Category: College

College Recruiting: What do coaches look at?

College Recruiting Teammates & Coaches

College Recruiting: What do coaches look at?

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Previously: Intro || The recruiting timeline + what to consider 

The short list includes 2k time, academic suitability, physiology, experience, coaches recommendations, and finances.

The best way to get noticed obviously is to pull a really good 2k because as Coach Lindberg said, it’s the most objective analysis in our sport and how performances are normalized. In line with your 2k in terms of importance are your academics since those two things together quantify a lot of what the coaches need to know about you. The better prepared you are for college, meaning you’re taking challenging classes, scoring well on your AP tests, ACTs, and SATs, have a competitive GPA, etc., the more options you’ll have when it comes to determining which schools you might be a good fit for. Physiology is simple – height and weight. Regardless of whether you’re a lightweight, heavyweight, or coxswain, you really need to put this out there when you’re communicating with coaches … and you need to be honest about it.

Experience is something that can go either way. Obviously the more (competitive) experience you have the better (four weeks of learn-to-row over the summer in 7th and 8th grade doesn’t count) but coaches might still give you a look if you haven’t been rowing or coxing for long. I know of two high school seniors going on official visits right now at Ivies and other top 10 programs who just started rowing last year and I met a coxswain this summer who is at an Ivy now after having only coxed for a year beforehand. You shouldn’t assume that this will happen to everyone though because the precursor to this is having good enough grades and 2k scores that would warrant a coach giving someone who is relatively inexperienced a look. The majority of recruits are going to be people that have been rowing/coxing for awhile but if you’ve got the grades/times and have only been doing it for a short period of time, by all means reach out to the coaches and start a conversation.

Coaches recommendations are another big thing that college coaches look at, especially if you’re a coxswain. If your team consistently sends kids off to college programs then it’s reasonable to assume that your coaches have established relationships with the coaches of those teams and it’s safe to assume that they’ll be asked about you at some point. Sometimes this happens without your knowledge too which is (partly) why some recruiting questionnaires have you list your coach’s contact info. Other times coaches might ask you directly to have your coach get in touch with them, either by phone or email. The goal here, if it’s not obvious, is to learn about you as an athlete from someone who’s spent time working with you, to see how coachable you are (this is HUGE), and learn about what you bring to the team, both in terms of culture and overall contributions.

Related: Letters of recommendation

The last thing is finances. Don’t jump the gun on this and start freaking out thinking that a coach isn’t going to look at you if your family doesn’t make X number of dollars a year. That’s not it. It goes back to the suitability thing – if a school is completely out of reach for you financially unless you get a sizable scholarship your suitability just went down a lot. (It’s also probably going to make the coach question your intentions.) Talk it over with your family so you know what’s within your budget and how much you’d need in student loans, grants, etc. to cover any additional costs like housing, food, books, etc., that way when the subject comes up you’re not putting the coaches in an awkward “all or nothing” situation.

Another topic that came up at both Sparks and NRC was 3rd party recruiting sites (i.e. BeRecruited) and whether or not coaches actually looked at them. Graham Willoughby, an assistant coach with the men’s team at Brown, said that he’ll get emails 3-4 times a day indicating that someone’s been identified as being interested in the school/team but it’s not his primary source of information. A lot of coaches agreed on that point too that they’re not going to ignore it but they’d prefer to learn about a kid by them taking the initiative to go to the team’s website and filling out the questionnaire (which you can do anytime as a sophomore, junior, or senior). This is the best and most direct way of starting a conversation with the programs you’re interested in (in addition to actually emailing the coaches, obviously).

Related: Hey I’m currently a sophomore & I’m interested in rowing in college. An older teammate suggested I make a beRecruited account. What are your thoughts on the website? Is it helpful? If so, what are your suggestions about keeping it updated? I feel weird writing about myself! Should I list any regatta my boat has placed in or just major races?

Wendy Wilbur (Texas) made another point that all the coaches agreed on in that you are much more likely to get a response when you reach out to individual coaches vs. just creating an account online and waiting for the offers to roll in. You want to avoid having someone else (i.e. parents, a recruiting site, etc.) be what represents you to college coaches and instead reach out directly to let them know that you’ve researched the school, like these particular aspects of it, and are interested in learning more.

Next week: The basics of contacting coaches

College Recruiting: The Recruiting Timeline + What to Consider

College High School Recruiting Rowing

College Recruiting: The Recruiting Timeline + What to Consider

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Previously: Intro

One of the questions that comes up a lot has to do with the general timeline of the whole recruiting process and when you should be doing what. If you’re trying to slide into a coaches inbox as a freshman or sophomore … chill. I’ll touch on contacting coaches when you’re not an upperclassman in a later post but for the purposes of today’s I’m just going to focus on what you should be doing your junior and senior year.

Junior Fall

The first thing you should do is figure out your list of schools. This is really the only thing you can actively do before your junior year rolls around but once school starts as a junior, that’s when you really want to start solidifying it. This is in no way your final list though since it’s just going to be the schools that you’re interested in learning more about. The number of schools will vary but 7-10 is usually a good number to start out with. (I think I initially had seven or eight on my list that I eventually whittled down to three by the time I applied to schools.)

I don’t remember which coach said this but as you’re making your list, don’t just throw shit at a wall and hope it sticks. You should have three general categories for the schools you’re interested in – “locked in” (aka your safety school – if you can spell your own name right, you’ll get in), “baseline” (you’re a good candidate for this school and have a realistic shot of being admitted), and “reach” (the Harvard to your Elle Woods – you’d love to go here but it’s gonna take a lot of work on your end to get you up to par with the rest of the applicants).  Once you’ve got this laid out, you can fill out the recruiting forms on the athletic department’s website and send a quick email to the coaches introducing yourself (which we’ll get into more later).

Junior Winter/Spring

Now that you’ve had a couple of months to learn about the universities, their academic programs, and their crew teams you can start getting serious in your talks with the coaches. Throughout the winter you should be continuing to send them updates on your progress while at the same time beginning to narrow down your list of schools to your top 3-5. This is the time to be seriously thinking about which school/program is going to give you the experience you want. By mid to late spring you should know who falls under that umbrella and be letting the coaches who aren’t know that you’re no longer interested in that school.

Senior Summer

As Marcus said, “don’t push for an official, just ask for a visit”. Officials are offered by the coaches, not requested by the students, which is why the “pushing” can be a real turn off. Since the summer tends to be a little more relaxed you don’t necessarily need to do this right away either, especially if you’re busy doing other things like dev camp, JNT, prepping for Club Nats, etc. Don’t wait until the week before school starts though to sort this out because the two week period before classes begin can be and usually are pretty hectic.

Senior Fall

If you weren’t in contact much with coaches over the summer this is when you should be, to quote Marcus again, “re-solidifying your relationship with the coaches” and setting up your visits if you were offered any. Based on what I’ve seen/heard/experienced this tends to happen in early to mid September and then later in the month and throughout October, that’s when you actually go on them. If you weren’t offered an official, you should still utilize this time to go on unofficial visits so you can learn about the schools and meet with the coaches.

Related: Official vs. Unofficial Visits – If you’re unfamiliar with the differences between the two, check out this post.

Senior Spring

Pretty simple – decide where you’re gonna go. (If you applied early decision you’ll have already done this in December and if you applied early action you’ll have done this in either January or February.)

Now that you have a general idea of what the recruiting timeline looks like, I want to quickly touch on the things you should consider when looking at schools. There were three main points that were mentioned this summer that I think covers pretty much all the bases but if there’s something you think is important that isn’t listed here, feel free to leave it in the comments.

What do you want and where do you want to be?

Urban vs. rural, small vs. medium vs. large school, size of the rowing program (i.e. on the men’s side, do you want to be at smaller program like Stanford that typically puts out 2-3 eights or a bigger school like Wisco that fields 12…), culture of the team (i.e. partying vs. studying – if the team leans more heavily one way or the other, will that work for you?), etc.

Where do you see your ideal four years?

You have to pick a school that fits your needs. This entails the academics (not just what you choose to study but the rigorousness of the program too), the overall college environment, and the rowing program itself (ideally you’ll be on a team where you feel competitive and challenged).

Would I be happy here if I stopped rowing/coxing?

This is the bottom line and probably the most important question you’ll ask and be asked during this entire process.

At Northeast there was a handout that the kids got that included a “college evaluation grid” to help keep all this info organized so I threw that into a Google Sheet for you guys to use if you think it’d be helpful. You can find it linked below. My dad and I put together something similar when I was looking at schools and it was so helpful because all the information I had (or wanted to find out) about each school/team was in one place.

Related: College evaluation grid

In that Google Sheet there are two tabs – a blue one that has the grid in it and a green one that includes some more info on what early decision I and II, early action, and regular decision entails if you’re not sure of the nuances of each one. If you’re considering early decision I would definitely recommend doing your research since it is binding and can have some pretty unfortunate consequences if you violate the rules that are attached to it.

Next week: What do coaches look at?

Image via // @yalecrew
College recruiting: Intro

College High School Recruiting Teammates & Coaches

College recruiting: Intro

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Outside of questions directly related to coxing I get more questions and emails about recruiting than just about any other topic. I’ve wanted to do a regular series of posts on recruiting for awhile but got really motivated to finally put something together after I had the chance to listen to three really great talks from some of the top coaches in the country at the two camps I was at this summer.

So, on Tuesdays for the next seventeen weeks there will be a recruiting related post going up that covers nearly everything you need to know. Some of the things that’ll be discussed include the general timeline you should follow, what to do when contacting coaches (with tips on what coaches want to see from the coaches themselves), and what the recruiting process is like for coxswains (from the perspective of a current Ivy League coxswain).

Here are the coaches that participated in the talks at each camp:

Sparks (Middletown, CT):

Marcus McElhenney (9-time National Team coxswain)

Wendy Wilbur (University of Texas women, D1)

Kate Maloney (Williams College women, D3)

Nancy LaRocque (Wisco women, D1)

Kevin MacDermott (Trinity men, D3)

Chris Kerber (Cornell lightweight men, D1)

Michiel Bartman (Harvard lightweight men, D1)

Northeast Rowing Center (Raymond, ME):

John Lindberg (Boston University men, D1)

Ed Slater (Trinity College men, D3)

Graham Willoughby (Brown University men, D1)

Wendy Wilbur (University of Texas women, D1)

Kate Maloney (Williams College women, D3)

Andriel Doolittle (Bates College women, D3)

Holly Metcalf (MIT openweight women, D1)

Three current student-athletes (two rowers and a coxswain) from Brown, Princeton, and Yale

All the recruiting posts that I’ve posted on the blog will be linked at the top of each post but to follow this series specifically you can check out the “college recruiting 101” tag to stay up to date with the latest posts.

I wanted to start this off by sharing some of the initial comments made by a few of the coaches. Coach Lindberg kicked off the panel discussion at NRC by saying that the two most important attributes you can bring to the recruiting process are initiative and sincerity. You’ve gotta take the initiative to contact coaches (because as Marcus said, this isn’t football – the coaches aren’t gonna chase you, you have to chase them), develop those relationships, work hard in school, train hard during the season, etc. and be sincere not only with what you want in an academic program but also what you want out of your collegiate rowing experience.

This was reiterated many times by all the coaches that it is  very easy to differentiate between the kids who are genuinely interested in rowing in college and the ones who are only going through the process in the hopes that this is the golden ticket that gets them admitted somewhere. Holly followed up by saying that you have to define within yourself very clearly if you need to row (as in your college experience will be incomplete without crew) or if you want to row (you enjoyed it in high school and want to keep doing it in some capacity in college).

Recruiting in rowing is a lot more “civilized” than it is with other sports because compared to ones like football, basketball, soccer, and baseball it is very heavily based on academics whereas the other sports are more athletically based. (Not to knock my college team or anything but a good example of this is Cardale Jones’ infamous “we ain’t come here to play school” tweet.)

The academic interests of the recruits will always be first and foremost to the coaches you’re talking to so it’s important that you’re challenging yourself with the classes you’re currently taking and have spent time considering what you might be interested in pursuing in college since those two things will be discussed regularly. The admissions departments of most schools, especially those with outstanding rowing programs, expect the rowers to be good students which is why getting in on skill alone doesn’t fly here.

Image via // @beantownkmd
Managing novice coxswains

College Coxing High School Novice Teammates & Coaches

Managing novice coxswains

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It’s September, a new season is upon us, and with that comes a new batch of novices in all their naively enthusiastic glory. Let’s just assume, based on the majority of our own personal experiences, that your coaches won’t teach them a damn thing beyond “just don’t hit anything” and the onus will be on you, the experienced coxswains, to get them up to speed. Yes, it’s just as daunting of a task as it sounds like. Now you know what it feels like to write this blog.

There’s obviously a lot of things they’ve got to learn but you’re all good enough coxswains to know what to prioritize and what bridges can be crossed when you come to them. That’s not what today’s post is about. Today’s post was inspired by an article I read on Inc.com about how to manage interns. There were a lot of similarities between what they said and working with novice coxswains so I figured it’d be a good thing to put out there now before we get too far into the season.

Explain everything.

Everything that is super – and I mean super – obvious to you, tell/show them because none of it is obvious to them. The second you think “Should I tell them that? Nah…it’s obvious, they’ll know what it means/they’ll figure it out/etc.” … STOP. Do not pass go, do not collect $200. Stop whatever you’re doing and explain to them whatever it is that you just thought was super obvious and self-explanatory. Trust me on this. It is worth you spending the extra two minutes going over it now than running the risk of something catastrophic and/or embarrassing happening later because they never figured out what this super obvious thing was or meant. Thing includes anything related to team protocol, where things are located within the boathouse, that sandbar about a mile and a half upstream, etc.

Give them constant feedback.

Positive or negative, feedback is an essential part of any learning process. Tell them when they’re on the right track, what they need to work on, etc. Obviously you’re not going to be in the boat with them but if you’re near each other on the water and you hear them calling a drill, let them know once you’re back on land that they sounded really engaged when they were going through “cut the cake”, which is great since it’s like the most boring drill ever … or give them some pointers on how to call it more effectively if they looked lost and were just saying “go…row” over and over. You don’t have to (and shouldn’t) watch them like a hawk because obviously you’ve got your own stuff to worry about but if you can give them a quick glance whenever you’re nearby and then a tiny nugget of feedback later, you are doing so much for them when it comes to teaching them and building their confidence/self-awareness.

Don’t expect perfection.

It’s not going to be perfect. It just isn’t. You weren’t perfect when you first started and neither was I. Everybody picks things up at different speeds and the first few times they do something it’s probably going to be a little rough. Getting pissed or visibly annoyed at them isn’t going to work in the “negative reinforcement” way that most people like to think it does. All that does is make them timid, less likely to ask for help when they actually need it, and then by default … useless. (Harsh but true.) They’re just learning how to function as coxswains which means you have to be patient with them. Keep them accountable but don’t expect anything to look or sound pretty for awhile.

Give them real responsibilities.

Giving someone who is new to the job meaningful stuff to do is going to build their confidence and get them up to speed a lot faster than giving them nothing to do in the interest of someone else doing it because they already know how and can do it faster. I know that’s a wordy sentence so read it again. The new coxswains, if they’re any good at all, want to learn how to do stuff and if they’re being relegated to doing things they already know how to do or they’re sitting off to the side not doing anything, they’re  not learning. The most obvious example I have for this is trailer loading. There are numerous responsibilities that go along with getting ready to travel so don’t just relegate the novice coxswains to unraveling straps or packing up cox boxes. Show them where the oars, riggers, slings go and how they should be positioned in the trailer,  walk them through getting a boat on the top and middle racks and then walk with them as they do it, etc.

The bottom line is this: put some effort into educating them. It’s not your responsibility to be the only person cluing them into what being a coxswain entails but you should play a pretty big part in it.

Image via // @row_360
Coxswain recordings, pt. 32

College Coxing High School Racing

Coxswain recordings, pt. 32

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San Diego Rowing Club 2012 Head of the Charles Men’s Youth 8+

This is a good example of a coxswain who is talking a lot and not really saying anything. His intensity is good but it’s empty, if that makes sense. It’s like he’s being loud just to be loud. Something that really annoyed me was at 7:44 when he yelled “eyes in the boat, you keep those eyes in the boat and you focus!”. I didn’t like the way he said it because a) after listening to almost eight minutes of the recording, I understand why the rower(s) might have been looking out of the boat and b) it sounded like he was scolding a dog or something. Something else that bothers me is that there’s a lot of “you” and “your” happening, like “you need to do this for your team”, etc. When coxswains do that it makes me think they take their roles way too seriously, like they aren’t responsible for moving the boat too.

University of Massachusetts 2012 Head of the Charles Women’s Champ 8+ going through Weeks Bridge

The first half of this video is from the stern-cam and the second half is from the coxswain’s GoPro. She did a good job of staying calm and focused coming through Weeks, particularly since the crew in front of them was this close to their bow. Her line on Anderson was way too wide (I think that was because they got stuck on the outside of Weeks) but she definitely still could have made that turn through the bridge if she’d started it a stroke or two sooner and had the starboards power down while the port side brought it around. This reiterates though that you’ve always gotta be thinking one bridge ahead when you’re on the Charles because a messy turn through Weeks almost certainly means a messy turn through Anderson.

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

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This was an email I got two weeks ago that I wanted to share because it’s a pretty good question and something I know I haven’t talked about on here. The school this coxswain attends as well as their coach’s name were mentioned in here so those have been [removed] for privacy.

I’m not sure if you remember me but my name is [removed] and I cox at [an Ivy League program]. I was fortunate enough to find a team to practice with this summer and a couple weeks ago, I went to a regatta with them. During my race, I made a recording that I want to send to my head coach to show that I have improved and that I really want to be on this team. That being said, the recording had some flaws that I felt were out of my control (cox box fell out of holder so I couldn’t get a rate last two minutes of the three minute race and we caught a crab and went into another team’s lane because only 3/4 were rowing so I was like “let me get out of their lane”).

In my email to [the head coach], I’m not sure how to approach this… I have a couple of different questions:

1- Should I send an email like, “Can you do me a favor and listen?” and see if he says yes first? Or should I just send the recording to him with my commentary?

2- Should I send my commentary at all? I know in one of your blog posts you said you like when people send commentary but part of me feels like some of the stuff I’m saying might come off as making excuses. For example, I said “One of the weak points was not calling out rate” but go on to explain why I didn’t do it. My intention in explaining these things is to make sure I get “new” feedback.

3- How long is too long for my own commentary? I have three paragraphs built into the email but I’m wondering if I should put it in a separate word document. Thoughts?

I know I’m probably overthinking it too much, and I’m wondering if, with all the problems, I should send the recording at all. I don’t think [the head coach] has ever seen/ heard me cox before so I feel like I need to give him some baseline to know where I’m at but at the same time I don’t want to make myself look bad.

If I were in a similar situation this is what I’d say:

“Hi [Coach]! I had the opportunity to race at [X regatta] a few weeks ago with [Y team] and was able to get a recording of myself coxing our [heat, semi, final, etc.]. I wanted to see if you could listen to it when you have some time available and possibly give me two or three pieces of feedback based on what you hear. I know I still have things to work on but I’d love to hear your thoughts so I can prioritize what I should focus on as we get closer to the start of the season. Thanks!”

That’s LIT.ER.ALLY all I’d say. I personally like when coxswains send their commentary simply because I find it interesting/insightful and because I judge them on it, mainly on whether or not they’re self-aware enough to know what they did well and what they need to work on before I or someone else points it out to them. Coaches though (who have never coxed and more importantly have a limited amount of time available) tend to get turned off by that because that’s just another long string of words that they have to read in addition to all the other shit they’ve gotta do. When emailing coaches always keep it short and sweet unless they specifically ask for something more. If he emails you back and says “here’s what I thought, what did YOU think…” then you can email him two or three of your critiques. Again though, keep it short and to the point. I wouldn’t say more than two sentences per critique – one saying what you did and the other saying how you’ll tweak that action to be more effective or what you’ll do instead.

As far as feeling like you’re making excuses, that’s something I struggle with ALL the time, not just within rowing but in general too. The things I say/do are almost always very deliberate so I have to tread lightly when explaining myself in order to not come off as defensive or like I’m making an excuse. I still haven’t figured out the perfect way to do this but my advice for this situation would be to just make note of all the things you feel you need to work on, why you did them the way you did, and what changes you could make in the future in order to have a better outcome. That isn’t something that needs to be shared necessarily either. If your coach does ask “why did you do this” though then you can say “my goal was to have X happen but looking back I don’t think I executed it properly so next time I’m going to try Y and see if that works better”. This shows self-awareness in your actions without being defensive of how things played out.

College Coxing Q&A Recruiting

Question of the Day

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Do US universities (Ivy League in particular) offer scholarships/ part-scholarships for coxes (similar to the rowing scholarships), if that makes any sense? Would selection for national team representation make a scholarship more realistic or likely? I’m from the UK and would LOVE to come study at a US university if I was able to get a scholarship of some sort. Also, have you heard of any universities that have previously offered scholarships to coxes?

The Ivy League as a conference doesn’t offer any scholarships to athletes, male or female, regardless of sport. Here’s the exact wording as seen on the Ivy League’s website:

Ivy League schools provide financial aid to students, including athletes, only on the basis of financial need as determined by each institution’s Financial Aid Office. There are no academic or athletic scholarships in theIvy League. A coach may assist a prospective student-athlete to obtain an estimated financial aid award, however only the Financial Aid Office has the authority to determine financial aid awards and to notify students officially of their actual or estimated awards.

Coxing for your country’s junior national team might make you a more competitive candidate but how it impacts your chances of being offered a scholarship (at the schools that offer them) I can’t really speak to. Coxswains getting scholarships as freshmen isn’t really a thing because most coaches want to use that money to bring in rowers but it is possible to earn one later on in your career. It’s something worth asking the coaches you’re talking to about because everyone distributes the scholarships they have available a little differently. Some will take the 20 full scholarships you’re allotted (at Division 1 and Division 2 schools) and break them down into 40 partial scholarships, some will put all their seniors or everyone in the 1V on full scholarship and everyone else on partial scholarship … it really depends on the program. Those are just two examples that I’ve heard some coaches do.

I don’t know the specifics of who offers scholarships to coxswains and who doesn’t because stuff like that is usually kept pretty guarded – not because it needs to be kept a secret or anything, I think it’s just because since it’s related to financials and what not it’s just not appropriate to put out there. I do think it would be beneficial to know just in a general sense what programs have scholarship opportunities available to coxswains but at this point a lot of that info is just based on rumors.

Coxswain recordings, pt. 31

College Coxing High School Racing

Coxswain recordings, pt. 31

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7k row to the basin

A high school coxswain emailed me this recording a couple weeks ago so below is the email I sent her with some feedback. In her initial email she also included her own comments on what she thought of her coxing (PS I love when you guys do that because it helps me narrow in on what you think you need to work on), which included things like “my coxing started very calm but in the middle it was similar to how I would have coxed a sprint race”, “I never mentioned the time and pointed out only some of the landmarks I should have”, “I have lots and lots of calls about the legs”, “Some of the focus 10s were not for anything in particular and were just moves”, “10 in 2 would be more effective than 10 here in some (most) cases”, etc.

Here’s what I said:

“I agree that your intensity level did rise throughout the piece but I think that’s fairly natural. I do the same thing when I’m coxing long pieces like this, as do other coxswains that I know. I think as long as you’re not super obnoxious about the changes in your tone or volume it’s not a big deal. I thought this was fine though.

I like the “reel ’em in” call too. It’s a good way to say “get after these guys” without actually saying that. Regarding the “10 in 2 vs. 10 here”, I agree that it’s more effective, especially in long pieces like this where it’s easier for them to zone out, to give them a bit of a warning and either say “on this one”, “in two”, or whatever so that at the very least they’ve got one stroke or so to get ready to execute whatever you’re calling for.

If you notice the intensity starting to fall off, at the very least make sure they’re still rowing well. Focus purely on their technique for 20-30 strokes if you have to but make sure that even if the pressure is falling a bit that they’re still rowing at a high level. Sometimes I notice that when I back off the typical power calls and just focus on technique, the power gradually starts to come up a bit on its own … not necessarily to where it was before but enough that I notice it and can then say “Yea, there we go! You see how we’re starting to push those puddles away again? That’s just from adjusting our posture and making sure our body prep is set early. Let’s take five now to really emphasize the swing and get the shoulders set. Ready … go!”

I like doing 5s for each pair or 5s for each four during longer pieces like this. It’s something different and gives you a chance to focus on the individuals a little more than you otherwise would. Plus it gives them a little bit of personal responsibility for those five strokes. You executed this very though so good job. I liked your tone, the calls you made, etc. I’d do it exactly like that during a race if you decide to incorporate that as a move of some kind.

I also noticed that you made a lot of leg calls but I think as long as you’re diversifying them and not making the same leg call over and over then it’s OK. One thing I would practice the next time you’re out though is making calls for other parts of the stroke. To kinda force yourself into doing this, I would try something like this: for one entire practice, anytime you want to make a call for the legs, pause for a second and come up with a call for something else. The calls could be for puddles, sharp catches, smooth finishes, posture, body prep, long recoveries, bending the oars, blade height, getting max reach, etc. The goal is to not make ANY calls for the legs and instead make calls for everything else. The legs are a really easy thing to make calls for and are what a lot of coxswains default to (myself included) so every so often you’ve gotta take yourself out of that comfort zone and force yourself to do something different so that on race day you’ve got a wealth of calls built up that you can pull from. You actually already do a great job of calling for a variety of things so just consider this as a new challenge to continue building your skills in that area…

When you call for focus 10s, I would instead call for focus 5s. 10 strokes is too long to “focus”, especially during hard pieces like this, and 5 usually ends up being more effective anyways.

You do a great job of consistently giving the rowers information (and you already know what you need to give them more of – i.e. time, landmarks, etc.) and your overall tone is fantastic. Like I said earlier, don’t worry too much if there’s a gradual shift in intensity as the piece progresses. Something else that I really appreciate as a fellow coxswain is your self-awareness. I like that you listed out your own comments on your audio because that shows that you’re actually invested in what you’re doing and are keeping yourself accountable. Another thing I liked was how you clearly and concisely yelled at the other coxswains to tell them where you were as you got close to them. That’ll come in verrrrrrry handy if you’re racing at HOCR.”

University of Delaware 2015 Dad Vail Men’s Varsity 8+ Petite Finals

Jake, the coxswain of Delaware’s heavyweight 8+, sent me this recording after Dad Vails and it really blew me away. Easily one of the best recordings I heard all season – actually, I think this is the best I heard all season. Here’s what I said in my email to him with a few additional bullet points below that.

“This is really good – your intensity, tone, calls, etc. are on point. I feel like I’m nitpicking just trying to find stuff to critique. The one piece of advice I have is when you make a call like “walk away, walk away”, “it’s time to go”, “time to break off UNC” (great call btw), etc., immediately follow that up with a 5 or 10-stroke push just to carry over the momentum from your call. When I make a call like that I want the rowers to immediately think “yea, let’s go!” and since I know they tend to get a burst of energy from that I want to capitalize on it by immediately following up with a 5 or 10-stroke move to do whatever I just said to do, be that to walk away from the field, put away another crew, etc. If you say “it’s time to go” and then there’s crickets after that then it’s like “OK … I’m ready to go … tell me what to do …” and you kinda lose the opportunity to make something happen. You also run the risk of another coxswain hearing you say “walk away!” and them thinking you’re calling a 10 so they call their own 10 to counter the move they think you’re making. That can backfire on you if they end up getting a seat or two out of it. (The only reason why I say that is because I’ve done this to other coxswains before and if you’re down a seat or two and do it at just the right point in the race you can pretty much kill their momentum and take the race from them.)”

In addition to everything I said up above, I really like the simple “assault” calls he makes throughout the race. This is something I think a lot of younger coxswains have to learn/remember – every call you make doesn’t need to be a full sentence long and every call doesn’t have to be “a call”. More often times than not you can easily get away with saying something simple like “assault” and that will convey the same exact message as “OK guys, this is where we get after it and start taking back some seats”.

Another thing I really liked was the build up into the sprint starting with the “10 at base” at 4:55. I like how he calls the first five of that ten, says “assault”, then starts the next five with “next five, bow ball”. THAT is what I mean when I say to simplify your calls and cut out all the excess. You know exactly what he wants and how many strokes you have to do it and it only took four words to communicate that. Now, what I really liked about the sprint was how he transitioned into it. At 5:12 he says “shifting up to a 38 over two … shift one, shift two …” and then they hit it. I like the simplicity. If you’re trying to figure out how to get your crew to shift up at the end without doing a big build or anything (or alternatively, you’re only going up two beats and don’t need five to build into it) then I’d definitely suggest trying the shift over two and seeing how that works. (PS If you haven’t read this post on “in” vs. “over” vs. “on” check it out so you understand the difference between all three and make sure you explain it to your crew too. In, on, and over do not mean the same things!!)

You can find and listen to more recordings by checking out the “Coxswain Recordings” page.