As a coxswain are you treated differently as a recruit to a D1 college as opposed to a varsity cox who walks on the team? Or is it rare to have someone walk on a crew team who coxed through high school?
I don’t think it’s rare to have a 3 or 4-year coxswain walk on to the team. If they’re not 100% positive that they want to cox in college, they might forgo the recruiting process and go to walk-on tryouts to get a sense of what the team is like, what the commitment is like, and whether or not it’s something they really want to pursue. I think as a recruit you might be given slightly more “responsibility”, for lack of a better word, because the coach already has a sense of your abilities whereas with walk-ons, depending on where the need for coxswains is, you might be lumped in with the rest of the recruits or you might start off with the walk-on rowers as they learn how to row. Every team approaches it a little differently.
This is also why I always recommend that coxswains email the coaches if they’re thinking of walking on, that way they can at least introduce themselves and give them an idea of their background, skill level, etc.
