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.
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