"Winning a rowing race is not like winning anything else. Here's my theory: you're facing backwards, so you're looking at the people you're beating--and there's something exquisite about that." - Hugh Laurie
I'm not sure when I realized it. It could have been during a brutally cold winter morning at 6am as I groggily made my way from my dorm to the basement of the athletic center. It also could have been during the first twenty strokes of the final race of the season, in the form of one of those sly epiphanies that always seem to occur at the most inconvenient times. Or maybe it was the accumulated reasoning of an entire year of practice, races, and beautiful St. Lawrence River sunrises.
My realization was this: joining rowing, quite simply, was the greatest decision I have ever made.
In the past few years, the media have brought rowing into the national spotlight, particularly after the US women's eight took gold in Beijing in 2008, and then again in London this summer. (Interestingly enough, our coach, Nick Hughes, taught one of the eight Olympians how to row during her freshman year at St. Lawrence.) The 2010 blockbuster The Social Network's crowning cinematographic achievement was the 90-second clip of the Winklevoss twins rowing for Harvard at the Henley Royal Regatta.
With this newfound national attention to the sport, I have thankfully received significantly fewer blank stares when I tell people that I am on a collegiate rowing team. No, it isn't like kayaking or canoeing. Yes, you do get a lot of blisters. No, you don't only use your arms. Am I going to the Olympics? Well, a girl can dream, right?
Rowers are unique in the athletic world. Perhaps the most significant difference between rowing and other sports is the coxswain, or the "little person who sits in the boat and yells at the rowers." While they are not required to be athletic, coxswains are, in the words of US rowing coach Tom Terhaar, "as integral to the boat as the rowers are... they can't do it without [him or her]."
I am a coxswain for the St. Lawrence women's rowing team, and it is this unique role that led me to the staggering, aforementioned conclusion.
Rowers do not see where they are going. They are supposed to "keep their heads in the boat", therefore placing their trust in the coxswain to steer them, encourage them, and to pinpoint errors in their technique. As the coxswain, you alone see everything that is going on both within and around the boat, and yours is the only voice that the rowers will hear.
Leadership-wise, it is possibly one of the most difficult skills to learn--how to guide and communicate with people who cannot see where they are going, who are undergoing what is essentially physical hell. It is brutal to watch, and even more painful to ask more of them when they are nearing utter exhaustion.
Yet I have been told time and time again by the rowers to demand more from them when they are fatigued. They want perfection, and they will not allow themselves to become complacent until they have achieved their goals.
Rowing is a sport that takes time. When one sets a goal to lose a few pounds and work out more, results are easy to see, often in the span of a few weeks. As for rowing, while teaching someone to row doesn't take very long, teaching someone to row effectively may very well take a few years. True rowers are not daunted by this incredibly long gap between training and results. During the long days of winter training, they are able to focus on the medal or the race that is months in the future, able to summon the image of winning at moments when being together on the water seems as distant as the moon.
In life, that ability to stay fixated on a long-term goal is often the difference between failure and success. No wonder rowers make an average income of more than 60% above the national average, according to a 2008 study by Boathouse Finder.
Being a part of the rowing team has shown me the sheer magnitude of human potential. Put a person in a boat, hand them an oar, give them a taste of what winning feels like--and soon enough, they will be practicing for five hours a day, will be getting up three hours before the rest of their campus to row in subzero temperatures, and will have the unstoppable willpower of a champion.
Rowers can do it all, and they can do it well. Joining the rowing team will be the greatest decision you will ever make, if you choose to accept the harsh realities of the sport. By doing so, you will understand the incalculable value of an indomitable spirit--and you will learn, above all, that your achievements in life are limited only by the magnitude of your drive to achieve them.
Follow Amy Yao on Twitter: www.twitter.com/yaoamy
| 1 | United States | 46 | 29 | 29 |
| 2 | China | 38 | 27 | 23 |
| 3 | Russia | 24 | 26 | 32 |
| 4 | Great Britain | 29 | 17 | 19 |
| 5 | Germany | 11 | 19 | 14 |
| 6 | Japan | 7 | 14 | 17 |
Our son asked to join his high school rowing team freshman year. I knew little about rowing. Our high school has a competitive rowing (club) and we said sure. Albeit his boat was never the best he gained a sense of belonging and was dedicated to the sport and all it entails. Our daughter joined the team two years later and is the bow of her quad. Our program sculls (two oars, no cox) as a freshman team her boat won every race locally, Stotesbury (largest high school regatta in the world) and Cities and PSRA nationals.
Sophomore year they were the Varsity Quad. Their dedication, athletic skills and sheer respect for one another and the sport allowed them to win Stotesbury again, and place 13th and Youth Nationals in TN and two days later fly to England to compete in the Women's Henley and the Royal. (think facebook scene) At 16 this group of four girls have done more, seen more and rowed hard. Without the dedication of the coaches, parents and team they wouldn't be complete.
So proud of our high school Conestoga Crew Club! Go Stoga!
Regarding a previous comment, no doubt there can be dark sides to mixing athletics and academia. Some involve allowing talented athletes to skate through college with phony courses for the sake of selling tickets to games. Others involve expensive equipment (which is frequently donated by well-to-do alumni) and a bias toward higher-achieving, middle-class public high school students like me. I think colleges should be scrutinized for their balance and diversity of opportunity.
Clearly you were doing something wrong.
To your other arguments, the fact that you had so many injuries seems to speak more to how you were coached and trained. Dislocated knee? Should not happen in rowing where there is a finite arc of motion for your knee. Dislocated shoulders? Would mostly come from a lack of strength elsewhere and is probably come as a result of compensation at the expense of your shoulder/lats. Bloodied hands, cut up legs (I assume you mean track bites...), etc are somewhat inherent in the sport. You should not row if you do not like callouses on your hands, you should not play soccer if you do not like ankle injuries, and you should not play basketball if you like your knees. To say that rowing was the worst decision you made simply for the physical aspects leads me to believe you only focused on the physical aspects, instead of absorbing the immense psychological gains that can be made in such a sport where the motion is fixed, the practices are many times mundane, and the glory fleeting.
Just thoughts.