This guy rowed at UCLA and then was away from the sport for 22 years before getting back into it as a masters rower. It’s pretty cool seeing the progression in his training and the success he has once he begins racing. Just goes to show though that even if you’ve been away from the sport for two decades, all it takes to get back into it is passion, persistence, and a good physical therapist.
Category: Video of the Week
Video of the Week: 2004 Athens Olympics, M8+ Final
This week marks the tenth anniversary of Team USA’s win in the men’s 8+ at the Athens Olympics, their first gold medal since the Tokyo Games in 1964. Without question, this is my absolute favorite race to watch.
College Rowing Video of the Week
Video of the Week: Ohio State Engineering + Rowing
During the two and a half years I was at Ohio State (my junior and senior years of college), all of my physics and math classes were in the engineering building. During one of my physics classes our TA, who was a mechanical engineering grad student, brought up fluid dynamics and rowing and I swear, I have never paid more attention to a math/science-related discussion in my life.
As the rower in the video said, there’s a lot of engineering in rowing so if you’re good at math and science it’s definitely a major worth looking into. Once you graduate you could always translate it into a career with any one of the boat-making companies if you wanted to stick around the rowing world.
Video of the Week: USA Women’s 8+ win gold in 1984
Only eight years after women’s rowing was introduced as a sport in the Olympics, the United States women won the gold in Los Angeles at the ’84 games.
Some of the names you might recognize include…
- 2-seat: Holly Metcalfe, Head Women’s Coach at MIT
- 3-seat: Carol Bower, Head Coach at Bryn Mawr
- 4-seat: Carie Graves, recently-retired after 15 years as the head coach (and founder) of the University of Texas’s rowing program
- Stroke: Kathy Keeler, wife of Harry Parker and at the time of the race, head coach at Smith College
You’ll notice that, as Bob Ernst mentioned in the beginning, women only raced 1000m in international competition (pretty sure the original reason for that was because women were fragile creatures who couldn’t handle the demands of rowing 2000m – no, seriously…). In 1988 though that was changed and female crews began rowing the standard 2000m.
AND, as a bonus fun fact, the next time you watch “Good Will Hunting” and someone asks “I wonder if the person sculling is a real rower or an actor”, you can casually say “Oh, that’s Jeanne Flanagan, 5-seat in the women’s eight that won gold in 1984.”
Video of the Week: Assault on Lake Casitas
Steve Gladstone really isn’t kidding when he says they start slow and build towards the finish. Around 4:00 in the video it looks like Belgium has a maybe a seat of open water on the entire field but you can see from that point on where the Americans slowly start walking through the field. With 250m to go, the rest is history.
Related: Books on rowing, pt. 2
The end is actually pretty interesting when the two announcers discuss how they challenged the national team coach’s chosen double and beat them for the chance to represent the USA in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. You gotta admit, that’s pretty damn impressive.
Video of the Week: 2004 Cal Freshman 8+
Short, quick bursts of reminders or encouragement like this from your coach during pieces are great for coxswains because it takes no effort to process (aka it won’t take me out of my bubble or throw me off my game) and I can usually turn what you said right around and use it as a call. (i.e. “Here we go, faster now” –> 5 to accelerate the handle and drop the split), which then re-establishes the bond between the coach and the boat. On a slightly more self-serving note, it makes you look good because it shows that you’re paying attention to what’s happening around you and using the coach’s direct feedback to elicit a response from the crew.
Video of the Week: Allen Rosenberg on Coaching (and coxing)
If you don’t know who Allen Rosenberg is, he was a coxswain-turned-coach who coached numerous successful crews throughout his career, including the 1964 Men’s 8+ that won gold in Tokyo (the last time the United States won before the 2004 crew did in Athens). He was also particularly innovative when it came to rowing technique and even has a “style” named after him. (Did you know there were/are different types of rowing styles? Four, in fact…)
Anyways, I came across this video back in December after he passed away. What I really like about his interview is that he reiterates that the only difference between coxing and coaching is years of experience (and in some cases, a paycheck). Pay particular attention to the traits he lists of successful coaches – all three of those things are exactly what it takes to be a successful coxswain.
Video of the Week: Wisconsin Rowing in the 70s
Video of the Week: USRowing Safety Video
This should have been posted online a long time ago but now that it is, if you’ve never seen it before I encourage you to check it out. Yes, it’s kinda dumb and at times pretty boring but the majority of the info in here is stuff that you should know and might need to know at some point in your rowing career.
College Rowing Teammates & Coaches Video of the Week