I swear to god, with all the shit coxswains have to put up with, ya’ll deserve a whole month of appreciation, not just 1 week. I see the way my coach treats coxswains and basically says he hates coxies in front of them. It sucks because that attitude is too prevalent in the community.
Yea, I agree that that attitude is too prevalent. It’s frustrating but in theory it’s also an attitude/culture that can be changed … it really only takes the leaders on the team saying something and shutting down that behavior as soon as they see or hear about it happening (and obviously not partaking in it themselves). Granted, that can be hard to do when your coach is also involved in it but nobody ever said calling people on their shit was an easy thing to do.
That was something else that the coxswain from today’s post (linked below)said in her emails, that it became clear that the rowers saw the way the coach treated her (in addition to making the weight comments) and got the idea in their heads that it’s OK for them to treat her like that too. It’s not and it shouldn’t take the athletes to point out that everything starts from the top down. The team itself was a relatively new one and the majority of the rowers were total novices, which makes it even more frustrating that the coach would be the one spurring all this on because novices are like babies – they’re sponges. They soak up everything to get a sense for how shit works and if they see you doing something, they’re going to assume they can do it too.
Related: Do you really need that?
I’m all for calling coxswains out when they need to be called out (I think I’ve been pretty vocal about too) but it’s also basic common sense to know when you’re crossing that line and your “feedback/criticism” is crossing over into personal attacks, either blatant ones (telling them you hate them or blaming them for everything that’s going wrong) or subtle ones (making snide remarks about their weight).
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