Tag: coxswain

Question of the Day

By readyallrow August 18, 2016

I graduated college (men’s ACRA club) last spring and get asked regularly to cox competitive master’s boats. I always have fun coxing once I have been on the water for a few minutes, but am looking on advice for how to get comfortable with these crews faster.

I started coxing in college (your blog has been a huge help!) and was our top cox junior and senior year but I don’t have a ton of experience with jumping into a boat full of strangers. I don’t have the time to join/commit to a club right now (full-time work and night school for masters) so I enjoy filling in but it is definitely different than having a boat of rowers that I know well and vice versa. After thinking about it, I realized my biggest two challenges are:

1. Being comfortable “calling out” guys who are more than a few years older than me.

2. Coxing boats where I know few/none of my rowers (IE. Was asked by a friend to cox an 8+ he was bowing, then was asked by the stroke to fill-in for his club. So in the first boat I felt okay because I knew one person well, the second offer is intimidating since I wouldn’t really know anyone.)

I’m sure the more I do it, the more comfortable I will be but I was wondering if you had tips for any of these?

If you’re coxing on an infrequent basis or regularly with new crews that you’re not familiar with (meaning a new crew every time you go out), I think you’ve just gotta get over the “fear” of not knowing anyone and accept that that’s the trade-off that comes with not being able to join a team full-time. Obviously working and grad school take precedence so it’s not something to feel guilty over but you just have to recognize that you’ll be sacrificing those regular interactions that help you get to know the rowers better.

Most of the masters crews I’ve coxed have had some sort of regular meet-up, usually a weekly thing at various bars around town, where they’d get together on a weekday after work to grab beers and hang out for a bit. Not everyone could make it every single time but at any given point I think at least 3/4 of the boat was there. The boat I coxed right after I moved to Boston would also go to breakfast at a diner near the boathouse nearly every morning before we all went off to work. Going out with whatever boat I was coxing when I could was a great way to get to know them and it really translated to how comfortable I was when we were on the water, even if I was only going out with them when they needed someone to fill in for their regular coxswain (which is what I ended up doing once I started coaching at MIT). If the people you’re coxing do something like this, make time to join them. You don’t have to go every time but even going just once would be great.

As far as being comfortable calling out people who are older than you, I talked about that a bit in the second post I linked to. It all comes down to confidence and remembering that in the boat, they’re just rowers and aren’t any different than the guys you coxed in college. They might be closer to your parents age than your age but the goal is still the same, which means how you cox them should be the same. They’re not gonna scold you just for saying “Bill, little late at the catch on that one…” or “Marjorie, hold the finishes here…”.

I wasn’t sure how to approach coxing masters when I first started either but it quickly became apparent that with few exceptions, they were just as willing to listen to me and take my feedback as any other group of rowers I’ve coxed. Just add this to the list of things that coxswains overthink that no one else actually cares about.

Coxing Q&A Racing

Question of the Day

By readyallrow August 18, 2016

I’m trying out for New Trier Novice Rowing in a couple days (go NT! I was super excited to see New Trier in the 8+ Midwest Championships recording!) and wanted to know what the real rules are on swearing in a race. I heard that you can get DQ’d but it is super rare and most coxswains swear anyway. What are your thoughts?

I’ve talked about swearing before whenever it comes up in the recordings posts but I kinda laid out how I feel about it in the recruiting post linked down below. Tl;dr, as long as you’re not doing it gratuitously or being over-the-top obnoxious about it … who cares. If you’re sending audio off to coaches you should definitely be mindful of how much swearing there is but if you have a really great recording that you think demonstrates your best abilities as a coxswain but you also say “fuck yea” in it a few times, just throw it in iMovie and bleep it out before you send it off. Should take 10 minutes tops and you’ve spared the adults from having to hear the dreaded “f-word” without sacrificing an opportunity to show what you can do.

You can get DQ’ed, it is pretty rare (in my years of experience, at least), and … I wouldn’t say most but a decent number of coxswains do swear anyways. If I had to guess maybe a little more than half of the recordings I’ve listened to in the last four years have included some amount of swearing. I haven’t run the analytics on them but just loosely thinking about the ones I’ve listened to (not just the ones I’ve posted on here), coxswains of men’s collegiate crews swear the most, followed by junior men’s coxswains, collegiate women, and junior women. I don’t think the gender of the coxswain has made much of a difference though, it tends to be more about the gender of the crew.

Anyways, I asked the refs on Twitter (solid account and super responsive if you ever have questions – highly recommend following them at @USRowingRefs) just to get their input and because I couldn’t remember what the official rule said so above is what they told me.

To the right is what Rule 2-410 from the rule book (page 29) says. The unsportsmanlike conduct thing is a given (and I’ve said that before on here plenty of times) but, like they said, ultimately they have to hear it and decide to act on it.

Usually during our home races I’ll drive the officials in the launch and last year I asked one of them about this (because a coxswain was swearing pretty loudly during the race but it was in the vein of the “fuck yea” example I gave earlier) and they said that they personally just use discretion when it comes to issuing penalties or DQ’ing someone. They likened it to when you get pulled over by a cop for speeding … if you’re 5-10mph over the limit but otherwise driving safely the officer will use his/her discretion and probably let you off with a warning. If you’re driving like you’re auditioning for Tokyo Drift though then they’re obviously gonna come down on you a lot harder. It’s the same with the swearing thing … you need to be mindful of the rules but keep in mind that some refs might not be as lenient as others.

This probably isn’t the clearest reply to your question so I’ll just repeat what I’ve said in the past: I’m not gonna say “don’t do it”, just be smart, use your judgment, and without hesitation, take full responsibility if there’s fallout from it.

Coxing How To Racing

How to prioritize and organize your calls

By readyallrow August 16, 2016

Previously: Steer an eight/four || Call a pick drill and reverse pick drill || Avoid getting sick || Make improvement as a novice || Protect your voice || Pass crews during a head race || Be useful during winter training || Train when you’re sick (as a rower) || Train when you’re sick (as a coxswain) || Sit in the boat || How to cox (and coach) novices

One of the key parts of ensuring you don’t get repetitive or run out of things to say during a practice or race is prioritizing your calls and organizing them (and yourself). When you’re racing it’s also a key part in ensuring your race plan is executed efficiently and cleanly. At one of the Sparks camps I was at last month I was coaching with Malcolm Doldron, who is the lightweight women’s head coach at BU (and a former coxswain), and he laid out a unique plan for organizing your calls that I hadn’t seen before, at least not in this configuration. If being more organized on the water is something you’ve been working on or you have it set as a goal for the upcoming year, try this out and see if it works for you.

The first part of this is prioritizing your calls, which should go something like this:

1. Safety + steering
2. Distance, rate, splits (if applicable), and time
3. Rhythm + technique
4. Motivation

The second part is organizing yourself and knowing where to focus and what to say. Malcolm suggested thinking of it like a clock. To orient yourself, you/the stern are at 6 o’clock, the bow of the boat is at 12 o’clock, and laterally at 3 and 9 o’clock you’ve got the crews you’re rowing with, along with the buoy or shore line.

Looking straight ahead towards where you’re pointed and at your crew should be your main focus. This also corresponds with whatever “safety and steering” calls you make, as well as the “rhythm and technique” ones. From there you’ve got the information that’s right in front of you at 6 o’clock (the data from your CoxBox and SpeedCoach) and then whatever’s on either side of you at 3 and 9. Thinking about it like this is similar to your race plans in that it gives you a framework to go off of vs. just getting in the boat and having all this stuff around you with no semblance of how to cherry-pick the important stuff and communicate it to the crew.

It took me a sec before I fully understood how he was laying it out but once I processed it I realized that this is pretty similar to how I organize myself when I’m coxing. I’ve never laid it out like this but I know that when I’m on the water I’m constantly shuffling between 12, 6, 3, 6, 9, 12, 6, 12, 9, 3, 6, 12, etc. Most of you who have been coxing for awhile will probably realize the same thing it but if you’re new to coxing or like I said earlier, working to better organize yourself and your calls, consider this an option for how to go about that.

Image via // @lucerneregatta

College Coxing Racing Teammates & Coaches Video of the Week

Video of the Week: Harry’s Last Interview

By readyallrow August 15, 2016

I’ve posted this full interview/story before (definitely watch it if you haven’t) but this clip with the coxswains is one of my favorite parts of it. The contrast between the Yale coxswain saying “We’re not gonna fucking go away, you Crimson bitches!” and the Harvard coxswain saying “Good, boys. Confident, comfortable … they’re already screaming their heads off over there.” really says something.

College Coxing Novice Recruiting

What it means to be a “walk on”

By readyallrow August 11, 2016

Now that the start of a new school year is fast approaching, I’m getting a lot more questions about being a walk-on. Based on emails I get throughout the year it seems like something that not a lot of people are aware of or know is an option … despite the majority of college programs being made up of walk-ons. Today’s post is going to quickly highlight what it means and how it compares to being a recruit.

There are two types of walk-ons: the ones that have no prior experience with rowing and pick it up for the first time in college (a good number of the rowers in Rio right now did this) and the ones who rowed/coxed in high school but weren’t supported by coaches throughout the admissions process (meaning you can be actively recruited and still be a walk-on) or didn’t go through the recruiting process at all.

Athletes who do this are also sometimes known as “preferred walk-ons” or “experienced walk-ons”, which basically just means that they get lumped in with the recruits once the coach knows you’re interested in the program. A lot of coxswains tend to fall into this category since most coaches use their available slots on rowers and their grades are typically good enough that they don’t need that boost from the coaches. The only disadvantage in not having the coaches support you is that you don’t get that extra boost that could get you into your reach/”dream” school if you’re on the bubble. In most cases though after talking with the coach (and doing a pre-read, if that’s an option) you’ll have a good idea as to whether or not your reach school is actually within reach, so it’s not like you’re applying while being completely unsure of where you stand.

Related: College Recruiting 101

It’s important to keep in mind that coaches can only support so many people. An example is one of the (Ivy League) coaches I worked with over the last couple of weeks. They’ve got 350+ athletes in their current recruiting database and of the 200-250ish that remain once those without the grades or erg scores are eliminated, only 14 will be offered slots. That doesn’t mean that their incoming class will only have 14 rowers, it just means that anyone outside of those 14 will need to have the grades to get in on their own. If they’ve got a strong academic resume then they’ll probably be told that they’re wanted on the team but there’s not really a point in using a slot on them since they don’t need the help, whereas someone who has a more “average” academic resume (accompanied with big ergs and a solid rowing background) might be offered a slot so the coaches can wield their influence (I use that term very loosely and borderline sarcastically) to ensure they get who they want.

If you already know as a junior or senior that you want to row in college but don’t want to go through the recruiting process, don’t have the erg scores, etc. you should still loosely go through the process anyways. All that entails is reaching out to the coaches once you’ve been admitted and saying that you’re interested in walking on to the team. Not only does this help them get a sense of what their numbers will look like, it can also let you get a lot of your NCAA compliance paperwork out of the way sooner.

The last two years I’ve helped manage the walk-ons at MIT and one of our walk-ons emailed me in July last year to say he was interested in joining the team. Reaching out early like that allowed us to get him set up with the athletic department at the same time our current guys were filling out their paperwork, which we have to do every year. It all has to be completed by a certain date in order to guarantee everyone is cleared to practice at the beginning of the year otherwise you get moved to the very bottom of the list behind all the other teams, which means it’ll take for.freaking.ever. to get cleared. Two to three weeks is about how long it’s taken since I’ve been there and most of you know how brutal it is to miss out on that kind of water time. Moral of the story/pro tip, if you know you want to walk-on, even as someone who’s never rowed before (like the guy on our team I just mentioned), the sooner you reach out, the better.

I anticipate getting a lot more questions about this as we get closer to September so I’ve kept this post kinda vague in order to just cover the basics and leave room for another post in the future that answers your more specific questions. If you think of anything, leave a comment or shoot me an email!

Image via // @kmillerottier

Coxing Teammates & Coaches

Qualities of a Varsity Coxswain

By readyallrow August 10, 2016

Previously: Part 1 || Part 2 || Part 3

Coxing Video of the Week

Video of the Week: TIME Magazine’s profile on USA W8+ coxswain, Katelin Snyder

By readyallrow August 1, 2016

Both Katelin and Tom Terhaar do a great job of explaining our role in a way that I’ve never really heard verbalized before. It’s always implied but never just said, which I think is what lends to the ambiguity some coxswains encounter when trying to figure out what exactly it is that they’re supposed to do. TIME did a great job on this though. The video’s only about five minutes long but it communicates a lot.

Coxing Racing Recordings

Coxswain Recordings, pt. 37

By readyallrow July 28, 2016

Marcus McElhenney USA Men’s 8+ vs. Oxford University Boat Club

The first thing you hear is Marcus getting the crew set before the start. I like that he says “stern pair, hands only” because the “hands only” part isn’t something a lot of coxswains do. When you’re trying to get aligned, unless you’re several seats back (and even then…), the rowers don’t always need to be taking full-slide strokes. Sometimes hands only, arms only, etc. will get the job done. Awareness of the distance you need to move and the amount of manpower it’ll take to get from Point A to Point B is a crucial skill that you’ve gotta learn so that when you’ve gotta make small adjustments like this, you can do so quickly and efficiently with no hesitation.

At 0:41 you also hear him say “my hand is up, do not go…”. Rule #1 of racing – if you’re not ready, don’t go. This would be a good habit to get into with your crews as you’re getting your points at the start so that if you find yourselves in a situation where you’re actually not ready, the crew won’t flinch when you say “don’t go”.

An important part of coxing when you first start out is learning the role motivation should play in your race plan (it’s literally one of the lowest priorities) and how to incorporate it without sounding like a cheerleader. A call that Marcus makes at 2:35 that I love is “use your 5:50s now!”, which is a great call for power but it also serves as a solid motivational call. (I can see it being used a lot with men’s crews.) Many of his “motivational” calls are team related too – use your 5:50s, show Mike Teti what you can do, you’re the USA Men’s 8+, etc., which should give you a good starting point if you’re trying to come up with some calls of your own.

At 6:47 he says “if you can hold them now, we can take that turn.” I like this because it shows he’s thinking a few steps ahead of where he’s at now. He’s taking the information he’s getting from what’s around him, looking at the distance between where they are and the turn, and assessing the situation … and he’s doing all that in the middle of the race without letting it impact any of the other stuff he’s doing. This is also a good call to make to your crew, especially for a head race when you’re jostling for positions.

“I’ve had enough of this sittin’ around shit!” – pretty sure Marcus has said that to coxswains who weren’t hustling fast enough at camp. I’ve made similar calls when we’re just sitting on a crew and the change in words helps, obviously, but it’s the change in tone that makes the biggest impact. You can just sense that there’s a different sense of urgency when he says this compared to what he was saying before this call. In this call you can hear that he’s demanding more of the crew even though he’s not specifically saying “give me more”.

Last thing – at 8:40 he says “you know these guys can sprint, you know they can sprint!”. This is smart because it reminds the crew that even though they’ve taken the lead now, it’s in no way secure yet and they can’t underestimate Oxford just because their (USA) bow ball is in front. This is why it’s always a good idea to have an idea of what the strengths/weaknesses are in the crews you’re racing against. I don’t think you need to get all stalker-ish and scout the hell out of them but if you hear things like Columbia has a strong sprint or Washington takes a move at 750m and leaves everyone in their dust … you’ll know that if you somehow get up on them, you can’t take that position for granted because these other crews might still have something in their back pocket that they’re waiting to break out and use against you.

I also like how at the end he keeps them focused on rowing well at the end of the race. I hear a lot of coaches really harp on not being dramatic after a piece and immediately getting them rowing inside arm only, maintaining some semblance of timing, etc. is a good way to avoid that.

USA Women’s 8+ 2010 World Cup III Final

Similar to Marcus, whenever her hand goes up or comes down, she tells her crew. The start of the race is typical Kaitlin, just like all the other recordings I’ve posted – she’s super chill but still being very direct, very focused, and very in her boat.

At 0:45 – 0:47 when she says “we’re gonna take our first lengthen in two … one, send it … two, now…”, you can hear that nothing changes with her volume, the only thing that is different is the inflection in her voice and that naturally lends to a more aggressive punch behind “two, now“. If you’re trying to work on maintaining your composure and being calm while also still being intense … that’s a perfect example.

There are a thousand and twelve things to take away from all the recordings I’ve posted of hers but if there’s one thing you get out of them, it should be how good she is at using her tone of voice to communicate with the crew. Her words are on point but it’s her tone that makes them effective. Another example is at 5:15 when she says “In two we lengthen and go with legs, ready? One … two, TONE CHANGE NOW. Boom, that’s it … Boom, Katie! YES, walking!”. Not only was there a tone change in her voice, there was an actual physical change in the tone of their race. This was their move and she did an incredible job of facilitating that by being relaxed and focused up to this point so that when she said “tone change!” not only did they hear it in her voice but they felt it too.

Other calls I liked:

“Trust the plan, trust your rhythm…”

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

Coxing Teammates & Coaches

Qualities of a Varsity Coxswain

By readyallrow July 27, 2016

Previously: Part 1 || Part 2

Coxing

What’s keeping you out of the 1V

By readyallrow July 19, 2016

You could apply this to any boat that you aspire to be in but since “how do I get in the 1V” is a frequently asked question, that’s what the focus of this post is on.

You’re not being proactive

Showing up every day isn’t reason enough to get put in the 1V. It’s mind boggling the number of coxswains who think that that’s all it takes. It is but one very small piece of the puzzle. You need to be proactive every single day (yea, even in the winter) about learning the required skills, striving to perfect them, and regularly communicating with your coaches about … pretty much everything. If you’re not doing those things, you’re not doing nearly enough.

You seem uninterested

You don’t have to be the peppiest person ever but you do need to convey some level of energy and enthusiasm. If you go about practice with an apathetic demeanor, there’s nothing about that that indicates to your coaches that being in the 1V is something you’re motivated to work towards. Apathy is not a leadership quality either so if that’s your general attitude, you’re not going to be a very inspired choice for the coaches to consider.

You don’t make a case for yourself

You need to objectively know your strengths and weaknesses and be able to sell yourself if/when you coach asks why you should be considered for the 1V. Consider it like any job interview you’ll ever go on – your coach, like an employer, wants to know what you can do for them and the team, not how this is going to benefit you. Confidence and humility are key; acting smug and cocky can/will make it easy to dismiss you.

You haven’t researched the job

Find out what the coaches and rowers want in a 1V coxswain in terms of skills, abilities, personality, etc. and talk with current/former 1V coxswains so you can get a sense for what it takes to be in that position and what the expectations are.

You’re not good enough or are under-qualified

It’s fine to aim high but you need to be realistic and not get pissed when someone says you’re not ready. If you’re just coming off of your novice year or you’re a junior who still hasn’t come to terms with what a straight line looks like, you’re not ready to be in the 1V. It’s not a dig or demeaning or bullying or whatever else to be told that … it’s an objective fact based on your current skill level and should motivate you to figure out where you can/should improve so you can make a stronger, more grounded-in-reality case for yourself next year.

You lack chemistry with the team and coaches

If the coaches find you difficult to work with or hard to coach and the rowers find you to be a power tripping try-hard, you’re gonna have a hard time getting them to advocate for you. You need to earn their respect and trust and if you lack that, your bid for the 1V just got a lot tougher.

You’re not learning from your mistakes or you get complacent easily

Your successes have to be given the same treatment as your failures – accept whatever happened, learn something, and apply it going forward. If you’re consistently making the same mistake(s) or you get cocky and stop paying attention, your judgment, decision-making, and (self-)awareness (all critical necessities for a 1V coxswain) are going to be called into question.

You’re entitled

This is, in my opinion, the number one reason why you’re not in the 1V. So many of the emails that I get about this reek of entitlement and arrogance. You don’t deserve the 1V just because you’ve been there the longest. You don’t deserve the 1V just because some of the rowers like you better than the other coxswain. You don’t deserve the 1V just because you did this pretty inconsequential thing that anyone with half a brain and an ounce of common sense would know to do. If you spent half as much time on actually improving yourself as a coxswain as you do complaining about why you’re not being given the 1V on a silver platter, you’d be in the 1V already.

All of this is good food for thought during the summer since things are a lot more low-key and you have the ability to look at the previous season or year’s performance with more objectivity. If you spent the spring season frustrated because you felt like you weren’t in the boat you “deserved”, consider what’s up above and think about the role you played in your coach’s decision because at the end of the day, this quote applies just as much to coxswains as it does to rowers.