Category: College
College Coxing Q&A Teammates & Coaches
Question of the Day
Hi, I’m a novice coxswain for a men’s collegiate team. We have 3 8+’s and 4 coxswains so one person always has to sit out. During one of our races, the other novice coxswain got to cox 2 races while I had one. I don’t understand why the coaches picked her over me. She shows up to practice hungover, misses at least one practice a week, and has crashed the boat 5 times. The coaches keep commenting on how impressed they are with me but she always gets the better positions. Do I confront her? My coaches? Or should I shut my mouth and deal with it?
I wouldn’t confront her directly about it but I wouldn’t stay quiet about it either. If all those things have really happened your coaches have to at least have an idea about it – there’s no way they can’t tell when she’s showing up hungover or haven’t seen/heard about her crashing the boat.
This is a tricky situation because it’s hard to confront your coaches about a decision they made regarding a teammate without sounding petty. I would find time to sit down with them just to talk about your progress so far. What have they seen you doing well, what would they like you to keep working on, what have you been working on, what your goals are for the season, etc. Talk about your race and casually ask them what went into the decisions on who was boated where or why some coxswains got to race more than once. It’s vague enough that you aren’t saying “why was she in that boat?” but it’ll also give you the opportunity to hear their rationale for why which coxswains were in which lineups. You can also ask if the coxswains will rotate in the future between who does two races and who done one should a situation like this arise again.
If they ask you why you’re asking, you can bring up that when you look at yourself vs. the other coxswains and take into account what the coaches are telling you about your performance, you’re confused because the boats/races you’re being put in don’t seem to measure up to the feedback you’re getting. Hopefully this will initiate a conversation and give them a chance to tell you why you are where you are.
I have to imagine that they’d want to know about this other coxswain showing up hungover, crashing boats, etc. if they somehow don’t already because it’s a safety issue at the very least. The issue is finding the right time to bring it up, which there hardly ever is one until it’s too late and then it comes to “well, if you knew, why didn’t you say something?”.
Do the varsity coxswains know about these issues? One thing you could do is talk to them first and then they can talk to her from an upperclassmen/team leader/fellow-but-more-experienced coxswain standpoint. If they feel it’s necessary to go to the coach, you can go with them or you can have them come with you, whichever makes you comfortable. That way you can say that you weren’t sure how to handle it because you know it’s not your place to do so so you wanted to talk to someone with higher standing first but they thought it’d be best to go directly to the you, the head coach. From there you can let them deal with it.
College Coxing Racing Recordings
Coxswain recordings, pt. 6
Purdue university men’s Lightweight 8+ 2012 Milwaukee River Challenge
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=KbhgdqCq12MThere’s a lot going on here with the rowing that is pretty … bad … so I’m going to skip over talking about a lot of that and focus on just the coxing. This is also a long recording so I’m cherrypicking what I think is the most important parts rather than pointing out every single thing. Ultimately I think this audio was solidly average. There were a lot of missed opportunities but the stroke seemed happy with it so take what I say with a grain of salt. If your rowers like what you’re doing by all means, keep it up, but at the same time, recognize where improvements can/should be made too.
While they’re sitting there waiting to start, see how 7-seat is moving his oar back and forth a lot? This would have driven me nuts because it messes up your point, not to mention is really irritating (especially up in the stern) since it jerks the boat a little. That’s probably part of the reason why he has to tell 2-seat to tap it a couple times.
At 3:11 he says “we’re in the cute”, which is a good thing to let your crew know, especially in bigger head races like HOCR where the entire starting area is a humongous clusterfuck.
At 4:45, notice how he calls the 10 really sharp and concise (albeit a little forced) but returns to his normal voice in between counts? That’s a good way to maintain the intensity and keep the crew relaxed.
Between 4:56 and 5:07 is a good example of how to communicate with your stroke during a piece or race. They’re not having a conversation or anything, rather the stroke says what he’s feeling in one quick breath and the coxswain translates it to the rest of the crew. In that same vein though, as the race went on this started to annoy me because even though stroke-coxswain communication is important, I wanted this coxswain to be saying all the stuff the stroke was saying before the stroke said it. Everything he said, with the exception of a couple things at the beginning, the coxswain should have already seen and made a call for. The coxswain should not be coxed by the stroke, if that makes more sense.
When he says “we gotta pull something out” … *long pause* … “alright, we’re going for it” at 11:36, I was pretty convinced that he didn’t actually have a plan or know what he needed to do in the upcoming stretch. You can’t say in a semi-aggressive tone that they’ve gotta make a move and then stop talking. You also can’t say “alright we’re going for it” like you’re debating whether or not you should actually go for it. If now is when you need to make a move, get on their asses and tell them you’re taking a fucking move. When you’ve got contact on a crew like this and you’re trying to walk through them, this is where you take a 20 to get even or put your bow ball in front. A 10 might get you to them but it’s not going to get you through them, which is what you want. If you stop your ten and you’re only half a length through them, that’s going to give their coxswain an opportunity to counter whereas if you take a 20 and can get up to their 2-seat, you’ve essentially absorbed them and it will be harder to counter.
A pro-tip for going around turns like the one at 12:43 is to tell one side to power down to 1/2 or 3/4 pressure and the other to power up. It seems counterintuitive but it’s actually a lot more effective than having one side still at 100% and trying to get the other side to out-pull them. In most cases you should be able to get around in 5-6 strokes. This is something you should practice when possible though so the crew gets used to “powering down” for a few strokes and develops that muscle memory for what it feels like (because 1/2 pressure when you’re consciously thinking about it is a lot different than 1/2 pressure in the middle of a race when you’ve got a shitload of adrenaline pumping through you).
When he says “you’re missing a ton of water” at 15:06, my immediate reaction was “…no shit/OK? How do you want them to fix it??”. You should never assume they know what to do or that something is obvious, especially since it’s your job to tell them what to do and more importantly, when. They’re missing water, you want them to not miss water, but what about their technique needs to change? Just saying “get it in” isn’t going to do much, especially if you’ve already been saying that for 10+ minutes.
Last thing – unless you’re like, 5 strokes from the line, you’re not “almost there” … and even if you are, “almost there” is not a call you should make EVER.
Other calls I liked:
“Together, we move…”
“The boat felt alive…” He said this after the race but this is a great (motivational) call to make during the race when the boat’s running well and you’ve got a good rhythm going.
OARS Lightweight 8+ 2013 Youth Nationals Petite Final
Right off the bat I love that he reminds them to “look at the flag”. This is important and definitely something I recommend coxswains do. Remember, you go on the drop of the flag, not when the announcer says GO. If the flag comes down before he says GO, you go anyways. You can’t see that so it’s important that everyone else in the boat is watching for it.
About a minute in he says ““we’re ahead of everyone” … cool but by how much? If you’re going to tell your boat you’re ahead or behind, always tell them by how many seats. If you only say you’re up or down, inevitably someone is going to look out of the boat because they want to know by how much. Usually I’ll say something like “up on the field, three seats over Lane 3, two seats over Lane 5” and tell them where we are compared to the lanes on either side of us. When everyone is still clustered together it tends to be too difficult to say specifically where you are on five other lanes so a semi-specific overview is generally sufficient.
At 6:15 he says “come on, don’t let them take it…”, which can be a good or bad call depending on your tone. You’re in the midst of a very high-energy situation and you obviously don’t want to give anything up but you also don’t want to make it sound like you’re begging because that just comes off like there’s no hope. Instead of “come on” say “show me what ya got”, “right here, lemme see it”, “stomp on the feet, lemme feel it”, etc. Instead of “don’t let them take it” say “don’t give an inch”, “don’t yield to them”, “show ’em you’re not backing down”, etc. All of this requires a bit of “planning” ahead of time but if modifying how you say something results in a more positive psychological response by your rowers, it’s worth it.
SoCo Crew 2013 Youth Nationals men’s v8+ Heat
The very first thing I noticed – not even joking, the very first thing – is where the starboard buoys are at 0:27 (a foot or two off the blade) and where they’re at at 0:43 (nearly under the rigger). Come on guys. Gotta steer straight. It’s literally your primary/only job.
When you’re counting out strokes try not to just count out the strokes and say nothing in between. I’m definitely guilty of this sometimes, usually when I’m trying to concentrate on something else that’s going on (either where we are, something with the blades, etc.), but it’s something I’m always conscious of and working on. When you’re just counting strokes, especially during a 20, it’s so monotonous. Case in point, the beginning of this race was 50 seconds of straight counting. Go sit in front of someone and count continuously for 50 seconds and see how long it takes for them to get up and walk away. Personally I’m also really anti-counting up and then counting down when calling 20s. If you’re going to count up (1, 2, 3…) on the first ten, do the same with the second ten. Don’t start counting down (10, 9, 8…) because it makes it seem like you’ve hit a peak and you can start coming down now when in actuality you’re still building into the piece. Psychology, guys. Psychology.
At 1:23 he says “we need to get under 1:40 the whole time to win this…”, which might have been something they discussed beforehand but regardless, there are definitely better ways to make this call. Knowing your splits during a race can be both a blessing and a curse and as the coxswain it’s your responsibility to know how to work that information to your advantage. You should go in with a plan – are you going to negative split the whole time or try to hold a steady average? If you go into the race wanting be under a 1:40 you’ve got to communicate and remind your crew of that in an encouraging way. “We committed ourselves to holding a 1:38, let’s see that commitment right now. Sitting at a 1:40, let’s go, big press now … drive it, find that rhythm, 1:39, press swing … 1:38. Connect, press, sssend. YES! Let’s maintain this until we make our move at the 1000m. Commit, sssend. Commit, sssend.”
“I want it bad so we gotta have it…” is a bullshit call and not something you should ever say to your crew. Stop with the separation between you and the rest of the boat. Same goes for the “this is unacceptable” call at 3:17. Yea, maybe it is, but this still is not something you say to your crew in the middle of a race.
The counting between 6:06 and 6:46, randomly calling power 10s in the middle of another power 10 … dude, no.
The biggest thing I noticed in this piece was that the coxswain sounded so irritated the whole time, like he was just pissed to be there. Yea, you’ve gotta stay on them and pay attention to what’s happening around you but saying stuff like “this is unacceptable” or “I want it bad” during a prelim would make me seriously reconsider wanting you in the boat for semis and finals. I went and looked up the heats results from Youth Nats this year and in this race it was first place to semis, next two to the reps. Does going to the reps mean you’ve gotta row another race, yea, but sometimes you’ve gotta cut your losses and know that that’s the inevitable result instead of pushing your crew to beat a team that you’re (most likely) not going to catch. Anyways, I feel like this coxswain has a lot of potential that he’s just not taking advantage of. His voice is great and his intensity (when he’s channeling it properly) is solid but the calls and overall race strategy need work.
You can find and listen to more recordings by checking out the “Coxswain Recordings” page.
College Coxing Q&A Teammates & Coaches
Question of the Day
How did you balance crew, classwork, and a social life while you were in college?
I didn’t at all. My college experience could be equated to Murphy’s Law – everything that could go wrong went wrong. Looking back I should have advocated for myself a lot more than I did when I talked to my coaches, I should have gone to my professors sooner when I realized I was falling behind, and I should have avoided my advisers entirely since they ended up steering me in the wrong direction more often than not. The way things panned out with rowing and college in general is without question the biggest regret I have.
College itself wasn’t a shock to my system or anything so there really wasn’t an adjustment period there but as soon as classes started I got smacked in the face with crew from every angle. Practice twice a day, weights in the morning twice a week after a row (7-8:30am before classes), not to mention having a teammate as a roommate (alarm clock going off every five minutes for an hour starting at 4:30am … I wanted to kill her) was a lot to deal with on top of the usual college stuff.
I started taking classes over the summer and already had an incredible group of friends before the year even started. I went from seeing them every day to never seeing them. I was way too exhausted to go out on the weekends so I missed a lot of opportunities to hang out and stuff. I justified missing out by saying that rowing in college was what I wanted to do and I knew there were going to be sacrifices and if this was one of them, fine. All work and no play is not healthy.
Classes were a whole separate issue entirely. I was excited about my major and most of my classes but it’s hard to maintain that excitement when you’re late to your morning class every day because you get held over by 20, 30, 40 minutes at practice (and then have to wait for the shuttle back to campus) and are so exhausted at the end of the day that you can’t manage any brain waves when it’s time to actually do your work. I’d come back from afternoon/evening practice around 6-7pm, maybe grab something to eat (justified again by not having enough time, I didn’t feel that hungry anyways, etc.), take a quick break to wind down from the day (usually in the form of a shower, which was the only time during the day when I felt no pressure to do anything), and then start my homework. That’d go from 8pm-2am usually before I’d set my alarm and go to bed. If I got more than 3 hours of sleep a night I was ecstatic. I was constantly running on empty.
I’ve always been a good student but my grades were awful and having never experienced that before, I was constantly kicking my own ass and telling myself to get it together. I was nervous to talk to my professors because I figured they would look at me as an entitled athlete expecting special treatment so I didn’t go to them for help (until it was all but too late) and instead committed myself to figuring out how to fix things on my own. Needless to say, that didn’t work.
Midway through the semester, I hated crew. Like, absolutely hated it. I didn’t feel like I was getting any opportunities to do anything useful when I was at practice and I (and some of the other coxswains) always felt like the coaches were pretty “meh” towards everyone but their “favorite” coxswain. Whenever the subject of crew, the team, etc. would get brought up by friends, family, professors, etc. I could feel the look of disgust on my face. If I never saw another oar, boat, or cox box ever again it would have been too soon. It went from being something that I loved doing more than anything to a job that I despised waking up for. I was stressed beyond belief, I was constantly getting sick (I ended missing nine straight days of classes at one point because I was so run down … the doctors I saw were horrified and almost made me check into the hospital for treatment), I had no energy, and the energy that I did have was spent convincing myself that this was what I wanted. I wanted this!
When I had conversations with my coaches or athletic advisers, I got nowhere. My athletic advisers, instead of finding ways to help me, only offered the suggestion of “just pick an easier major”, which I ignored because that’s literally the most lazy, bullshit piece of advice ever. My coaches guilt tripped me because I had committed myself to the team and I had to fulfill that, blah blah blah. I sat in their offices ready to punch the walls at a moment’s notice because it was like … do you think I don’t know that I made a commitment? Why do you think I’m running myself into the ground right now? I’m doing it because of this commitment!
Eventually it came to the point where I knew I had to walk away. My grades were the number one reason but my health (physical and mental) was another. I had never felt before what I felt my freshman year. I was in a perpetual state of fatigue, hunger, anger, stress, anxiety, depression, etc. that no one understood. The people I did talk to about what was going on knew maybe 1% of everything – the rest of it I kept to myself. People aren’t joking when they say doing that eats away at you. I could feel myself becoming less and less of the person I was before and that only added to everything I was feeling.
Walking away from crew was the hardest decision I’ve ever had to make. I know it doesn’t seem like something that a normal person would agonize over but for me it was. I knew that quitting (something I had never done before) would put an end to my dreams of competing at the elite level. I was back home when I got a call from the assistant coach who said that she could tell something had been going on. No shit, really? Do you think maybe you should have said something beforehand instead of rubbing my “commitment” in my face? I told her I needed some time to figure out what I wanted but I didn’t think I was going to be on the team next season. It wasn’t until I took a step back and realized how miserable I was making myself that I realized the choice was already made. I called my coach back and said I was done.
I hate that I’m that person who is the anomaly and couldn’t make things work out. There are thousands of collegiate rowers out there that do and on some level, I’m envious of that. I’ve realized in the years since that I should have stuck up for myself and I should have told my coaches at the very beginning that something wasn’t right. Whether they could or would have helped me is something I’ll never know but I should have made the effort to at least see what they had to say. Asking for help as a coxswain is something that’s really easy for me but asking for help in “real life” is really hard and it bit me in the ass here.
The simplest piece of advice I have is that the moment you start to feel the ground under you getting a little shaky, figure out why and then go talk to the appropriate people until you’ve got things stabilized. Even if you don’t think you need someone else’s help, down the line you will. If your professors know ahead of time that you’re juggling a lot and struggled a bit with a certain topic, problem set, etc., they can at least throw out a “Hey, how have you been doing since we last talked?” at the beginning or end of class one day. I never had any professors like this but maybe you do. They can’t help you if they don’t know there’s a problem though, regardless of how minor it is.
Don’t ever let anyone tell you to “just switch to an easier major”. In the short term that might solve the problem but in the long run you probably aren’t going to be happy. Also, don’t let your coaches guilt trip you, make school seem like an interference to crew, or make you feel like your concerns are invalid. Don’t let anyone else invalidate your concerns either – family, friends, significant others, teammates, etc. How you balance crew, classes, and having a life is different for each individual too. There’s an experimentation period of trial and error where you find out what works for you before you settle into a routine, but the key is making sure your routine is dictated by you and not someone or something else.
College Recruiting Teammates & Coaches
What questions should you ask coaches during the recruiting process?
Below is a (not at all comprehensive) list of some questions you could ask coaches when you talk with them throughout the recruiting process. Many of these are things I asked, wish I’d asked, or things you might not think to ask.
What is the practice schedule like? Times, for how long, number of times per day, how many days per week, etc.
How do you get to the boathouse/practice facility? Bus, carpool, walk, shuttle, etc.
Team dynamic, structure, hierarchy? Is there a student board, team elected or coach appointed captains, etc.
Athlete retention rate – do people stick around or quit after one season.
Do you work with our schedules or do we have to manage our classes around crew (instead of the other way around)?
How many hours a week can you expect to spend doing rowing related activities? Practice, travel, lifting, team study tables, outreach. and/or team activities, etc.
Do you like competing in the ____ conference and why?
Is the university looking to change conferences any time soon?
What does each season consist of, training wise?
From a coach’s perspective, what do you see me bringing to the team? Have a counter statement ready.
What is your relationship like with the professors? Frequent interaction, no interaction, on good terms, ever had any issues, etc.
Graduation rate of those on the team
What kind of academic support is available? Athletic adviser, mandated study tables, peer advisers, etc.
Do athletes have priority registration and if so, how far in advance of regular registration?
What’s the team GPA for the past semester/year?
How much class time is missed due to traveling?
Will my roommate be another rower/coxswain on the team?
Do rowers/coxswains tend to be housed in certain dorms or are they housed all over?
Is the opportunity available to earn a scholarship in the future if my performance merits it?
What are the factors that go into determining who gets a scholarship?
Would you consider your program more, less, or equally as demanding in comparison to other similar programs in this division, conference, etc.
How do you compare the program to out-of-conference competitors?
How do you determine lineups?
How do you use freshmen recruits in lineups comparison to freshmen walk ons who have rowing or coxing experience?
Has anyone transferred from your team to another university and team? What were their reasons for leaving, if you know?
What would your team say are your biggest attributes? Have a counter statement ready.
What would they say they like the least about you? Have a counter statement ready.
What is your coaching style and philosophy?
Would I still have the opportunity to study abroad? Has anyone done it, how does it effect team standing, are you welcomed back when you return, etc.
How much school support does the team receive?
What is the relationship like with the athletic department/athletic director? Does he/she make it a point to get to know all the teams, etc.
Have you had the chance to see me row or cox in person? Thoughts, opinions, etc.
How would I fit in with the team and what could you see my role being?
What are your expectations of your athletes, both on and off the water? This is an intentionally vague question.
How do you handle discipline if it’s a serious issue but not something that merits the university’s or athletic department’s involvement?
What are your short term and long term goals for the team?
Where do you place your coaching emphasis?
Who are the assistant coaches? What are they like, what are their specialties, what do they bring to the team, how do they interact with you/each other, etc.
What is the typical day like in the life of a University of ____ rower?
Are you planning on leaving soon (contract expires, looking for new opportunities, etc.) or will you be here for the foreseeable future?
What are the policies for missing or being late to practice due to academic or extracurricular club commitments?
How many credits are required to be on the team and/or maintain my scholarship?
Where do your rowers come from?
What is the biggest/proudest achievement, both on and off the water, during your tenure?
If I’m injured and on scholarship, what happens?
How do you determine whether or not to renew scholarships? What’s the criteria, etc.
What do you know about my major? Thoughts on how it might interfere, etc.
Can the application fee be waived for athletes? (At least one of mine was.)
What is the team/athletic department’s standing with the NCAA? Any team violations, etc.
What are the most popular majors amongst the members of the team?
How can rowing help me as a college student? Again, intentionally vague.
What kind of alumni support do you have?
Where do I stand amongst other recruits?
How many people are you actively pursuing and has anyone signed their NLI yet?
Can you have a part-time job or do work study at the same time as being a full-time student-athlete? How it’s worked for other rowers, do other rowers do it, what kind of jobs do they have/have they had, etc.
What are the next steps in the process?
Is there anything I can provide that would help you in the evaluation process?
When can we touch base again? There are NCAA rules so make sure you find out the specifics to avoiding being caught in a recruiting violation.
This is all just the tip of the iceberg but hopefully this gives you some stuff to think about before you meet with the college coaches. For more advice on recruiting, check out the “recruiting” tag.
Image via // @drveuros
College Racing Video of the Week
Video of the Week: University of Washington vs. Cambridge University Boat Club
Last weekend, while those of us in USA were prepping for CRASH-Bs, the University of Washington Huskies headed across the pond to race Cambridge University on the Tideway. Matthew Pinsent served as the official umpire of the race, which saw Washington come away with a 3 length victory over CUBC.
College Q&A Recruiting Teammates & Coaches
Question of the Day
What should I NOT ask when talking to a college coach about recruiting?
Off the top of my head the questions you shouldn’t ask are about the obvious things, i.e. the stuff you can (and should) find out on your own about the team and the school. Asking questions like “how many people are on the team”, “who do you race”, “does the school offer XYZ major”, etc. just indicates laziness on your part.
Also, don’t ask them how much money they can offer you. There’s definitely a time and place for questions like that but right when you’re starting to talk to coaches can come off as presumptuous at best and a huge turn-off at worst. I probably wouldn’t ask it at all until I knew I’d been accepted at the university and that rowing for this specific team was a lock. What boat you’ll be in, how often you’ll race, etc. also isn’t a good one to ask – you’re a freshman so regardless of your high school accolades, don’t automatically assume that you’ll be placed in a boat higher than the freshman 8+.
Basically, use your common sense. If a question doesn’t seem appropriate to you, don’t ask it. If you’re not sure, run through them with your coach and get their feedback/advice.
College Coxing Racing Recordings
Coxswain Recordings, pt. 5
Rochester Institute of Technology Liberty Leagues 2012
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.
UCLA 15 on, 15 off
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.
UCLA W4+ Drills + steady state
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.
University of Washington V8+ 2012 IRAs Grand Final
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.
College Coxing Racing Rowing Teammates & Coaches
“Baseball bat!”
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.
Image via // UVA Today
Question of the Day
My team only ergs once a week but we are still an extremely well known competitive team. I am wondering if this is normal as most people seem to erg multiple times a week. And also will going from a once-a-week erg to a multiple times a week erg in university be a hard transition? Thanks!
I wouldn’t say it’s totally abnormal. In the winter my team would erg every day but once spring season rolled around we’d only erg once every two weeks for their 2k test. If you’re only erging once a week during winter training that’s definitely unorthodox but if your team isn’t suffering any ill effects (I assume because you’re rowing the rest of the time?) I wouldn’t worry about it.
Regarding making the switch in college I would say this: just because your team right now only ergs once a week doesn’t mean you only have to erg once a week. You can erg as many times a week as you want. It might be an adjustment switching to a more “normal” erg schedule in college but I don’t think it will be that difficult. It’s like when the semesters switch and your class schedule changes – it’s weird for the first few days but then you get used to it after the first week and that becomes the new normal.