Tag: qotd

College Q&A Recruiting

Question of the Day

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I chose not to go through the recruiting process but I am interested in walking on to a team next fall. I am still deciding between a couple schools and I was wondering if it would it be worth it to email the coaches about walking on? Thanks for everything you do!

It’s always worth it to email the coaches ahead of time but don’t feel like you have to if you’ve got a lot going on right now and don’t have time. The teams almost always have a table at the student activities fair at the beginning of the year where they sign people up who are interested in walking on so if you just want to wait until you get to campus, that’s an option too.

College Q&A Teammates & Coaches

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Hey, thanks for answering everyone’s questions on your blog! It is a really nice thing to do for the younger generation of rowers. Anyway, I’m a varsity coxswain on a student-run college club team and I’m getting to be fairly concerned about my 7-seat, who is the Team President. He handles almost all the administrative work for both the men’s and women’s side and in addition, he has to liaison with the university’s Rec Sports department, organize all the outside workouts, make the regatta travel plans, et cetera, et cetera. He spends hours and hours on the team every day, and this is on top of a really tough biology major too.

Although he puts on a brave face in public I feel like he’s starting to crack under the pressure. He’s a really nice person but his patience is just becoming shorter, he seems exhausted, and apparently his classes aren’t going well – he’s already to the point where he’s sure he’s failed one and is going to have to retake it next semester. I’m just a freshman, new to the team, and he’s a senior so I don’t want to step out of line. At the same time, however, I don’t want to watch a teammate become overwhelmed as a result of rowing and not do anything. If I talk to the coaches or directly confront him about delegating some of the workload I feel like it might be embarrassing or come off like I’m questioning his leadership. I don’t want to start any drama this early in my college rowing career but I don’t really see any other options to help the situation. What should I do?

I’d probably talk with him one-on-one and say that you really want to start taking a more vested interest in the behind the scenes stuff that goes along with running the team and wanted to know what little things you could take off his plate. In theory it should be the other board members that should be helping him out with this stuff so I wouldn’t try to take on any of the major responsibilities but little things that are email, paperwork, etc. related could be helpful.

I don’t think offering to help is out of line or anything but if he’s already stressed then I can definitely see how it might come off like you think he’s failing at his responsibilities or something. If he says no thanks or is weird about it then just say “OK no problem but if you do need help with stuff in the future, just let me know and I’m happy to do whatever”. Sometimes just making it known that you’re there if they need something can be beneficial, particularly for people that don’t like asking for help in the first place. I’m like that and I would much rather people just say they’re there if I need something, feel free to reach out, etc. rather than butting in and offering help when I haven’t asked for it or trying to solve the problem for me.

Q&A Teammates & Coaches

Question of the Day

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This can be super quick, but there’s a girl on my team who is starting to try to bully other girls off the team. I’m one of the captains, and there’s a girl who’s a sophomore who is very dedicated to the team and the sport but recently has had a lot of other obligations. She still makes it to practice when she can and works her butt off when she does. This second girl thinks that since the sophomore isn’t coming to practice as often as she is, that she “doesn’t deserve to be on the team and might as well never come back because I don’t want to see you at practice again.” This is obviously not OK. I’m worried to approach the girl because I’m sure she’ll twist my words and go back to the coach. I’m worried to approach the coach, because I think she’ll probably tell me that it’s my responsibility to make sure the sophomore is at practice. Am I making way too big of a deal over this? I haven’t been captain for very long, and I’m obviously new to this whole “team responsibility” thing.

Take one of the other captains with you and approach this girl together. This protects whichever one of you does the talking because the other one can corroborate what’s being said in case the rower does go back to the coach and try to twist things (just make sure you don’t gang up on her or anything like that). Make it clear to her that she needs to chill and recognize the fact that she’s negating whatever work she’s doing at practice by having such a shitty attitude. Unless she knows something that no one else does about why the other girl is missing practice (i.e. something that puts her or someone else in danger, reflects poorly on the team, etc.) then why she isn’t there is really none of her business and it’s not her place to be making the comments she’s made.

If your coach’s kneejerk reaction is to tell you to get on someone about their attendance instead of addressing the bullying issue then his/her priorities are way off base. Obviously you want attendance to be high all year round but it’s not like it’s any major secret that if you absolutely have to miss practice for other commitments then winter is the time to do it. Half the people I rowed with in high school swam or played basketball and typically missed that entire “season” or people would take some time off to study for the SAT/ACT if they registered for the Dec/Jan/Feb tests. It’s not the end of the world if someone has other obligations from November to March.

At the very least I would say something to give them a heads up that you’re planning on talking to that girl just in case she comes to them afterwards and says something. If you’re worried you might inadvertently throw the sophomore under the bus if you say the real reason for all this then just say that you’ve been approached about [whatshername] making some bullying-like comments towards some of the other rowers and you and [the other captain] are planning to talk with her about it but you wanted to let them know what was going on beforehand in case something gets back to them later. If they ask what the “bullying-like comments” are just say you don’t know the specifics but are planning to find out before you talk to her.

Q&A Teammates & Coaches

Question of the Day

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I’m living with one of my captains and we’re having issues. Even though she works hard and her erg scores are consistently top 8 she’s in the 3V and our coach won’t tell her why. She was reasonably upset and she had every right to be and I was there for her. This was around mid to late September. A little while later, she started seeming annoyed, I tried being nice, and I tried giving her space, either way she’s been very snippy. More recently we went away for a race and only our 1V and 2V went. When I got back I tried to be quiet about it and not bring the trip up. I talked about these issues a couple times with another girl I’ve been rowing with since high school who also lived with her last year. She gave me some advice and I was planning on following it.

That night though she had another breakdown because she was so frustrated and upset because she didn’t even go as an alternate. I felt really bad and knew if I was in her position I would feel the same way, why do I work so hard if I’m not getting anywhere, but it also feels like she wants me to say that she deserves to be in the 1V over all 8 of us. She also has been making me feel really shitty about myself, the other day for example we were given a workout to do on our own because our coach could tell we were tired and was giving us the chance to sleep in and do a steady state work out. I decided the night before I was going to go at 7 but when my alarm went off I realized exactly how tired I was and decided to go after class. When she got back from doing the workout I went to ask a question but she got really sassy saying “So much for going at 7”. I tried to explain but she shut the door on my face before I could say anything. I only have a little over a semester left with her but I feel like I’m walking on egg shells around her and don’t know how much more I can take.

Yeaaa, situations like this are when rooming/living with friends really come back to bite you in the ass.

Here’s the thing. Your eight best aren’t always the best eight. She might have one of the top eight times but that doesn’t mean she has what it takes to be in the 1V, at least by your coach’s standards. Obviously your coach should be a little more transparent with her so that she at least knows what areas she could improve in but at the end of the day, all of that has nothing to do with you. I totally get wanting to be the supportive friend and being sensitive to the fact that this is bothering her but you shouldn’t have to tip toe around just to avoid setting her off. If she’s really a friend (forget the whole captain thing for a second) she shouldn’t be making snide remarks about when you do an on-your-own workout or be trying to get you to validate her by saying meaningless shit like “of COURSE you should be in the 1V“. I can get asking that in a “tell me I’m not being crazy here” kind of way where actual feedback/constructive criticism would be accepted and appreciated but given the context I feel like it’s coming off in a more “I deserve this over all you bitches” kind of way because of either seniority, being a captain, or whatever else.

I could really go on and on about what she should be doing but you probably know all of that already and again, it would just be reiterating the point that none of this has anything to do with you. It’s not fair that you’ve somehow gotten pulled into it but I think the best thing you can do in this situation the next time something comes up is to say that as her friend you want to be there for her but as her teammate things have gotten to the point where your relationship outside of practice is being negatively affected (elaborate as necessary) and that if she really thinks she deserves that spot she needs to stop talking/making passive aggressive comments to you about it and go discuss it with your coach. After that, be done with it. She’s either going to take the hint or keep being rude about it and if she goes with the latter, well, that’s her issue to deal with. You and the other eight people in that boat all earned your spots so don’t let someone, regardless of whether they’re a friend or not, make you feel bad about being there.

Q&A Teammates & Coaches

Question of the Day

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How does one handle a coach that is too aggressive? My coach is too intense and I can’t read him at all. What can I do to have him ease up on the team? I’m not the only one feeling this.

I’ve had coaches/professors like that and most of the time it’s just their personality and they don’t realize how intense they come off or that they’re coming off too intense for the current audience. I mean, don’t get me wrong, sometimes they’re actually just jerks but usually saying something wakes them up to the fact that their approach is coming off, as you said, too aggressive. I’d talk to your assistant coach (or head coach if the coach you’re talking about is the assistant), explain the situation to them, and see if they can say something. In my experience coaches tend to take stuff like this more seriously when it comes from one of their peers vs. from someone who could be their son or daughter. If you know other people on the team feel the same way then I’d go as a group (three people max is sufficient) to talk with your assistant coach just so they can better understand the depth of the issue.

College High School Novice Q&A Teammates & Coaches

Question of the Day

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What are some good team bonding exercises to do at practice? Our novices are moving up to varsity and we are looking for ways to bring the two groups together. Thanks! Love your blog!

Check out the two posts linked below. They all touch on “team bonding” in one way or another so there might be some ideas in there that you can use. The “secret motivator” one was a ton of fun for everyone so I definitely recommend that one as you get farther into the season.

Related: Hi, we have states in two weeks and we have boat gifts – is this a sport-wide tradition? If so, what are good gifts to buy/make? Thanks a bunch.

When I coached at Marietta in the spring I was still trying to learn everyone’s names after about a week of being there and I noticed that a lot of the freshmen didn’t know any of the varsity girls names either so one day while they were warming up I had everyone get in a circle and go around one by one and say their name and grade. The catch was that you had to also say the names and grades of the people that went before you, which got progressively more amusing the farther around the circle we got. It was a good way to introduce everyone and break the ice, in addition to being a sneaky way for me to learn the names/grades of the people I didn’t know yet.

Related: I feel like I can’t really relate to any of the other girls on my team. I know that crew itself is really close-knit, but I can’t help but feel like there’s a huge separation from me and the rest of the rest of the team where I don’t really know how to associate with them and they don’t really know how to associate with me just because I’m friends with an entirely different group of people than they are. Any advice?

From there the “bonding” kind of happened on its own. Carpooling, boat dinners, traveling, silly activities like the name/grade thing, etc. all facilitated some of it but I’ve always been of the opinion that you can’t really force stuff like that, you’ve just kinda gotta let it happen naturally. If people are friendly and make an active effort to get to know one another then the two groups will merge into one pretty quickly.

Coxing How To Q&A Teammates & Coaches

Question of the Day

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How do you suggest becoming comfortable making calls? I was recently moved for the women’s V4+ to our men’s V8+ and I don’t really feel my place in the boat yet. I want to make meaningful calls, not unnecessary ones, and I don’t want to be silent. Today during pieces the guys asked for motivation but I felt like I sounded like a redundant cheerleader. My old girls obviously want different stuff than the guys and I’m having trouble being the mean, assertive cox the guys have asked me to be.

When you switch boats like that there’s definitely going to be an in-between period while you learn their personalities and get comfortable working with a different group of people. That period lasts a little longer when you go from coxing women to men because, like you said, both groups want/need different things and you’ll probably have to adjust your style a bit. At most though this should be like, a week and a half to two week long thing … not something that lasts for months on end. What’s going to help you get more comfortable is to make a serious and genuine effort to get to know the people you’re coxing and talking to them outside of practice to find out what they like to hear, what things their previous coxswain(s) did that they liked or responded well to, etc. and then finding ways to incorporate all of that into your own coxing.

You have to be assertive about it otherwise this probably isn’t going to be much fun for you … and coxing guys is a lot of fun if you approach it with the right attitude. If you think it’s going to be awkward, you’re intimidated by them, or you think they’re gonna think you’re weird or incompetent for asking then you’re only making things more difficult for yourself. Just approach them, speak up, and say “Hey, so obviously I’m the new person in the boat and I need your help getting up to speed. *whips out pen + paper* Tell me some things that you guys have been working on, what calls you like, etc. so I can start tailoring my calls to the boat” [and then write them down because if you don’t you will forget and that’ll put you right back at square one].

Related: TED talks, body language, and … coxing?

Also, check out the post linked above. It’s long but so worth reading and watching the video when you have time. It has nothing to do with making calls or anything like that but the whole premise of the talk might help with you becoming more confident in general which will translate into being more comfortable coxing your new boat.

Coxing Q&A

Question of the Day

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Hi there! Just a quick question: I’m a coxswain and I can’t do winter training due to a prior commitment. Is there anything I should be doing over the winter to prepare for the spring independently?

If you haven’t yet, I’d have a quick 10-15 minute with your coach just to go over the fall season, discuss your progress, your goals for the spring, etc. and get his/her input on what they’d like to see you work on so you’re ready to go full throttle when spring season rolls around. If you didn’t do fall crew (or your team doesn’t have a fall program) then I’d spend some time thinking about your last spring season, how you did, what you improved on/want to keep working on, the goals you have for this year, etc. and use that to help you prepare for the upcoming season.

Outside of listening to recordings if/when you have some free time, one thing that I’d really recommend doing is spending some time creating a hard copy of all your calls (an Excel sheet or Google spreadsheet would work best for this), particularly if you find that you have trouble coming up with things to say, being repetitive, or knowing what to say in response to certain situations. I’m doing something similar with one of our lightweight coxswains right now and to keep things simple we’re starting out with trying to get 5-7 calls each for the catch, drive, finish, and recovery. I would do something like that (I’d add maybe two calls or so for every year of experience you have – if you’ve been doing this for four years you should easily be able to come up with roughly 10 calls for each category), especially as you listen to recordings and hear things from other coxswains that you like.

The goal is to have a good mix of both tried-and-true calls and new ones that you want to test out once you’re back on the water. Not only will this give you a good variety to work with but it’ll also let you actually see where you tend to become repetitive (less calls = more repetition of those calls) and where you should try to develop more things to say. Outside of that, if you have trouble with understanding certain drills or want to know what drills would be good to do in response to XYZ happening in the boat, doing some basic research on those kinds of things would also be a good way to spend the winter months.

Don’t be afraid to take some time off too and don’t feel obligated to do a ton of stuff just to say “oh hey, look how busy I was during winter training”. I’m definitely a big proponent of coxswains using their time wisely during the winter months but I don’t think they should super-aggressively try to do a ton of things just to be busy for busy’s sake, if that makes sense. If you can spend a couple hours (1-2ish) a week (…a week, not a day…) doing something specifically coxswain-related then you’ll be fine in the spring.

And to be honest, if you do nothing specifically coxswain-related the entire winter season you’ll still be fine in the spring … you just won’t have the leg up that the people who did will have. It’s all about priorities and goals. If you’re just doing crew to participate in something, have a good time, aren’t part of a super competitive team (and you’re OK with that), etc. then obviously you can take a more relaxed approach. If you’re part of a good program with high expectations and/or you have plans to try out for elite summer programs, are planning to cox in college, etc. then yea … you should be putting in a bit of work over the winter.

Coxing Q&A Technique

Question of the Day

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Hello! Sorry if this is a dumb question but I was wondering, what does it mean when coxswains say “cha”? Thank you!

Definitely not a dumb question. I didn’t know what this was for the longest time in high school.

“Cha” is just one of the words we use to help set or re-establish the rhythm in the boat. Some coxswains actually say “cha” or “ja” and really enunciate the “ch/j” sound whereas others say “ssshhhh-uh” and really build into the final “uh” syllable. If you’re trying to actually say that, you don’t say “shh” then “uh” like they’re two separate words, rather you say it as one word with a really sharp, aggressive kick at the end when you get to the “uh” part.

All in all though it’s exactly the same as saying “kick send“, “jump together“, “legs squeeze“, etc. I’m not a huge fan of using it myself (I’m more of a “ssshhhh-uh” person than a “cha” person anyways) but on the rare occasion when I do incorporate it (usually during hard pieces or long steady state rows) I’ll say something like “legs [at the catch], ssshhhh-uh [through the arms + finish]”, which usually gets blended together and comes out as “leeegssssshhhh-uh“, or if I’m calling a five or ten then I’ll say “1 ssshhhh-uh, 2 ssshhhh-uh, 3 ssshhhh-uh…” if I really want them to think about the rhythm. I also use it if I need something to say but don’t know what to say, can’t think of anything, and/or want to break things up if I feel like I’m starting to get repetitive.

Related: Race skills: All about Power 10s

I’ll also use it if I’m trying to focus on the bladework to figure out if I need to make a technical call but don’t want to put too much effort/brainpower into making actual calls while I’m trying to focus on/analyze something else. Normally when I use this though I never call it for more than three strokes in a row at most (unless I’m only calling a five, like I talked about in the post linked above), which is pretty standard for me with the majority of my calls.

Q&A Rowing Technique

Question of the Day

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The other day our coach had all of us move our foot stretchers all the way forward on the tracks. I was wondering what the benefit of doing this is?

Trying not to overthink this too much but my guess is that your coach is just trying to have everyone get a sharper catch angle since adjusting the stretchers has a much greater effect on the catch than it does the finish. The closer to the stern your feet are the closer to parallel the oar will be at the catch and the more shallow of a release angle you’ll have (it’ll be nearly perfectly perpendicular to the boat compared to being at a 20 degree angle or so otherwise).

Just going off what I’ve picked up from coaches and boatmen in the past, I think he’s probably just trying to avoid rigging seats individually (be that out of laziness or because of some other reason, I don’t know). If a longer catch angle is what he’s going for though, I’m not sure if this is necessarily the best way to approach it, although I guess if you’re all novices (and/or short…) then it could be a temporary thing as you work on developing better flexibility and mobility throughout the fall/winter. Still, if he’s trying to go for uniformity with one aspect of the stroke the catch isn’t what he should be going for, it should be the finish since you don’t have to contend as much with individual flexibility issues, amongst other things.