WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME
YOU DID SOMETHING FOR THE FIRST TIME?
The importance of new experiences
EVERY DAY OF MY SOPHOMORE YEAR OF COLLEGE I found myself on the Huron River—lit by moonlight at 5:30am—with eight men twice my weight in a boat that cost half my tuition. This was the year that I decided to go out on a whim and try out to be a coxswain for the University of Michigan men’s rowing team. I couldn’t even pronounce the word coxswain when I attended the first practice. I didn’t know what a shell, cox box, rigger, speed coach, or really what anything was. However, I knew that I wanted to try something new. Every time I hopped into the coxswain seat I was committed to focusing on only coxing and learning something new and one practice at a time I was developing my skills for a career as a collegiate coxswain.
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During the first few weeks I said nothing in the boat except for what my coach told me. He was giving me the basic commands that I could then build off of in order to create my own coxing style. I also focused on what my coach was telling the rowers and I observed how what he said to a specific rower changed the power of the boat, the feel of it gliding across the water, and how that rower’s blade changed positions. There was a manual of rowing terms that I had to learn in order to understand exactly what my coach was saying. For example, I had to learn the different parts of the rowing stroke, what it meant to have a square versus feathered blade and what side was port or starboard.
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I soon realized that anyone can get into a boat and shout motivational calls to rowers. This method of coxing works, but the competitive coxswains were not actually the ones shouting through the mic. It turns out that the most valuable coxswains were the ones who said the least. They were the ones that only said what the rowers really needed to hear. They knew how to feel out a boat, look at the blades and coach the rowers in order to make the boat go faster. They would identify the problem, choose the most direct way to communicate what needed to get done in a way that each specific rower would understand, and then affirmed the rower when the change was made. This type of coxing took months to learn. It involved not only practice on the water, but also putting in work outside of practice. I watched videos of rowers and listened to recordings of Olympic coxswains. I wrote down the different calls that they used and how each call changed the rowers stroke and the overall feel of the boat on the water.
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There is no off season in rowing. We practiced on the water until the river froze, and then we moved to the indoor facility. At indoor practices, I focused on learning the rowing technique. I studied how the top rowers on the team used the rowing machines and took notes on all aspects of their form. I learned what positive aspects to look for and what to critique in the other rowers' forms.
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It wasn't until our spring break training trip to Gainesville, Georgia that I actually felt confident in my coxing abilities. After about 130 practices I had finally perfected the calls to get the boat into and out of the boathouse, could pick a point and steer in a fairly straight line to it, had memorized the different seats in the boat in order to call out individual rowers and had developed relationships with my teammates to create a boat chemistry that fostered collaboration.
That spring, my boat and I won gold at the ECAC National Invitational Rowing Championship, silver at the Dad Vail Regatta and silver at the American Collegiate Rowing Association Championship. The medals aren't what I really cherish now though, it was the relationships that I made and the character traits that I developed on the team that makes me so thankful that I decided to take that step outside of my comfort zone sophomore year.