Category: Quotes

Blade shapes change, training programs evolve. But the best parts of rowing are unchanging: rowers finding themselves and securing their place in the universe through the discipline of rowing.
Brad Alan Lewis 1984 USA M2x

Inside every athlete is that one demon, hidden down in the back of your mind that screams at you not to finish the piece. It tells you you’re not good enough, this hurts, let's go home and watch more TV. In a crew it is easier to squash that demon, to beat it down and use those around you to push yourself further. Whilst not easy to do, having team mates makes fighting your demon manageable. It is the single sculler who has the real fight, or the athlete who has decided that the only way they will improve is by training themselves outside of the program. Those who train alone truly come to know their demons; “Who's going to notice if you don't finish this piece”, “what difference is that extra stroke/rep/minute going to really make.” Every stroke the demon screams at you and every stroke is a fight to push him further down. Champions are those who learn to break their demons because come race day when that third 500 starts to scream for everyone else, the thoughts are getting louder and louder, but a champion already knows how to beat that voice, they have spent their summers beating that little voice into submission in the back of their minds and when everyone else starts to hurt they are able to sit up tall and give that little bit extra. Other rowers are easy to conquer, it's our own heads we have to work at.

It isn't hard to be good from time to time in sports. What is tough is being good every day.

Seat racing's maybe one of the hardest things about this sport. You go all fall and winter and then you get this one shot after six months to make the boat, you know, and if you don't, it's hard to not look back and have regrets and doubt yourself. And also, one week you're helping your friend through an erg test, you know, he's your best bud in the world, and then the next week you got switched across the gunnels with him for a seat race. It's hard to keep emotions out of it. It's hard to not make it personal. In the end I guess you gotta just make whatever boat you're on go fast and just train again for next year's one shot to make it. Making the first boat isn't everything. You'll have more opportunities to do it but if you let that shit distract you for too long, you'll miss the opportunity to just race boats and have fun.

It’s not quite fun the way other sports are, like kicking and maneuvering in soccer. It’s not a game. Basically, it’s hard work.
Harry Parker Harvard University

If you can't beat a crew, at least make them set a record.

Fuck coxes who think they can belittle their own teammates, and fuck them even more for doing so with no appreciation for what we're doing. We all play a part, and I'll be damned if any one of us is more important than the other.

It’s a great art, is rowing. It’s the finest art there is. It’s a symphony of motion and when you’re rowing well, why it’s nearing perfection. You’re touching the divine. It touches the you of you’s, which is your soul.
George Pocock

Good isn't good enough. This season for us is about the pursuit of excellence.

To be a coxswain is a special trust; all that power poised to explode on your word. I know that to rowers, the boat feels at the start as if it takes forever to get up to speed, but to us in the coxswain’s seat, it is like riding a missile. On that first three-quarter stroke, when the starter says “Go,” the oars explode in a blast of white water, and the back of that coxswain’s seat kicks us in the butt, it is the most exhilarating feeling in the world.

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