure
Do you follow instructions (this is huge)
Are you trustworthy (can I send you off by yourself for a few minutes without supervision and trust that you’ll execute practice accordingly, keep the crew safe, etc.)
Are you careful with the equipment
How well you handle inclement weather situations
Whether or not you used basic common sense
The last one is big for me personally and is probably the number one thing I would like at if I were evaluating how safe a coxswain is. Being aware of potentially dangerous, unsafe, or atypical situations and doing everything you can to avoid putting your crew in harm’s way is one of, if not the most, important responsibility of a coxswain. Common sense can and will keep you and your crew safe 98% of the time but being able to master everything I listed above will be of great use to you. Better safe than sorry, every time, all the time.
What do you mean by “calling things with a purpose?” I took it to mean call things you know will be effective to the speed of the boat. Is that what you meant? I’m still confused about what to say during race calls.
Basically what I mean is that everything you say to your crew should be said with the goal of achieving some kind of result in return. You shouldn’t be talking just to talk because you assume that’s what a coxswain’s job is. You want to make calls that are going to get something out of your crew.
Think about when you’re writing a paper. There’s two ways to write it. The first is when you know nothing about the topic or it’s something that you’re completely uninterested in but you’ve got to find some way to meet that five page minimum. What do you end up doing? Rambling, dragging things out, and sounding like you have no clue what is even coming out of your mouth. The second way is when you understand the topic you’re writing about. Your sentences are clear and concise, your arguments are well thought out, and the delivery is confident and assertive. You sound like you know what you’re talking about. That’s how coxing should be.
Everyone can interpret it how they want but in essence you’re correct in that part of making purposeful calls is to say things that will help the boat move. “10 to walk two seats…” has more meaning that “power 10” because you’re attaching a specific, tangible goal to it. “I want to see us move on that crew” means absolutely nothing if you don’t tell them how you want to see them move. “Set the boat” is another one. Set the boat … how? Why is it unset? Where is it unset? What side is it leaning to? Who needs to do what? The bottom line is this: the more vague you are, the less you’re helping your crew. The more specific you are with what you want, the more of an asset you are to them.
Hey I’m a novice coxswain but I have learned very fast and all the guys on varsity want me to be a varsity coxswain and I’m a really good motivator. But the varsity coxswain right now is a girl who has been coxing the same amount of time as me and who isn’t really good at all and it’s only cause she is a senior. How can I really prove myself to my coach? I am a junior. I’ve already showed him my recording and he said just to work on more technical stuff. What’s your opinion?
I think if you have a good grasp on everything else, I’d take his advice and start honing your technical skills. Ask him specifically what you need to work on – is it technical stuff like steering or is it being able to spot issues with the bladework and give technical feedback to the rowers? Take note of what he says and then make a concerted effort to work on those things. When you go out, tell your rowers that you’re trying to work on this or that or whatever and then get feedback from them after practice on how you did. With stuff like steering you can’t really do that but in terms of making technical calls, you can improve a lot by talking to your rowers and finding out what calls worked or didn’t work. If your coach sees you making the effort to improve and at the same time sees your crew getting better as a result of that, that’ll be a huge notch in the win column for you.
Another thing you could do is propose the idea of coxswain evaluations. This will allow the rowers to evaluate both coxswains and provide some useful information to your coach, potentially stuff he wasn’t aware of beforehand. It can also help him make decisions on who gets what boat since he’ll have more tangible info in front of him other than seniority and what he’s observed on the water. It’s also good stuff for the coxswains too, obviously.
Related: How are coxswain evaluations conducted?
You have to assume though she did get the varsity boat for a reason other than the fact that she’s a senior. A great way to ensure you never get the boat you want though is to accuse your coach, no matter how innocently you put it, of doing something like this and then saying “well, I’m the better coxswain and they like me more anyways, so I should have that boat.” Instead, find out what her skills are. What is she good at? Ask her for advice. If she’s really good at steering, ask her how she navigates a tricky turn in the river or how she always manages to dock perfectly on the first try. Learn from each other. As a coach, I’d be much more willing to consider someone for a varsity spot if I saw them working with all of their teammates and not just ignoring the ones they didn’t think were very good or deserving of their spots.
College Coxing Racing Recordings
Right off the bat, I love her “get us out ahead” call. Obviously that’s always the goal but making this call right at the start gives the crew an immediate objective.
At 1:20 when she says “they’re probably at our four seat”, you want to tell them where the other crew is but you don’t want to say “probably”, “maybe”, “might be”, etc. That gives the rowers the opportunity to look out and see if the other crew actually is where you think they are. Even if you’re not 100% positive, act like you are. Instead of “probably at our 4 seat” just say “they’re sitting on 4 seat”.
When she says “they’re dying, we got ’em” at 3:51, that would have been a great spot to make a move and really break that other crew.
At 4:24 she says “gotta go right here and now, comin’ up on 500m … gonna be close … you can see it, you can taste it”. That’s a great call to get them pumped for the sprint and let them know it’s going to be a close fight. Immediately after that would have been a great opportunity to take a 10 or 20 to make a move and really hammer the message home (to her crew and the rest of the field).
Other calls I liked:
“They know we’re out for blood…”
“You want that fucking banner? Let’s see you get it now.”
“Punch it, let’s move…”
“Fuck them, let’s GO!” Definitely – definitely – a call I would make. Reminds the crew to focus on themselves and, well, fuck that other boat.
This is bordering on a little angry with her tone of voice but overall the intensity is good. The only thing that could have made this better (and maybe justified her almost-angry tone of voice) is if she’d been sharper with the counting instead of drawing out each number. This is a good example though of why it’s important to project your voice rather than yell – it’s easier to stay sharp with the calls when you’re using your core to make yourself loud vs. just yelling from your throat, which doesn’t give you same amount of control.
Between 1:28 and 1:31 she did a great job of changing her tone to reiterate what she was saying about hooking the blade in. She also does a really good job of connecting the puddles to the crew at 2:12 and using that as a visual cue to get the crew to lengthen out and get the spacing back to three inches of open. Another thing she does well throughout the recording is calling out the rowers for individual corrections.
Other calls I liked:
“Swing and run…” Great call to make during cut the cake.
This isn’t actually a recording, it’s a video montage of some of the footage from IRA’s last year overlaid with some of Sam Ojserkis’s audio. I can’t embed it here so you’ll have to watch it over on Vimeo. Since Washington is easily one of the top programs in the country, I thought it was worth sharing. “No one’s going to hold our pace” – that’s confidence. I like the definitive “OVER!” at the end too.
You can find and listen to more recordings by checking out the “Coxswain Recordings” page.
Coxing Novice Q&A Teammates & Coaches
What would you say differently if this post was asked by a varsity coxswain?
I’d still bring it to the coach’s attention but as the more experienced coxswain (thus a team leader by default) I’d also take the coxswain(s) aside and ask/say something along these lines.
Why did you join crew? Did they actually want to do it or were they forced to find an extracurricular to partake in?
You lack of enthusiasm has become quite noticeable to the rowers in your boat – did you know that?
It’s been noted that you don’t enjoy going out on the water. It’s kind of a big part of coxing so if you don’t enjoy being out there, I’d say it’s time to start reevaluating if rowing is the sport for you.
Regardless of whether you enjoy it or not, if you’re going to be here you need to take it seriously because coxswains who are flippant about safety or not paying attention because they’re uninterested can quickly become some of the biggest hazards on the river.
Are you aware of the responsibilities of a coxswain? If yes, any particular reason why they’re not doing them? If no, explain what they are (general responsibilities and any specific ones that your club has).
Can you handle the responsibilities? If yes, good. Come back tomorrow prepared to do better. If not, again, time to start reevaluating things.
Explain the team dynamic to them – what’s the philosophy, what are the team’s goals for the season, why are the coxswains important in helping achieve those goals, etc.
Let them know that you and the other varsity coxswains (and rowers) are there to help (and that you want to help) but they can only help you if you’re willing to listen and learn. A blasé attitude is not going to be accepted by anyone who chooses to be a member of the team.
That is all assuming you’re talking to a novice. If you’re talking to a fellow varsity coxswain, this is what I’d say:
Seriously, you’ve been already been doing this for 2, 3, 4 years. Underclassmen look up to you and you’re expected to set the example. Get your shit together.
Things are a little different when you’re a varsity coxswain because you’ve got more experience and an assumed leadership role on your side. You should however, like I said, alert the coach to the issue but let them know that you’ve talked to the person and this was what was said. This makes them aware of the situation and gives them an opportunity to quietly observe the person to see if any improvements can be seen.
If after a week or so things are starting to look better, let the issue rest for the time being. If not, then it’s time for the coach to step in and talk to the athlete and really lay down the law of shape up or get out.
College Coxing Racing Rowing Teammates & Coaches
A few weeks ago I went to the What Works Summit coaching conference at CRI and one of the main things I was looking forward to was hearing Kevin Sauer of UVA speak. He was a huge reason why I looked at UVA in the first place when I was applying to schools so to get the chance to hear him talk was an opportunity I didn’t want to miss.
He gave two presentations, one on how to make the boat move and then another as part of a roundtable discussion on championship programs. During the roundtable he told this story that, even now, just kind of blows my mind because it’s so awesome.
So, a bit of background to start. UVA won the 2012 NCAA Championship led by the 1st Varsity 8+, which was the first time they’d accomplished that. They’d won NCAAs previously but never with a V8+ win too. After graduating a good class the previous spring (2011), they were now tasked with putting together a boat that could match or exceed the skill level of the rowers they’d graduated. When they came to Head of the Charles in 2011 and won (in a time of 16:11.519, eight seconds faster than 2nd place Radcliffe), he was pleasantly surprised. They weren’t going against the national team since they were training for the Olympics, but they beat the other college teams, which is obviously who they needed to beat. Then, when they went to Princeton Chase and won there too, he started to realize this boat had something.
Now, looking at the competition, Michigan was solid last year. They killed it all season, basically just blowing the other crews they raced out of the water. They only lost twice on their way to a Big 10 Championship and 2nd place finish at NCAAs. When Coach Sauer was telling us this, he started talking about this race that Michigan had against Princeton.
Michigan got out hard and controlled the entire race, winning with a length of open over Princeton and two lengths of open over Brown. He called a team meeting and played this video for the girls, without saying a word from beginning to end. They silently watched it and at the end someone asked, “So, how are we going to beat them?”, to which he replied “I don’t know.” They started throwing ideas out there on what their race plan and strategy was going to be, how they were going to train for this, etc. Everyone’s contributing ideas and he just kind of blurts out “baseball bat”, to which the girls were all … “what??”. And he said “Baseball bat! We’ve just got to keep hitting them and hitting them and hitting them.” At the time, and still now, he said he had no idea why that was what came out of his mouth because it didn’t make sense to anybody, including him.
Part of their strategy was this move that they make at the 1000m mark but because they knew Michigan’s tendencies, he told his coxswain on race-day that if she needed to take it right at the beginning of the race to avoid letting Michigan get away from them, do it. The goal was to not let them get an inch of open water on them, otherwise it’d be all over. Coach Sauer and another coach were following behind the race in the launch and saw that, like they’d predicted, Michigan got out hard and fast. They started to walk, seat by seat, until they were six or seven seats up and he said he was thinking “come on, make the move, gotta go, don’t let them break away, gotta make it now…” and then all of a sudden they started seeing UVA walk until they were even with them.
The other coach in the launch said “You’ve got it. They (UVA) won.” and he said he was thinking this guy was crazy because they were only 750m into the race. BUT, they had won at that point because by making the move and walking on Michigan, they broke them. Michigan couldn’t and didn’t know how to counter it, presumably because it wasn’t something they’d had to deal with all season (which you can look at as either a good thing or a bad thing). UVA ended up winning and the rest is history.
When they got back to the dock, Coach Sauer went up to the coxswain and said “What did you do, what did you call? What’d you say to them to make that move?” and she said “All I said was ‘baseball bat‘.”
That is like … wow. This random thing that he’d blurted out during a team meeting, something that meant nothing to anyone at the time, is what they all internalized to help them win a national championship.
My point with this story goes back to what I was talking about in the question I answered this morning (linked above) but it also touches on a lot of other things too. The moves you plan aren’t always going to happen when you want them to – sometimes you’ve got to do something spontaneous to reap the maximum benefits. The calls you make are important, which is why I try and stress to you guys to say what you say with a purpose. When you’re talking with the coach or your crew, pay attention to what people say – you never know what is going to resonate with people. Baseball bat?? I mean, come on!! That’s such a basic, meaningless term but it became the rallying cry of sorts for this boat. It is your job to figure out what it takes to get your boat to move, so always keep your ears open – you never know when you’re gonna hear the call that changes everything.
Coxing Novice Q&A Teammates & Coaches
How do you deal with coxswains who just don’t really want to do what they’re supposed to do? I’m a very passionate novice cox but there are others who tend to slack off and don’t like going out on water and aren’t very helpful/motivating to the rowers. Some girls on their boats have come up to me and asked me to talk to the other coxswains.
If you were a varsity coxswain, I would probably give you different advice but since you’re a novice, same as them (I assume), I’ll say this: let your coach handle it. You can and should absolutely bring the issue to their attention but as far as talking to them I’d let the coach do it. If the other coxswains figure out that the rowers went behind their backs to talk to you and then you said something to them, even if you have the best intentions, shit could hit the fan. It could come off as you putting yourself on some kind of pedestal and thinking you’re better than or in charge of them, which will lead to them completely ignoring you and then taking it out on their rowers for being snitches.
I witnessed a similar situation in high school when I was a junior or senior and it made practice miserable for everyone. It sucks having people like that on your team but sometimes the best solution is to just let the person in charge deal with it. They actually have the authority to tell them to either shape up or get out.