Coxing High School Q&A

Question of the Day

I’m 5’6″ and weigh from the low 120’s up to around 128 depending on the time of day, week, how much I’ve been eating and all of those lovely things. I am a Sophomore in high school and I haven’t grown much at all in the past 1 1/2 years. My mom stopped growing at my age too, so I suspect I am about done. However, I’m very self conscious about my weight. I have gotten several condescending comments from people who I don’t even know that consist of a long look at me and the response of “YOU’RE a coxswain? You’re tall!”. I don’t take offense to this because I go on to explain the importance of weight, and people understand.

However, about 3 weeks ago we had a weigh in before winter season workouts kicked off. My most stern/harsh coach who isn’t mean just… a little hardcore was there for my weigh in. I was wearing: leggings, long sleeve shirt, big sweatpants, sweatshirt and holding my phone when he told me to step on the scale. Of course I weighed in around 128 lbs. He looked at the scale, at me and then said “…did you know that?” He kind of laughed, wrote it down, and then looked at me again. I didn’t really know how to respond and I hate making excuses but I felt like I needed to explain how I hadn’t eaten very healthily that day. To be fair I hadn’t, but one day isn’t a huge deal every once and a while, also I didn’t know there was a weigh in. He didn’t seem impressed.

Ever since I feel like I really need to lose weight. I know I don’t NEED to for high school clubs, but I want too. It doesn’t help that there is a coxswain on our team who is not very good or motivational and is about 145 lbs. I hear complaints about her a lot and there is a coxswain who is a close friend who is around 104lbs who likes to brag about her weight. I’m excited to improve in my skills but not if I am not wanted as a 125lb cox where you do not get assigned a specific gender for your everyday coxing and racing. I may cox lightweight girls and heavyweight men on the same race day, so no weight is encouraged or specified for me. However, I’m not unrealistic with my goals (I don’t want to weigh 115 at 5’6″ with my body type). I was curious about college though? What would be their thoughts on a coxswain who was on the taller and heavier side? I’m 100% okay with coxing men! Thank you so much! 

OK well first of all, never weigh in in anything you wouldn’t race in. A uni or leggings and a tshirt should be the only things you ever wear when you step on the scale. Not to be a dick but that should be common sense.

I get what you’re saying about it being hard to pinpoint a good racing weight when you’re coxing every type of crew imaginable – that’s valid and a point worth bringing up to your coach. Nobody cares how tall you are (in college or high school) as long as you’re at or within a few pounds of racing weight so don’t worry about that. You’re like, the perfect size to cox men (where the racing weight is 125lbs in college) so maybe propose that to your coach and ask if you can start primarily going out with them. Pretty sure our varsity coxswain my first year at MIT and the men’s lightweight varsity coxswain my last two years there were 5’6″ – 5-8″ish so you wouldn’t stand out as “tall” at all if you coxed men. Plus, it’s one thing to cox a variety of crews to get the experience but even a half-decent coach has to see the failure in logic of putting a 120+ish pound coxswain in a lightweight women’s boat.

Don’t make this about the other coxswains either. There are shitty coxswains that weigh 108lbs and great coxswains that weigh 132lbs. Obviously coxswains that are over racing weight and aren’t that skilled are a frustrating bunch (for rowers and the other coxswains) but literally nothing good comes from pointing out their weight and skill level in the same sentence. I would however say something to your friend who likes to brag about her weight – congrats on being 104lbs but maybe chill with pointing it out every chance you get. A girl I used to cox with did this and it was so unnecessary, not to mention discouraging to one of the other coxswains who weighed like, 112lbs and felt like this girl was using her “109lbs” comments to rub it in her face that that’s why she was in the 3V instead of the 2V (even though it had nothing to do with that). If you’re cool with people knowing how much you weigh that’s fine but straight up bragging about it crosses a line (at least in my opinion) because you never know how someone will interpret it and the effects it could have on them. I really don’t think it’s too much to ask for people to be conscious of that.

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