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CONTENTS

NOVEMBER 2024 | VOLUME 31 NUMBER 10

FE AT URES

40 Some Respect, Please Top Southwest refs will boycott USRowing regattas next year unless they get better pay and travel arrangements.

BY CHIP DAVIS

44 Faithful Courage While other colleges ponder cutting Olympic sports, High Point University has embraced the future by launching a varsity women’s rowing team.

BY MADELINE DAVIS TULLY

50 Michael Callahan University of Washington—and U.S. National Team—alumnus Michael Callahan coached both crews to historic success this year,

BY CHIP DAVIS

R O W INGNE W S .C OM

BOTTOM: SCOTT EKLUND / REDBOX PICTURES.

MIDDLE: COURTESY HIGH POINT UNIVERSITY;

PHOTOS: TOP: LISA WORTHY;

Follow Rowing News on social media by scanning this QR code with your smart phone.

DEPA R T MEN T S

25 QUICK CATCHES News

Olympic Postmortem Rowing Canada Seeks New CEO USRowing Athletes of the Year

57 TRAINING

Sports Science Mastering the Erg Test Coxing Indoor Involvement Fuel Gut Check Training Assessing Fatigue Resistance Best Practices The Timeliness of Now

Coach Development Managing the Managers 14 66

From the Editor Doctor Rowing

ON THE COVER: The High Point University Panthers. | Photo: Courtesy High Point University.

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#RowShimano

FROM THE EDITOR CHIP DAVIS

The High Point of Competence

H

anlon’s Razor is an adage that tells us never to attribute to malice that

which can be explained adequately by incompetence.

Neither side of the kerfuffle between referees and USRowing is malicious. Their communication and conflict-resolution skills, however, are less than what you’d expect of race officials and the administrators of our sport’s national governing body. You can decide for yourself by reading the latest, beginning on page 40.

For demonstrated competence in coaching, nobody had a year quite like Michael Callahan. The Olympic and University of Washington coach took the U.S. men’s eight to Lucerne to win last-chance Olympic qualification, then turned around and led his Huskies to a sweep of the heavyweight men’s events at the IRA National Championship.

Then his year got even better.

It was more than a case of bringing the best talent together.

Callahan, in collaboration with his Washington staff, club coaches, and the U.S. National Team coaches, employed the latest measurement technology to prepare crews to perform their best in the biggest events of their lives. Don’t take my word for it. Read Callahan’s in the exclusive Rowing News interview beginning on page 50.

At High Point University in North Carolina, aspiring rowers now have a chance to reach their figurative high point thanks to the latest NCAA Division I varsity program. It’s another courageous move by the non-traditional school that’s been making waves in the staid world of higher education. In coming years, we’ll see where on the spectrum of competence they land.

PHOTO: SCOTT EKLUND / REDBOX PICTURES

Michael Callahan employed the latest measurement technology to prepare crews to perform their best in the biggest events of their lives.

Our editorial team can be reached at editor@rowingnews.com 14

NOVEMBER 2024

RowAmerica Launches Built by Rowers for Rowers

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LETTERS Letters to the Editor can be sent to editor@rowingnews.com

Finishing With Feeling From Doctor Rowing: Responding to the debate about whether a micro-pause is a good idea in a rowing stroke, reader Bill Pickard suggested that I ask USRowing Chief High Performance Officer Josy Verdonkschot what he thinks. I got a quick answer:

As an exercise, a micro-pause can be helpful as a collection point for the crew and, if executed well, for working on a clean exit and proper bladework. When extracting, there should be no pull into the body, just a vertical motion of the blade. The body should be relaxed in the shoulders and strong in the core, ready to continue the pendular motion to initiate the recovery.

From a biomechanical standpoint, the rower’s force and weight go down at the finish. This interrupts the acceleration of the boat and is detrimental to speed. That’s why I don’t support a micro-pause in a regular row. I want the rower to feel how the boat moves around the finish with as little interruption as possible.

To me, the finish includes the initiation of change of direction; therefore, I prefer a more natural moment to a micro-pause—

when the knees begin opening, around quarter slide. The rower develops more feeling for the boat and boat speed in this way.

Bully for Beach Sprints!

I join Doctor Rowing in mourning the elimination of lightweight events in future Olympic competitions (September issue). I take umbrage, however, at his remarks in that same piece about Beach Sprints. He describes the sport as “created with an eye to television,” implies that coastal rowers aren’t “real rowers,” says the sport “sounds like a joke,” and compares it to a “reality show.”

The sport of Beach Sprints (and coastal rowing in general) is worthy on its own merits. Suggesting that lightweight rowing has been shoved aside to make room for entertainment does a disservice to coastal rowers, coaches, fans, and the sport itself.

The variables that impact flat-water rowing are largely invisible to the casual regatta attendee, who observes much of a race through binoculars or on a Jumbotron.

The same Rowing News issue bemoans illattended World Rowing events in Europe.

Here’s a solution: Bring back the observation train!

Beach Sprints fans can watch the entire race from the beach. Rough surf can toss athletes out of the boat, odd currents and sea floor anomalies can carry boats far off course, and officials call pauses in racing to allow sea life to clear the course.

The sport is truly inclusive; athletes of all body types are successful, Para rowing teams are forming, and little infrastructure is needed for world-class competition, allowing countries without a long rowing history to develop athletes and host competitions with minimal investment.

I invite Doctor Rowing and any other doubters to take a look at the photo of the US CMix4 launching in their time trial at this year’s World Rowing Beach Sprints.

What you see there are athleticism and teamwork worthy of raising up.

Next summer, jettison your blazer and below-the-knee hemline, pack your swimming suit, and find the nearest coastalrowing competition.

And don’t forget the sunscreen.

Ruth Ellen Outlaw Charlottesville, Virginia

Call for 2024 entries: Annual Photography Issue Email your best rowing images to photos@rowingnews.com for a chance to be published.

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NOVEMBER 2024

Wipeout The Brazilian mixed double depart their shell at the 2024 World Rowing Beach Sprint Finals after their bow dug into the beach while a wave crashed ashore.

PHOTO: LISA WORTHY

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NOVEMBER 2024

Bak Regains Title Christopher Bak, the 2022 champion, regained his title in the men’s solo at the 2024 World Rowing Beach Sprint Finals, beating the 2019 and 2023 champion, Spain’s Adrian Miramon Quiroga, in the final. Despite a bad start, Bak came back and used a clean exit from the boat to sprint to victory.

PHOTO: LISA WORTHY

NOVEMBER 2024

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Double Gold Annelise Hahl and Annalie Duncomb won the junior women’s double scull event at the 2024 World Rowing Beach Sprint Finals. Hahl also won the the junior women’s solo and the single at the 2024 USRowing Youth National Championships. She and Chris Bak were named 2024 Beach Sprint Athletes of the Year (story, page 32).

PHOTO: LISA WORTHY

NOVEMBER 2024

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E Q U I P M E N T F O R U K R A I N E | AT H L E T E S O F T H E Y E A R

QUICK CATCHES

The Olympic champion U.S. men’s four of stroke Liam Corrigan, Michael Grady, Justin Best, and bow Nick Mead.

BIG NE WS

Olympic Postmortem

The U.S. finally won some rowing medals in Paris, but this “nice first step” came in big sweep boats, and with European rowers essentially professional athletes, this is no time to stand still.

PHOTO: JULIA KOWACIC.

T

he gold, silver, and bronze medals won by the men’s four, PR3 mixed coxed four, and men’s eight, respectively, highlighted U.S. National Team racing in Paris but fell short of USRowing’s stated goal of four total medals, and well short of expectations, which were as high as 10 medals leading into the Olympic and Paralympic regattas.

“We’re proud of our athletes’ performance in Paris, and the overall results signify a critical turning point for our high-

Rowing Canada Seeks New CEO Rowing Canada Aviron is seeking a new CEO to lead the national governing body after

performance program,” said USRowing CEO Amanda Kraus. “The three medals earned, and improved finishes across six additional boats, indicate that we’ve made significant progress since Tokyo 2020,” when U.S. crews failed to win a single medal.

“Beyond the medals, we qualified the most Olympic boats since 2012 (12 of 14 Olympic events), all women’s boats qualified for a fifth consecutive Olympics, eight boats qualified for CONTINUES ON PAGE 26 >>>

the resignation of Terry Dillon, who served RCA for seven years.

Rowing Canada has been beset by declining membership and disappointing international performance, except for Canada’s women’s eight. Canada failed to qualify a single men’s boat for Paris.

NOVEMBER 2024

25

QUICK CATCHES BIG NE WS >>> the A finals (the most since 2000), and with a gold and a bronze, it’s the best medal results for men’s boats since LA 1984,” Kraus continued.

She’s right about U.S. crews earning spots at the Olympics and reaching the A finals more often than not. In this, the qualification age, the fact that countries must earn one of the limited spots in the Olympic regatta (further reduced after London 2012 and again after Rio 2016) has turned international rowing into a small pond with a few big fish. At the Olympics, where half the remaining events are limited to nine or fewer entries, making a six-boat A final is statistically likely, while just making it to the Games is a real accomplishment.

“We made a nice first step,” said USRowing’s chief high performance officer, Josy Verdonkschot, who intends to remain in his position. “I enjoy what I do. As long as people believe in what I’m doing, I’ll continue.”

The U.S. has managed to join the battle with the elite few countries that win Olympic medals but struggles in competition against the current best. Just three countries—The Netherlands, Great Britain, and Romania—combined to win nine of the 14 golds, and 21 of the 42 medals awarded at the Paris Olympics.

Great Britain dominated the Paralympic regatta, winning three of the five events, and taking silver in a fourth.

The U.S. is one of five countries to win two Olympic medals, and one of nine to have won a Paralympic medal in Paris. Canada’s lone medal was the silver in the women’s eight.

The top European performers are essentially professional athletes, training full-time with government support, including health care, while U.S. rowers rely on stipends and charity, mostly treating Olympic rowing as something they do after college and before getting on with the rest of their lives.

The Romanian men’s gold-medal double of Marian Florian Enache and Andrei Sebastian Cornea have been racing internationally for 12 and eight years, respectively. The Dutch women’s pair of Ymkje Clevering and Veronique Meester, who also won gold, made their first senior national team in 2017 and raced in 32 international elite regattas, including Olympics, before Paris. Of the 42 rowers on

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the U.S. Olympic squad in Paris, 25 were appearing at their first Games.

Money—specifically, a shortage of it—is “definitely” part of it, said Stephen Hap Whelpley, chair of USRowing’s High Performance Committee. “It’s still a challenging situation.”

USRowing lacks a major commercial sponsor, although numerous smaller ones support the association. Charitable giving from the National Rowing Foundation exceeded $2.5 million for the Paris quadrennium, and in the lead-up to the Games, the USRowing Foundation, which operates in roughly the same space as the NRF, announced gifts totaling over a million dollars. In October, USRowing announced a $1 million gift made by Katie and Bill McNabb, the USRowing Foundation chair, in support of the LA 2028 Olympic and Paralympic efforts.

USRowing hired Verdonkschot from Europe as the Olympic and National Team boss to change how the U.S. prepares for and competes at the highest level. By virtue of winning Olympic medals, it’s been a success, but the stated desire to get American rowers to scull and row small boats as proficiently as their international rivals is yet to be realized.

The Olympic and Paralympic medals all came from sweep-rowing big boats—fours and eights. At the 2024 under-19, under-23, and senior World Rowing Championships held on the Canadian Henley course in St. Catherines, all but one of the medals won by the U.S. were in big boats, and all but one of the medals came from sweep-rowing events. The U23 lightweight men’s pair and senior lightweight men’s quad won silver medals, but the rest of 10 medals all came from fours and eights.

The United States is a nation of eights, and some fours. Three of the four collegiate varsity national championships are decided by the varsity eight alone, and all three divisions of the NCAA championships are decided by points scored exclusively in eights and fours. At the American Collegiate Rowing Association, USRowing Youth National Championships, and pretty much every other student-athlete regatta, the premier events are the eights.

When American kids dream of making the National Team, it’s in the eight.

Verdonkschot has some ideas for changing that, including making Youth

Nationals the qualifier for certain U19 National Team boats or selection-camp spots. Speed orders, on the senior and Olympic level, are already singles and pairs races, and results figure prominently in who gets invited to selection camp. But once there, athletes are put into the boats they’re most likely to make fastest, rather than just priority boats, which explains this summer’s sweep big-boat successes.

USRowing’s attention, like that of much of the rest of the rowing world, now turns to Beach Sprints, as the new form of rowing makes its Olympic debut in LA28, replacing the lightweight events. In September, Verdonkschot and other upperlevel staff members of USRowing were in Genoa, Italy, for the hastily relocated World Rowing Coastal Championships and World Rowing Beach Sprint Finals—two separate events held on consecutive weekends in the same place.

Break dancing’s infamous debut at the Paris Games isn’t the reason it’s one-anddone as an Olympic sport—LA28 hadn’t planned on including it even before this summer—but it’s still a cautionary tale of how easily a sport, especially a new one with a limited base, can be left out of the Olympics.

The flip side of the exciting break-zone crashes and pileups of Beach Sprints is the potential for injury, possibly serious or even fatal. USRowing officials know they have to thread the needle of developing this new version of rowing in time for the LA Olympics while also avoiding accidents that could be fatal—to both a participant and the sport.

One thing the national governing body can’t do as it prepares for a home Olympics with higher expectations—at least one more medal than Paris from rowing, per Verdonkschot—is to stand still. Despite falling short of its goals, for a second consecutive Olympics, Kraus believes that USRowing still has the same support from the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee.

“We don’t foresee the results in Paris negatively impacting funding from them in CHIP DAVIS 2025.”

NE WS

JL Racing to Sponsor The Boat Race

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The performance-apparel outfitter will provide garb that honors tradition with a modern touch.

T

he Boat Race has signed JL Racing UK to be the official performancewear sponsor for the storied rowing rivalry between Oxford and Cambridge.

“This will help increase our brand recognition internationally and support The Boat Race in its endeavors to increase viewership internationally,” said Alison Abrams, vice president of sales at JL Racing.

“It brings more awareness to the sport, and we hope will inspire viewers and motivate younger rowers.”

JL has sponsored The Boat Race in the past, most recently in 2017. This will be the first time the brand works with The Boat Race directly, however, since launching JL Racing UK. “We always pride ourselves on providing comfortable performance gear,” said Abrams. “Our goal is to make sure the athletes feel that they can perform at their best without distraction.”

The performance-apparel outfitter will be contributing to a nearly 200-year competition between two powerhouse clubs that race four miles, or 6.8 kilometers, along the River Thames in southwest London, with over 250,000 spectators present or tuning in to watch.

“We want to make sure the fit and the fabric are right,” said Abrams. “We also make sure the design fits the traditional and historic ambience of The Boat Race but also give it a modern touch with whatever sponsor logos and specific design details the clubs want to include.”

Next year’s race will take place on Sunday, April 13, with rowers wearing the dark blue of Oxford and the pale blue of Cambridge blazing down the course.

EMILY WINSLOW

NOVEMBER 2024

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NE WS

‘A Way to Give Back’ The Colgan brothers are keeping rowing alive in war-torn Ukraine by collecting and sending used boats, oars, ergs, and coxswain equipment.

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lympian Sean Colgan and his brother, Brian, a former National Team athlete, have organized a network of donors and volunteers to help Ukraine by keeping the sport of rowing accessible during this time of turmoil and destruction.

“It’s a way to give back,” said Brian Colgan. “We can’t all impact the course of the war. We can’t fight for them, but this is something rowers can do to feel like we’re doing our part to help out Ukraine.”

Two containers of boats, oars, ergs, coxswain equipment, and more have made their way to Ukraine already and have been used to stage regattas and indoor erg races.

The Colgans intend to collect and send more.

“We got our first container out in August from Rhode Island,” said Brian Colgan. “We sent a container out of 28

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California as well. We are planning to get another container out of New England between the Head of the Charles and Thanksgiving.”

The California container held two singles, four doubles, two eights, two fours, three pairs, and two sets of eight oars.

“Back in March, they held their national ergometer championships inside a bomb shelter so they could get it done,” said Brian Colgan. “They also had a regatta in August, and they were excited to get the whole regatta off without an air-raid warning.

“I was like, ‘Wow, the only thing we have to worry about at regattas down here is thunderstorms!’ They have a whole extra level of things to worry about when they try to stage a regatta.”

With the help of long-time rower and Rowing News contributor Andy Anderson (a.k.a. Doctor Rowing), the Colgans are seeking more donors to help deliver more containers and preserve Ukrainian rowing and—most important— hope.

If you have equipment to donate or would like to support these efforts, contact Brian Colgan at brianecolgan@gmail. com. If in New England, contact Andrii Ivanchuk from Riverside Boat Club at EMILY WINSLOW trubarower@gmail.com.

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Charlotte Jett (6 seat) and her U.S. Under-19 National Team eight won at Worlds.

NE WS

USRowing Names 2024 Athletes of the Year Under-23 honors for Kelly and Sullivan; Under-19, for Jett and Murphy

U

SRowing has named Kate Kelly

(Vashon Island, Wash./University of Virginia) and Sam Sullivan (Boston, Mass./University of Pennsylvania) as Under 23 Athletes of the Year for 2024 as voted on by their USRowing teammates and coaches.

Sullivan made his international debut this year when he was the stroke of the 2024 U23 men’s eight that achieved a silver medal. Sullivan is a two-time First-Team IRCA All-America and a 2024 Academic All-Ivy selection. While racing at the University of Pennsylvania, Sullivan placed fifth in the varsity eight at the 2024 Eastern Sprints and finished eighth at the 2024 IRA Championships.

“It is such an honor to be selected as USRowing Under 23 National Team Male Athlete of the Year,” Sullivan told USRowing. “It’s amazingly special to be recognized by such a talented and wonderful group of people. There’s no other group of guys that I would’ve rather gone on this journey with.”

Sullivan is joined by Kate Kelly on the women’s side. In 2019, Kelly earned a spot on the USRowing Under 19 National Team that raced in Tokyo. In 2022, she and her boatmates raced to a gold medal in the under-23 women’s four with coxswain and 30

NOVEMBER 2024

in 2023 she and the under-23 women’s eight clinched a silver medal.

“Throughout high school and college, I would write my goals on little sticky notes and stick them on my mirror or the back of my door,” said Kelly. “A lot of our races this summer were motivated and driven by pushing for each other. I’ve never had such a strong connection in an international race like that with the people that I was racing with. I always knew that the U23 Athlete of the Year was a thing, but I never expected to receive the honor. When I got the email last week, I thought, ‘Oh my goodness, that’s crazy.’ It’s still surreal now.”

Kelly credits her success on the national stage to her ability to surpass what she expects of herself as an athlete and she looks forward to seeing where that mindset will take her in her rowing career now that she’s graduated from UVA. “I found a lot of success when I started to believe in my abilities. Initially coming into college, I set easily achievable goals just to find a sense of accomplishment. When I started stepping outside of my comfort zone and taking more risks, I found more achievement.”

Kelly and Sullivan will be recognized at the Head of the Charles regatta on Attager Row, Sunday, Oct. 19.

Charlotte Jett (Greenbrae, Calif.) and Tyler Murphy (Windermere, Fla.) were chosen by USRowing as the 2024 Under-19 Athletes of the Year after competing on the national stage for two consecutive years each.

“I was with my friend Carly [Brown] who stroked the U19 eight when I found out I was receiving the award,” recalled Jett.

“I checked my phone, and I got the email, and it was super exciting. It was fun to receive it while she was there because she’s great and I got to celebrate with someone.”

Jett has been a two-year contributor on the women’s Under 19 National Team.

This past summer, the women’s eight with Jett holding down six seat won gold at the World Rowing Under 19 Championships in St. Catharines, Canada.

Tyler Murphy, also a two-time Under 19 National Team athlete, also medaled in St. Catharines, Canada. The men’s eight crossed the finish line in 5:27.50, three seconds behind Great Britain, for a silver medal. Murphy sat in the men’s eight that finished second at the 2023 USRowing Youth National Championships and won the pair at the 2023 USRowing Under 19 National Team Trials.

“I’ve been very blessed to have spent my last two summers with the U19 National Team,” Murphy said to USRowing. “I’ve made memories with friends for the rest of my life. Both of my summers brought me amazing experiences that have shaped me so much as a person.”

Murphy and Jett will receive the award, voted on by the Under 19 National Team athletes and coaches, and will be honored on Attager Row at the 2024 Head of the Charles on Saturday, Oct. 19 at 5 p.m.

As the date draws closer, Jett hopes that rowers can learn from her experience that success is not immediate and that the process is as important as the outcome.

“I didn’t make the National Team right away, but it was really pivotal in my rowing career,” Jett said. “It shows me how many people around me were also really good at rowing. It takes a while, and your first try might not always be successful, but a lot of it is patience and being able to put your head down and work.

“Failure has taught me the most.”

EMILY WINSLOW

PHOTO: LISA WORTHY

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Four-time Olympian Meghan Musnicki has won five World Championship and two Olympic gold medals.

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More USRowing 2024 Athletes of the Year Meghan Musniski, the Female Athlete of the Year, is a four-time Olympian who has competed at five world championships and won two Olympic gold medals.

U

SRowing has named six more

rowers 2024 Athletes of the Year.

Todd Vogt (Rochester, N.Y./ University of Buffalo) and Gemma Wollenschlaeger (St. Augustine, Fla./ Temple University) are the Para National Team Athletes of the Year.

Chris Bak (Cincinnati, Ohio/ University of Cincinnati) and Annelise Hahl (Cary, N.C./Triangle Rowing) are the Beach Sprint National Team Athletes of the Year.

Michael Grady (Pittsburgh, Pa./Cornell University) and Meghan Musniski (Naples, N.Y./Ithaca College) are the Senior Team Athletes of the Year.

Vogt has been a part of four National Teams, and he competed at his first Paralympics in 2024, where he achieved a seventh-place finish in Paris in the PR3 mixed double.

Wollenschlaeger, along with her boatmates, won silver in the PR3 four with coxswain at the 2024 Paralympic Games. At the 2023 World Rowing Championships, Vogt and Wollenschlaeger raced together in the PR3 mixed double sculls and won a silver medal.

On the Beach Sprints side, Bak and Hahl, both four-time National 32

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Team members, captured gold medals in their respective events in 2024 on the international stage. Bak raced to a first-place finish at the World Beach Sprint Finals in the men’s solo, and Hahl won the junior women’s solo and junior women’s double sculls events.

Grady, who recently joined the Washington Huskies men’s rowing team as an assistant coach, is a two-time Olympian and a gold medalist in the men’s four at the Paris Olympics.

“It was certainly a big year for me,” said Grady. “It’s been a lot of work, and finally seeing the success is incredible. I really didn’t anticipate this was the way things would go. I knew we had a chance to win based on how we performed last year and the time we were together in the boat.”

The Carie Graves Female Athlete of the Year, Meghan Musniski, is a four-time Olympian. She has competed at five world championships and won two Olympic gold medals. Musniski has represented the United States on the national stage for over 14 years.

“Sara Hendershot, who is on one of the USRowing athlete committees, told me that the men and women on the senior team had voted me female athlete of the year,”

Musniski said. “I was surprised and really honored because it’s an award that has nothing to do with your immediate results and is all about what your teammates think about you as a teammate—your work ethic, drive, and you as an overall person.

“That’s really special, because I’ve trained with a lot of people who are incredibly hard-working and deserving of the award.”

Musniski is one of the most decorated rowers on the women’s senior team, and this year’s Olympics was especially meaningful for her because she was able to experience it with her husband, Skip Kielt, who coached the Olympic men’s double.

“If you told 25-year-old Meghan that in the next 15 years she would have five world titles, two Olympic golds, and four appearances at an Olympics, I would have laughed at you. It’s amazing.

“It’s pretty unique to be at my fourth and final Olympics with Skip’s first of many Olympics, I hope. Getting to experience that as a couple is something that not a lot of people can say.”

Musniski and the other athletes will be honored on Attager Row at the Head of the Charles Regatta on Saturday, Oct. 19, at 5 EMILY WINSLOW p.m.

NE WS

An Infusion of New Blood Ambitious assistant coaches join UCLA, USC, and the Naval Academy with fresh ideas and energy.

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uillermo Lemus, Larkin Brown, and Nick Peterson have stepped into assistant-coaching positions at the University of California, Los Angeles, the University of Southern California, and the United States Naval Academy, respectively.

Lemus joins the Bruins after serving as associate head women’s rowing coach at the University of Kansas and before that as an assistant rowing coach at Oklahoma University. At Kansas, Lemus coached the 2023 Big XII Newcomer of the Year and the 2022 Co-Big XII Newcomer of the Year.

At Oklahoma, Lemus was part of the team that earned a second-place finish at the Big 12 Championships in 2018 and 2019.

Lemus has coached also at the University of Southern California, the University of San Diego, San Diego Rowing Club, California Yacht Club, and Lions Rowing Club. He learned to row when he was 12 in Amatitlan, Guatemala, and graduated in 1990 from the International Institute for Computer Studies.

Nick Peterson joins Navy heavyweight rowing with a notable rowing career of competing on the U.S. National and Olympic teams from 1998 to 2000 and racing to a seventh-place finish at the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games. He will be working with Steve Gladstone, who took the helm at Navy this summer.

“The Naval Academy epitomizes growth mindset,” Peterson said. “It’s a very freeing culture. Many athletes start as walk-ons, so there is a culture of support, and everyone tries to make those around them better. At some point, we all hit a roadblock of some kind. It can be very limiting because it means we don’t stretch beyond ourselves.

With a growth mindset, everything is an opportunity to learn.”

For Peterson, his time working with Guennadi Bratichko, who coaches at Capitol Rowing Club in Washington, D.C., was influential in forging the coaching style he’ll bring to the water coaching at Navy.

Brown, who joins the USC coaching staff after a successful collegiate rowing

career at the University of Virginia, coached for the USRowing Olympic Development Program last summer and will bring a wealth of knowledge from her Atlantic Coast Conference and NCAA championship appearances.

“When I graduated, I felt like my rowing career was complete, but I was still not ready to leave rowing,” Brown said. “I think about how much I loved my college rowing experience and the opportunities it provided me. Since I’m a recent graduate, I know what it’s like to be a college rower right now.”

The USC rowing team, with Brown’s guidance, is excited and hungry to explore and realize its potential.

“For us, it’s still early days. One of our major goals is for the athletes to grow physically and emotionally—to create confident rowers and boost their belief in themselves and in each other.”

EMILY WINSLOW

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Some Respect and Dignity, Please TOP SOUTHWEST REFS WILL BOYCOTT USROWING REGATTAS NEXT YEAR UNLESS THEY GET BETTER PAY AND TRAVEL ARRANGEMENTS.

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op referees in the Southwest region

will no longer work at USRowing regattas after the first of the year unless the national governing body improves working conditions.

Dissatisfied with the current treatment of referees, a group of seven clinicians— the designation for the most skilled and experienced referees—is seeking to establish minimum standards for stipends, travel expenses, and hotel accommodations to improve the retention, recruitment, and diversity of the referee corps.

The demands were specified in a letter to USRowing CEO Amanda Kraus and shared with the other 45 referees in the region, who were encouraged, though not required, to take them into account when selecting which regattas to work.

“The referees feel like they’re not treated with the dignity and respect that’s fair for the amount of time we put in, for the amount of love and care we put in,” said

STORY BY CHIP DAVIS PHOTOS BY LISA WORTHY

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Referees can play an essential role in ensuring the safe operation of regattas.

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A group of referees is organizing to demand better treatment from USRowing.

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clinician Taylor Gooch.

The clinicians are requesting minimum daily stipends ranging from $175 for assistant referees to $400 for chiefs.

Their other demands: —Meals on site and full reimbursement of travel expenses —Airfare and a checked bag for regattas farther than 100 miles away —Full coverage, including insurance, for rental cars —Single-occupancy hotel rooms The referees have voiced their complaints directly to USRowing and through participation on committees, but, said Gooch, “the conversation wasn’t going anywhere, and we had to put a stake in the sand.”

USRowing contends that the referees have not expressed their concerns to the governing body appropriately. In an email to the Southwest clinicians, Tom Rooks, USRowing’s director of Safeguarding, said the regional referee coordinator had not heard from clinicians about their pay and travel demands. Nor, in the last five months, had he or Hugh McAdam, the USRowing official who oversees referee programs.

Bryan Fraser, referee coordinator for the Southwest region, said he was aware, however, of conversations among the clinicians that led to the 2025 ultimatum.

“Every time USRowing has reached out, the referees provide feedback, and USRowing proceeds to make no changes.

We have still not received everything that was promised in 2019,” he said.

“We take all feedback from our referee corps into consideration and place great emphasis on listening to their needs and meeting them where possible,” responded Lizzie Seedhouse, USRowing’s chief marketing officer.

“USRowing already meets several of these demands and has been for many years, while others require in-depth analysis to ascertain and measure the impact on USRowing’s ability to offer sustainable and affordable regattas for our athletes to compete in.”

Every year, many regattas take place that are not run by USRowing or don’t use licensed referees.

The American Collegiate Rowing Association (ACRA) national

championship employs static refereeing (referees are stationed along the course instead of following the racing in launches). This decreases the number of referees required to run a fair nationalchampionship regatta and minimizes their footprint, and wakes, on the racecourse.

The Foot of the Charles, held annually in November on Boston’s Charles River, doesn’t employ referees at all.

Coaches from local universities run the regatta, which is held over a course longer than the actual Head of the Charles and hosts a handful of out-of-town teams in addition to local crews. Coaches corral crews in the starting area, call them across the start line, are stationed along the course for traffic control and safety, and run all of the timing. This has been done regularly without incident.

At many USRowing-run regattas, referees can spend 12 hours a day at the regatta site for as many as three days (as is the case at the Southwest Youth Championships), then share a hotel room.

This, Gooch says, leaves referees without time to decompress or enjoy personal space during a long and stressful several days of running a regional championship.

The clinicians argue that these issues impact the retention of existing referees and the recruitment of new ones, a topic explored in depth in “The Looming Ref Crisis” (Rowing News, March, 2024).

The current per diem rates have made it difficult to fill a full referee jury. To complete the jury at the Southwest Youth Championships this year, USRowing had to fly out referees from other regions because local referees were dissatisfied with the current stipend and hotel situation, said Gooch, who served as chief referee.

Limited financial support for referees, who often take time off from work to serve at regattas, limits the referee pool to those who have the financial resources or are no longer working.

“It’s people who can afford to take off the time, afford to not make that money,” Gooch said. “That in and of itself is selecting a group of referees who are not representative of our rowing population in a way that doesn’t feel right to all of us clinicians.”

The stipend demands of the Southwest clinicians are not far from USRowing’s 2024 allowances and, in

fact, some of the demands are being met already. This year, all referees received a base of $175 per regatta day at USRowingrun events, while deputies and chiefs received an additional bonus ranging from $175 to $1,500 per event depending on their position on the jury and whether they were working a regional or national championship (the chief referee at Nationals would receive $2,200 for the four-day regatta).

USRowing provided single-occupancy rooms only for referees at the nationalchampionship regattas—the Youth National Championships and RowFest National Championship. Deputy chief referees who received $700 for working a three-day regional regatta in 2024 would, under the newly proposed system, receive $1,050 next year. Assistant referees, who are not yet licensed fully, would see no increase in their daily stipend but would benefit from single-occupancy rooms at all regattas.

Though stipend boosts are modest for each individual referee, the cumulative cost for a regatta would be significant. The move from double- to single-occupancy rooms alone would double the cost of what already is one of a regatta’s biggest budget lines. When the IRA National Championship regatta moved to providing all referees and regatta staff with singleoccupancy rooms, hotel costs jumped from $11,000 to $23,000.

The referees have had discussions with Monica Hilcu, head coach of Redwood Scullers and organizer of the Head of the Lagoon, a regatta well on its way to meeting their wishes (for starters, all referees will have single-occupancy rooms).

“If Redwood Scullers can do this for the Head of the Lagoon, there’s no reason USRowing can’t do it for this year’s Southwest championships,” Gooch said.

Their demands, the clinicians emphasize, are not about meeting a specific dollar amount but about what meeting these minimums signifies to members of the corps.

“I want to walk away from regattas that I chief for USRowing and have the referees feel like they were treated with dignity and respect by USRowing,” Gooch said, “and I haven’t felt that way for years.”

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FAITHFUL COURAGE WHILE OTHER COLLEGES PONDER CUTTING OLYMPIC SPORTS, HIGH POINT UNIVERSITY HAS EMBRACED THE FUTURE BY LAUNCHING A VARSITY WOMEN’S ROWING TEAM. CROWS THE ATHLETIC DIRECTOR: “IT’S A WONDERFUL OPPORTUNITY!”

STORY BY MADELINE DAVIS TULLY PHOTOS COURTESY OF HIGH POINT UNIVERSITY

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n a clear warm morning in late August, 35 women donned fresh purple team kit, picked up newly painted oars, and took to the waters of Oak Hollow Lake in North Carolina for the first practice of the High Point University varsity women’s rowing team.

For head coach Jessica Deitrick, this day had been a long time coming. A decade, to be precise. Named the head coach for the newly established team in May 2023, Deitrick began her journey to that August morning when she arrived in High Point, N.C., in 2014 to coach the then-club rowing team and serve as the director of club sports.

In her two years with the Panthers club team, she oversaw both the men’s and women’s squads, winning an ACRA national championship and securing a silver medal at Dad Vails in 2015.

The athletic department at that time had added lacrosse and was considering adding another varsity sport. In 2014, Dan Hauser, HPU’s athletic director, approached Deitrick to ask about elevating the club rowing team to varsity status, but she believed the time wasn’t right.

“I don’t think you’re ready for it yet,” Deitrick remembers telling Hauser. “Could it happen down the road? Yes, but I don’t think you have the resources for it quite yet.”

The university was not in a position then to provide the funding necessary to compete on the national level, and Deitrick knew she had her own development to tend to as well.

In 2016, she made the move to Division I rowing, taking on an assistant-coaching role with the Naval Academy women and in 2019 becoming the head women’s coach at Colgate University.

But she never forgot the potential that beckoned in North Carolina.

“I never stopped watching High Point.”

At a time when the future of college athletics is in flux and some universities may reduce financial support for Olympic sports

or cut them outright, High Point made the decision to add a varsity women’s rowing team in 2023.

“We want to win in everything,” Hauser, still HPU’s athletic director, declared. “It pains me when—and I’m not disparaging Ohio State—I hear their leadership say recently that they may have tiers of teams. That’s just sad to me.”

The decision to add rowing is very much in keeping with the character and culture of the university, he asserted.

“We have made a ton of decisions with faithful courage, meaning that we aren’t afraid to add rowing. We’re adding a law school. We’re adding a school of dentistry.

It takes faithful courage to start programs from scratch.”

That “faithful courage” has paid dividends over the past two decades on the picture-perfect ever-expanding campus.

When Nido Qubein, a successful businessman, motivational speaker, and High Point alum, became president of the university in 2005, HPU was a small, struggling, tuition-dependent liberal-arts college. Since then, HPU has transformed its campus and culture, investing nearly $3 billion in facilities and academic programs, according to the Princeton Review (Rowing News was not able to verify that figure independently). HPU has opened or is in the process of opening five new graduate schools (law, dental medicine, nursing, entrepreneurship, and optometry), and the campus has grown from 91 acres to 530. In addition to rowing, the university added men’s and women’s lacrosse.

Perhaps the only aspect of life at High Point that’s not better now than it was 20 years ago is financial aid. In 2021, about 30 percent of financial need was covered, down from nearly 50 percent in 2005. In 2020, only 11.5 percent of HPU’s firstyear students were recipients of federal Pell grants, awarded to students with exceptional financial need, and of 1,658 institutions ranked by Education Reform Now, a nonpartisan K-16 education think tank and advocacy organization, High Point came in at 1,629.

Nevertheless, enrollment has grown

from fewer than 2,000 students to 6,000, while the operating budget has swelled from $40 million 20 years ago to $350 million this year.

Hauser credits Qubein for the dramatic change in fortune.

“President Qubein came from the business world, not the academic world, and his knowledge of business has been very powerful in helping this university make sound business decisions.”

High Point’s rank in the Princeton Review’s survey of the best-run colleges in America: No. 1.

The dramatic growth and a concomitant focus on an upscale experience are evident in every aspect of campus life.

Classical music is piped into outdoor spaces, and snacks and coffee are available for free at gazebos as students hurry to class.

Dorms offer a nail salon and barber shop.

Fine-dining campus restaurants, included in meal plans, require reservations, business attire, and proper etiquette and are designed to prepare students for future business and networking meals. A concierge advises students and their families about the best amenities both within and beyond the university’s gated walls.

So when time came to add another sport, High Point wanted to make a splash.

“Our leadership team has done a lot of unique things on our campus, and we continue to try to find unique ways we can expand and brand the university,” Hauser explained. “We looked at rowing as one of those unique ways to continue the growth and exposure of the university.”

After adding women’s and men’s lacrosse in 2011 and 2013, respectively, and achieving success quickly, the HPU athletic department knew what it was looking for in its next sport.

For starters, rowing enables the university to differentiate itself from peer institutions while appealing to its core demographic (60 percent of students come from Virginia and points north, where rowing is relatively popular). Like lacrosse, rowing has a “heavily Northeast footprint,” Hauser said, “which is where our students are coming from.”

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High Point is only the third DI rowing program in North Carolina, in addition to Duke and the University of North Carolina.

By adding rowing, High Point figured it could “create uniqueness,” Hauser said, “and differentiate High Point University from our peer competitors in the state and in the region.”

The ability to be competitive in the sport nationally was also a significant factor.

to video boards and the amenities,” Hauser said. “We couldn’t have an inferior Title IX facility relative to what we already had.

“Our university’s message is ‘choose to be extraordinary,’ so we want to try to be extraordinary in everything we’re choosing to do.”

From the start of her return to High Point, Dietrick felt that extraordinary commitment. There was a press conference

“OUR UNIVERSITY’S MESSAGE IS ‘CHOOSE TO BE EXTRAORDINARY” —DAN HAUSER While there are nearly 300 DI softball programs across the country, there are only about 90 DI women’s rowing teams. For a department seeking success on a larger stage, this smaller pond was appealing.

Rather than having to surpass 250 teams, HPU’s rowers need to better only 70 teams to be ranked nationally, Hauser noted.

Logistical matters also made rowing the right choice. Oak Hollow Lake is just 10 minutes from campus and features protected water, a buoyed racecourse, and a vibrant local rowing scene. A boathouse is being built, and HPU has a successful club team already, a promising seedbed for the new varsity squad.

Title IX also played a role, of course.

The last sport added, men’s lacrosse, has a roster of 50 to 60 athletes, so the school was looking for a counterbalance.

When considering the necessary financial investment, rowing came out on top compared to other sports that require more money for equipment and facilities, even with a full slate of 20 athletic scholarships, which the team will build up to over three years.

For example, the cost of adding rowing was much lower than a “full-out softball stadium that has to match our current baseball stadium, from club suites to lights

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to announce her hiring and introduce her to the High Point community, an uncommon amount of fanfare for a rowing coach, even among the flashiest athletic departments.

Newly designed team unisuits were on hand, and the website had been updated already to reflect the addition of the newest team.

Most meaningful to Deitrick: Signs around the athletic department that had read “16 teams, One family” had been revised.

“At other places, they’re like, ‘Oh, it’s the rowing coach. Whatever. We don’t even need to do a press conference.’ But here the signs had already been changed to ‘17 teams. One family.’

“I felt appreciated and welcomed into the community.”

Since her hiring, Deitrick has been working to create a team that also will be extraordinary. Her focus is on recruiting athletes who are a good fit for what the team needs now.

“It’s got to be someone really gritty.

This is a fight. We’re an underdog and we’re going to be an underdog for a while,” Deitrick tells recruits.

She’s realistic and is looking for diamonds in the rough, knowing that she can develop their rowing skills but that their character is what’s most important.

“It’s not going to be the prettiest of rowing. I can make it prettier, but I can’t teach grit and determination.”

It’s a tough ask of 18-year-olds. The team has no track record, no boathouse (yet), no alumni, and its future success is far from guaranteed. But Deitrick leans into the opportunity to build a legacy. She asks recruits to look 15 years into the future.

“This team is going to be at NCAAs, and they’re going to be in an A or B final.

And you can say, ‘I did that. They are there because I laid the groundwork for it.’”

She admits that the current team is unlikely to attain those heights, but the group is excited about erecting the foundation for rowers in the future.

Hauser echoed the sentiment.

“This first class of women rowers who walked in the door in fall of 2024 have courage to believe in the university, to believe that a boathouse is going to get constructed.

That’s a testament to their character.”

In late September, High Point was training for its first varsity contest, an early-October appearance at the High Point Autumn Rowing Festival, where the crew would vie against Duke, Old Dominion, the Oxford University lightweights, and the Ukrainian national-team eight.

“That High Point University’s first race as the newest university team in the country, or maybe in the world, will be against Oxford, the oldest university, is kind of interesting,” understated Gene Kininmonth, the festival’s director and the head coach of local club Triad United.

Yes, High Point has no past; it has yet to write its history and establish its pedigree.

But teams like High Point are the future of collegiate rowing in America.

“We’re thrilled with rowing,” Hauser said. “It’s a wonderful opportunity!” —one other athletic departments should consider.

“I have encouraged other ADs—if you have a body of water and could potentially bring this on, you’re foolish not to look at rowing.”

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THE

INTERVIEW

MICHAEL CALLAHAN PHOTOS: SCOTT EKLUND / REDBOX PICTURES

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niversity of Washington —and U.S. National Team—alumnus Michael Callahan coached both crews to historic success this year, after both had off years in 2023. Callahan, who had coached at least one crew to an IRA title in every year of his now 18-year tenure as the Huskies’ head men’s coach, got shut out by the sweep of chief rival Cal, while the U.S. National Team men’s eight failed to qualify for the Olympics at the 2023 World Rowing Championships.

Casey Galvanek selected the 2024 crew of nine who trained at clubs like California Rowing Club before coming together under chief coach Josy Verdonkschot’s U.S. National Team system.

Callahan coached the men’s eight in Seattle before taking them to Lucerne, Switzerland, for the Final Olympic and Paralympic Qualifying Regatta in May, where they earned a spot in the Paris Games. Callahan then led his Washington Huskies to a sweep—winning every men’s heavyweight event—of the IRA National Championship Regatta in New Jersey, where he remained to continue coaching the Olympic eight before the Huskies went to Henley, where they advanced to the

Sunday final of the Grand Challenge Cup. The men’s Olympic eight won bronze in Paris under Callahan’s tutelage, the first Olympic medal for U.S. men since Beijing 2008.

Rowing News: You are known as the Washington men’s varsity head coach, but you were quite an oarsman yourself, even before attending Washington, winning the 1992 World Rowing Junior Championships in the eight at Montreal.

How did you come to rowing?

I had humble beginnings like many people have in rowing. I was playing a lot of sports and I broke my hand playing baseball when my dad was stationed at the Pentagon and I found rowing in my high school and something really resonated in me right away. My first time rowing ever was with Charlie Butt, the father of the Harvard coach [Charley Butt]. He took me out in a Pocock wherry double, and I rowed in a big circle on the Potomac River right above the Key Bridge and that was the beginning of my rowing career.

And, like most, rowing changed my life, and I’m happy to be in this business still.

Rowing News: And then you ended up in Seattle, when Washington was really coming back as a national force in rowing.

Yeah, I rowed four years in high school, playing other sports, and had made a junior team and done well enough to be recruited back to Washington. At one point my family had lived out here when my dad was stationed at Bangor submarine base, so I knew about the Great Pacific Northwest and the University of Washington and I was fortunate to be recruited by them.

Bob Ernst had taken the program over a few years earlier from Dick Erickson, and they were on the climb to national prominence. I always tell people I graduated [in 1996] as Bobby Cummins came in to stroke the boat and they won, so that was definitely an upgrade [laughs].

We had been building up, getting closer and closer to the national championship, and that year was the first women’s NCAA championship, and we hadn’t won the IRA I think since ‘71, so 1997 was a phenomenal year for the University of Washington, and everyone’s really proud of what was accomplished that year, the whole boathouse.

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Rowing News: You worked at the Head of the Charles years ago?

I went to try out for the National Team in Princeton right after I graduated, and worked there for a while and then I took a year off in 2001 when I didn’t make the Olympic team in 2000, and one of my good friends hired me back to the Head of Charles to do an internship, and it was a great experience actually to look at the business of rowing and not just the rowing part as an oarsman or as a coach.

I got to get insight of what it takes to run a regatta, what it takes to get sponsorship, and see really what happens behind the curtain of running a major regatta.

Rowing News: The last time I saw you it was the last day at the Olympics and you had just coached the U.S. men’s eight to a bronze medal, the first medal in men’s Olympic rowing for the U.S. since 2008.

That was the cap of quite a summer for you.

What a phenomenal performance by those athletes and the whole team. I’m certainly very grateful to have had a small part in that. I was coaching at the very end but when I think about the bigger picture, these guys had been training for this for many, many years, and it started off in their home clubs, maybe at Rose City or New Trier or CRI, and here they were on one of the biggest stages in sports and performing at a really high level. I’m definitely really grateful that they thought of me as someone who could help them achieve something and just one piece of Josy’s and Casey’s team to put it together.

So I’m definitely really proud of that group, and something I’ll look back on very fondly for the rest of my life.

Rowing News: You’re had a lot of success coaching various National Teams in addition to the University of Washington.

You’ve run a lot of under-23 camps that have won medals. Josy called this Olympic cycle a constellation of coaches who were stimulating each other to bring out the best. How? It’s really important if we want to have great teams, we have to model being in great teams. I really appreciate that Josy gave me the opportunity to help coach this boat, but the other part was a big group of people that coached them. Think

about their whole Olympic cycle: there’s quite a few people that contributed, Mike Teti and Skip Kielt and Tom Terhaar and Steve Gladstone. There’s quite a few people that had an input on this all, and there were a lot of lessons learned, and the culmination was them performing and winning an Olympic medal. So I agree with Josy and I think it’s something that in American rowing, if we want to elevate toward the Olympic Games, we’re going to have to obviously collaborate with each other and use all the best resources and all our best skills that we all bring. Again, I was very fortunate to be there at the end but many, many people had inputs in this performance of the team.

Rowing News: Talk specifically about the technique and the style of that men’s eight. They did have a distinctive look to the power phase of their stroke. Is that something you coached very intentionally with this group of guys?

Yeah, with Josy coming in and Casey’s direction, there was definitely a direction of how we wanted them, a vision of how we wanted the men’s sweep team to row. If you look at the style, it is closer to Rosenberg style: a lot of seat speed at the bow, leaving the trunk forward and braced, and then bringing the trunk with speed off the back of the legs and a lot of elbow speed back to the bow. It was very sequential that way. A lot like building speed and building momentum to the bow. That was set out, and then we just tried to reinforce it all summer and to improve it, and refine it—which we did and the guys did. There is more work that could be done, but that’s for the next Olympic cycle.

Rowing News: You had a wide range of body types of the eight oarsmen in the Olympic eight. I know you’re a big user of the Peach system, electronics in general, and measurement of things that can’t necessarily be seen by the human eye every time. You rigged each seat individually, and there were quite some differences there. Is that something you carried over from the University of Washington? Is that something you can do more with elite athletes?

Yeah, it’s a great point. One of the biggest performance improvements in rowing right now is onboard telemetry.

You’re seeing it everywhere from highschool rowing to collegiate rowing to elite rowing. I only saw two boats have the telemetry system on their boats in Paris, and that was us and the British [who won the gold]. Maybe other people did, but they were the only two I saw. We used that information. We had a few different heights, different body proportions, and we were trying to optimize each person’s physiology and optimize each person’s rowing stroke. Those systems allow us to have insight on our length, power, impulse, what have you. So, yeah, there is a lot of individual rigging going on per seat, but then the culmination has to be some kind of alchemy between people.

The style, the rowing, the mindset, and other things help bring it all together. But, yeah, each seat was quite a bit different.

There was a lot of individual rigging and it helped optimize each person, which I think we’ll see more of in the future. This is only the beginning. Now that we have more of a scientific insight on where forces are in the boat, positive and negative, we can optimize our sport, similar to what cycling has done.

Rowing News: Were you able to do that with this crew specifically because, as you said at media day, these nine guys were the most detail-oriented, obsessive crew you’ d ever worked with?

Yeah, it was the atmosphere that Josy brought and Casey also brings. All of us had a common vision, it was collective, with different guys with different heights and different abilities. The guys really believed that it was very specific to them, and we were optimizing each of them.

This group was fantastic to coach, very inquisitive, very interested in learning about how they were going to improve and very down to each detail—which was quite challenging as a coach! But it made everyone better and everyone have a stronger understanding of what we’re trying to achieve as a unit and not just individually. So it was a culmination of things. It has to be a cumulative environment and one that everyone believes in what’s happening.

Rowing News: Is one of the things it was a culmination of a lot of Husky rowers?

Nine UW athletes on the U.S. Olympic roster and 11 total medals won by Huskies at the Olympics?

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We’re definitely really proud of that, how many Huskies, men and women, made the Olympic and Paralympic team this summer. It’s something we recruited to, it’s something we told a lot of young people when they were in high school: We would help them reach their Olympic dream and help them develop toward it. We have one current student-athlete, Logan Ullrich, coming back, who won an Olympic silver medal in the New Zealand four. That’s quite exciting. And then we had a lot of alumni. Something we value is that if you want to row at the highest level, we’re telling people ‘Come to Washington; we’ll help you achieve that.’ This is where rowers come to row, and we don’t want to be the end spot of most people’s career. We want it to be a place where you develop and move on and reach even higher things as you graduate from this program.

Rowing News: It was quite a summer for Husky rowing, even before the Paris Games. Your men’s varsity eight were finalists in the Grand Challenge Cup at the Henley Royal Regatta. That’s an event for Olympic crews, not college crews. What were you doing there?

We had an opportunity. It’s an Olympic year. So usually, you’re right, most years Olympic-level folks go and race in the Grand Challenge Cup. With the Olympics being in Paris and close to that date, those crews did not come. We were fortunate enough to win the IRA National Championship, and I posed it to those guys. I told them it was a once-in-alifetime opportunity to race, have a chance to compete and also to maybe even prevail at the Henley Royal Regatta in that event.

And they took on that challenge, which I really appreciate. Traditionally, most colleges race in the Ladies Plate, and the Temple Challenge Cup. We opted out to go to the highest-level bracket, and I really respect the fact that our guys took it on.

Rowing News: You took a very different crew to Henley in 2023, a very young crew. Can Henley be a development trip as well as a reward trip?

We’ve used it both directions. We’ve used it to help develop our team who’s younger and need to have race experience.

It’s match racing, and if you continue

down the bracket, you get a lot of racing experience. And that’s really valuable. It also extends your training for a couple of weeks into the summer. So for some years, the investment is you’re trying to build and develop young people into better racers and continue their training.

And then this year, it was more of a reward trip. To take an entire varsity eight is actually very difficult in this day and time. Most students that really have the Olympics or a national team on their mind want to go race for their nation. So they’re going to the Under-23 World Championship or the Senior World Championship. This year, since the Olympics were early, the Under-23 World Championship was late. So it opened the door to send more of our better guys to Henley. So it was a more of a reward trip and also maybe a pinnacle trip. We had been in the Grand Challenge Cup in 2013 and made the final. We won in 1977, we went into that event in 1978 and 1984, so it’s not something you’re able to do very often, and that’s why it was worth doing.

And we’re only going to be better this season because of it.

Rowing News: If you’re going to be better this year, that’s trouble for everyone else because you swept the 2024 IRA. How did you feel as that regatta unfolded?

It’s really nice as a coach, there’s nothing you’re more proud of then when you see people performing at their pinnacle on the day that you’re training for. I heard an Olympic gymnast say, ‘My average has to be good enough.’ And that Olympic gymnast won an Olympic gold medal. You have to have trained to such a high standard that you might not have your best race on the final day, it might be just an average day for you or a little below average. That still has to be at a high enough standard to be able to win or to medal. At the IRA, the team, from top to bottom, were hitting on all cylinders— those days are always really fun. We had really great cohesion across the whole boathouse, and people bought in.

You train for something for that many years and it all unfolds. And you let the athletes do their thing. They’re trained and they’re confident enough to perform at that level. There’s nothing you can be more proud of.

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SPORT SCIENCE | TRAINING | COXING | BEST PRACTICES | FUEL | COACH DEVELOPMENT

TRAINING

SP OR T SCIENCE

Mastering the Erg Test Ergometer tests cause more anxiety in athletes usually than a hard training session or even a race on the water, although they’re actually not that different.

PHOTO: LISA WORTHY

E

rgometer tests and races are used in every rowing program in the world.

They are used to select, train at a specific intensity, or satisfy the urge to compete. They can show what you can achieve as an individual and whether your training is translating into improvement.

Ergometer tests cause more anxiety in athletes often than a hard training session or even a race on the water, although they’re actually not that different. In a hard training session, you should push yourself to the limit, and in a satisfying race, you should do the best you can.

In an ergometer race, you can’t do more than that. So why do erg tests feel so different and why do you worry so much in anticipation?

First, many people talk about ergometer tests negatively, as exhausting

lung-busting ordeals that push athletes to the brink of human endurance. After hearing their tales, it’s natural to feel dread and think you’d better prepare for the worst.

Second, with each stroke, you get immediate feedback on exactly what you did, and you can’t hide. You get very objective information about what you’re doing and where you are in relation to your expectations and plan. You can reach your goal in a workout or a race without pushing yourself to the limit. You can reach a certain training intensity or win a race without going all out and still achieve a satisfactory result.

But the ergometer test is unforgiving.

If you don’t push yourself to your absolute limit, the result will be clear, undeniable, and disappointing.

Third, we begin an erg test typically expecting to achieve a personal best. You know what you did last time and want to do better, which is perfectly natural.

Combine this with the wrong race plan and you make life difficult for yourself.

Many people talk about the pain one experiences during such tests, although the physical feedback is just an unpleasant sensation caused by acidic buildup in the muscles from the incomplete breakdown of glycogen, which provides the necessary energy to pull hard. The amount of acid depends on the intensity of the work.

Despite the discomfort, you can and will persevere; it just takes plenty of motivation. You know the test lasts only a few minutes and that afterward you’ll feel better. Even if you do nothing after the test, your body will take care of the byNOVEMBER 2024

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TRAINING products and break down the acid.

But if you injure your back during an erg test, you’ll be in severe pain and will have to stop. Such pain does not go away on its own and must be treated by a doctor.

Being uncomfortable and being in pain are two different things.

Use your body’s feedback to guide your efforts and interpret it in a positive way.

To reduce the anxiety of an ergometer test and prepare for a successful performance, I suggest the following:

Stop talking about the expected pain.

What’s to be expected is discomfort, and if you’re not experiencing it, you’re not working at full capacity. Use your body’s feedback to guide your efforts and interpret it in a positive way. Learn to use it to control your performance, resisting the urge to stop too early and staying strong enough mentally to stay on target and complete the challenge. Push yourself the same way you would in a tough race on the water.

Set a realistic but challenging goal.

Based on previous training sessions, you should have a firm idea of how fast you can go. Do some prep sessions to assess your current fitness. Be honest with yourself and heed the advice of your coach. Be positive about the upcoming test. Embrace the nervousness that everyone has before a test.

Set process goals that you can work on to keep yourself positive and motivated.

Such goals begin with a plan for how you’ll organize your time and activities before the test, such as when you’ll go to bed, when you’ll eat, what you’ll eat, how you’ll get to the venue, how you’ll warm up, etc.

Then, how you’ll begin the test, how many strokes and at what intensity, what stroke rate you’ll try to reach and when, how you’ll feel at different points of the race. Make sure you talk positively to yourself the whole time before and during the test. Pat yourself on the back for every process goal you achieve, even the smallest and easiest ones.

Plan your race strategy. This includes 58

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the performance target, measured by average splits, and the three phases of the race—start, middle, and finishing sprint.

The target average times must be based on previous experience. Then, plan the length of the individual race phases and the targeted splits.

The start of an ergometer race should be about 250 meters. It’s helpful to set a stroke sequence that you can count down.

Each sequence should have a focus—the first five strokes to get the fan going, then five strokes at maximum intensity to get your energy system fired up, then 15 strokes to stretch out and transition to your medium race pace while making the most of the fast-spinning fan. As an experienced rower, you can extend the length of the start by 50 meters.

The middle of the race is the longest part and also the most important for reaching your goal. Be aware that your split times need to be two to three seconds slower than your target splits for the whole race. The challenge here is to race very efficiently.

Research has shown that it’s important to maintain a sufficiently high individual stroke rate so that you achieve the desired intensity with a good rhythm and a certain ease. Since you breathe twice per stroke, an appropriate stroke rate allows more air to circulate in your lungs. Too low a stroke rate requires higher force per stroke, which tends to produce more lactate.

At what point you begin your finishing sprint depends on how hard you’ve worked and how motivated you are. If you’re happy with your performance and want to approach the finish conservatively, begin your sprint 250 meters before the finish.

If you’re highly motivated and want to challenge yourself, begin at 750 meters before the finish.

In either case, you need to increase your stroke rate and power output. At this point, it helps to count strokes again and to lower your split for each stroke sequence you begin counting. The ideal is to have tried out a particular sequence in training so you know the stroke rate and power output you need to achieve.

When you realize your process and achieve your goals, the feeling of accomplishment will be amazing.

VOLKER NOLTE

COX ING

Indoor Involvement

The winter affords you the time to really get to know your rowers, develop your technical knowledge of the stroke, and help move your team forward.

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or some of us, the time has arrived to turn our attention toward indoor training. While it’s easy to feel adrift out of the coxswain’s seat, the winter presents a fantastic opportunity to help further your team’s goals and your personal development.

The key rule of indoor practices is to be involved; don’t just stand at the back of the room. Your rowers are working hard, taking risks, and performing, and it’s time for you to do the same. The winter affords you the time to really get to know your rowers, develop your technical knowledge of the stroke, and help move your team forward.

Know how to make the most of your steady-state practices. First, watch your rowers until you have a full picture of what they’re doing. If you see your coach giving a lot of feedback to a particular athlete, check in with the coach so that you can reinforce that message. Several coaches and a group of coxswains all giving involved feedback is great, but it can also get overwhelming if a rower is getting too many corrections at once.

“We encourage the coxswains to pick one major thing about a rower that they think will make the biggest impact in that piece or on that day,” said Skye Eliot, varsity girls coach at Community Rowing, Inc. “We’ll ask them to give the rower a little bit of feedback on one thing, perhaps video it first, and then during a rest period or after the workout, they can show the video and explain the technical change.”

This real-time technical feedback can be valuable to your rowers and help you discover what technical calls and cues are effective for individual athletes.

When giving feedback, make sure to integrate the same language and focuses you and your coaches have been using on the water.

“Listen to the language we’re using, the explanations of the strokes, the drills, and the cues we add to the drills,” said Eliot.

If you’ve been paying attention, it’ll be easy for you to use the same technical language to help your rowers transition from the water to the erg. It’s also a great opportunity to clarify any coaching that you didn’t understand on the water so that you and your coach are on the same page technically. The stroke is an endless puzzle; even the very best rowers on your team will be working on refining certain elements, so you’ll never run out of feedback to give or things to look at.

When coxing pieces, know your rowers.

It’s important to know goal splits and race plans so that you can encourage your rowers to stay on target. Talk with them beforehand about their plans and goals— don’t be that coxswain who is screaming at a rower to drive the split down when that rower is right on target. As with a race on the water, there’s a rhythm to an erg piece.

“In the beginning of the piece, you let the rower do their thing and focus on the execution of the piece. As the piece goes on, we do encourage the coxswains to get more aggressive and excited in their motivation,” said Eliot.

You may face the challenge of a rower who simply doesn’t react well to coxswain feedback. If you have a prickly rower, check in with her before a practice or a piece and ask her what she’s focused on and what kind of feedback is helpful.

With less receptive rowers, “you can create an agreement ahead of time that it’s OK to give feedback,” said Eliot. “Rowers who are competitive are almost always going to want to talk about what you see.”

Be confident, offer feedback, and be attentive and receptive to your rowers’ needs. For a coxswain, the winter can be a time to be selfless. It’s not about showcasing your own abilities, but about helping your teammates row better and perform well.

Show up for your teammates, and you’ll be rewarded when you get back on HANNAH WOODRUFF the water.

ROBBIE CONSULTING Helping rowers worldwide get scholorships

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elping high school rowers and families navigate the university recruiting process- Coaches and parent groups reach out to us!

Robbie Consulting will meet your team, coaches and parents at your home club or school. Go to www. robbieconsulting.com to get in touch and schedule a visit “His assistance was essential to get prepared for such a big step and to get to know the school and team I would compete for.” www.robbieconsulting.com 1-614-330-2879 • Robbie@robbieconsulting.com

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TRAINING

FUEL

Gut Check Feeding the 100 trillion beneficial microbes that live in your gut properly will improve your wellbeing and enable you to perform longer, recover faster, and heal cells damaged during exercise.

T

he gut, also called the intestinal

tract, includes the stomach, intestines, and colon. An amazing number of life-sustaining and performance-enhancing events happen in the gut, including the digestion of the food we eat and the absorption of nutrients that provide energy.

While those of us with wellfunctioning “cast-iron stomachs” are unlikely to think twice before eating any food that crosses our path, rowers with gastrointestinal issues (irritable bowel, diarrhea, reflux) are more cautious about what they eat.

Good gut health matters

Gut health can change; you don’t want to take it for granted. Instead, you 60

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want to feed those 100 trillion beneficial microbes that live in your gut properly; they have a big impact on your overall wellbeing (hint: microbes like fiber-rich carbs).

Improper feeding, including long-term food restriction (anorexia, dieting) and a lowfiber diet can reduce microbial diversity and have a detrimental impact on your health.

A strong array of microbes in your gut enhances your immune system, reduces the risk of allergies, produces vitamins (K, B12), optimizes the absorption of nutrients, sends signals to the brain that make you more resilient to stress, and fosters antiinflammatory and anti-carcinogenic benefits.

A healthy gut enables athletes to access and utilize the fuels they need to perform longer, recover faster, and heal cells that get damaged during intense exercise. In comparison, athletes with unhealthy guts may spend more time sitting on the sidelines feeling unwell (including traveler’s diarrhea).

Exercise itself is beneficial for gut health. Exercise with a fiber-rich diet (abundant fruits, veggies, beans, grains) is even better. Among elite athletes, those with a fiber-rich diet have a more robust microbiome compared to elite athletes with a lower fiber intake.

Eating for gut health

For rowers who want to feel good, perform optimally, and recover quickly from hard exercise, here are some suggestions about how to eat to optimize your gut health.

• Figure out how to include more fruits and veggies easily in your daily diet.

Suggestions: —Combine fruit with protein, such as banana + peanut butter or apple + cheese.

For many rowers, this carb-protein combo is more appealing—and more likely to be consumed—than just a piece of fruit.

—Snack on dried fruit for a sweet treat (instead of candy).

—Buy frozen veggies (broccoli, cauliflower, peas, carrots, etc.) and eat a pile, not just a serving, at dinner. Freezing retains nutrients, so frozen veggies can be more nutrient-rich than fresh veggies that lose nutrients during shipment from, let’s say, California to New England. Frozen veggies are also easier to incorporate into a busy athlete’s sports diet. No prep— and they cost less. Cook extra veggies for leftovers

to add to the next day’s breakfast omelet or lunchtime soup.

—Redefine your afternoon snack as a “second lunch” with quality fiber-rich food (peanut butter and banana sandwich on whole wheat bread) instead of snacky foods (chips, sweets). Fiber-rich foods leave you feeling satiated with sustained energy and less evening hunger.

—Boost your intake of fiber-rich grains (bran cereal, oatmeal, Dave’s Killer Bread, popcorn, brown rice), beans (hummus, burritos with refried beans, bean dip), and nuts and seeds (nut butters, almonds, sunflower seeds).

Note: Not all fruits and veggies are fiber-rich. The best options have seeds (raspberries, blackberries, cucumbers, cherry tomatoes) and edible skins (apples, pears, potatoes).

• Enjoy more fermented foods. Snack on yogurt; make a smoothie with kefir. Learn to like kombucha.

Abating exercise-related GI distress

GI complaints are common among athletes and can vary according to sport.

Rowers in a bent-over position might suffer from heartburn or reflux. Marathoners with lots of intestinal jostling might experience “runner’s trots.” Gymnasts and ballet dancers fear being bloated with a bulging stomach. You are not alone if you exercise with GI distress.

The following tips might help resolve current gut issues and reduce future digestive problems that could impact your sports performance: • Train your gut (not just your heart, lungs, and muscles).

Being afraid to eat before you work out because you fear experiencing nausea, stomach cramps, or diarrhea is a questionable excuse for avoiding pre-exercise food (particularly for endurance athletes and those who train more than 60 to 90 minutes a day).

The gut is trainable and can learn to tolerate fuel consumed before and during exercise. You want at least to fuel your body appropriately for the work you’ll be doing.

Training on empty will do nothing to help you compete against a better-fueled athlete.

Instead of insisting you can’t eat before you exercise, be curious. What bad happens if you nibble on 25 to 50 calories of a simple low-fiber grain, such as a pretzel, vanilla

wafer, or half slice of white toast? Likely nothing. Next, build up to 50 to 75 calories, then 75 to 100. The goal is to consume around 200 calories in the hour or so before you train. The benefits will be more energy and a better workout.

During extended exercise, you want to build up to consuming 200 to 300 calories per hour after the first hour.

Learn from each experiment and tweak your choices.

• Some commercial sports foods lead quickly to GI distress, so test different products during training, not on the day of the event.

A product might have too much caffeine or a type of carbohydrate that your body is not used to consuming. You might need to replace gels and chomps with honey and maple syrup. Both are available is single-serve packets for athletes.

Conclusion: Emerging evidence suggests strongly that fiber-rich plantbased foods offer gut-health benefits that translate into overall health not seen with highly processed low-fiber foods. Good gut health invites less inflammation, better recovery, and better overall wellbeing.

Sports nutritionist NANCY CLARK, M.S., R.D., counsels both casual and competitive athletes in the Boston area (Newton; 617-795-1875). Her best-selling Nancy Clark’s Sports Nutrition Guidebook can help you eat to win. For more information, visit NancyClarkRD.com.

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TRAINING BES T PR AC T ICES

The Timeliness of Now Aspiring rowers should begin thinking about where they want to go to college early in high school, but even fall of senior year isn’t too late.

T TRAINING

Assessing Fatigue Resistance The ability to produce hard effort in the late stage of a race or regatta is another way to identify the potential for success.

W

inning races often comes down to the final stroke.

Producing high power output for the duration of an event or a multiple-race regatta requires fatigue resistance, which is another dimension of endurance.

Rowing trials are performed typically in a fresh state with minimal fatigue.

The ability to produce hard effort in the late stage of a race or regatta, however, is another way to identify the potential for success when selecting crews or to determine whether you’re getting better.

Here are two ways to assess fatigue resistance as a specific ability: Warm up 15 to 20 minutes, then perform a fresh maximal effort at the beginning of a row followed by a period of steady rowing and then a fatigued maximal effort to see how much your power has dropped between the fresh and the fatigued effort.

One approach is to row seven minutes at 30 strokes per minute, record the meters, then row 40 minutes steady at 24 s.p.m. followed by seven minutes at 30 s.p.m., and record the meters.

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Another approach is to perform your fresh and fatigued efforts according to your RPE, or Rating of Perceived Effort. Row seven minutes at RPE 8/10, record the meters, then row 40 minutes steady at 24 s.p.m. followed by seven minutes at RPE 8/10, and record the meters.

If conditions on your waterway are variable, it’s better to test on an indoor rower. Make the length of your efforts race-specific and test under similar environmental conditions, such as heat, altitude, and humidity, all of which can affect your level of fatigue.

You can customize your test according to the event for which you’re preparing so that you have a basis of comparison that allows you to track changes over time. With a good level of fatigue resistance, the decline between your fresh and fatigued efforts will be less than five to eight percent.

Next month, we’ll explore how to improve fatigue resistance.

MARLENE ROYLE is the author of Tip of the Blade: Notes on Rowing. She specializes in training for masters rowers. Her coaching service, Roylerow Performance Training Programs, provides the program and support you need to improve your competitive edge. For information, email Marlene at roylerow@aol.com or visit www.roylerow.com.

university choice is now, regardless of where you are in high school.

If you’re in the ninth or 10th grade, begin by assessing both your athletic and academic abilities. Understanding your strengths and weaknesses will help you set realistic goals for your academics and rowing.

As you approach the summer before your junior year, it’s time to refine those goals. This is an ideal time to think about the type of school you’d like to attend. Do you envision yourself at a large state university, a smaller liberal-arts college, or something in between? With so many options, the process can feel overwhelming. There are also great club programs that offer attractive opportunities to keep rowing.

For rowers, official (paid) visits are allowed in both the junior and senior years.

Many athletes take advantage of early visits, even before they’re ready to decide. While early visits can be helpful, it’s important not to rush your choices.

So when is the right time to begin the process of selecting a university? Again: now.

Wherever you are in the process, there’s always a productive next step. Even if it’s the fall of your senior year and you’ve just decided you want to row in college, it’s not too late. Begin by expressing your interest to university coaches. Your current coach or a recruiting expert can guide you through the next steps.

Whether early in high school or nearing the end, it’s never too soon—or too late—to begin preparing for your university rowing career.

ROBBIE TENENBAUM coached at the NCAA level for over 30 years and with the U.S. Junior National Team for eight. He now helps parents and families navigate the university recruiting process.

PHOTO: LISA WORTHY

he best time to begin considering your

COACH DE V EL OPMEN T

Managing the Managers

I

have often heard college coaches complain about working for administrators who have no first-hand knowledge of what it’s like to be a varsity athlete, let alone a coach. I’ve been one of them at times. They don’t understand what it takes to win. They’re too sensitive to the student-athletes’ complaints. This is supposed to be hard!

Sometimes, this is undoubtedly the case, and working under a supervisor like that can be exceedingly frustrating. Other times, though, coaches are coming into the relationship with their admins with preconceived notions of what to expect.

But what would happen if we approached those relationships with a more open mindset? If we viewed our admins as partners with a different set of experiences from our own rather than adversaries or obstacles?

This fall, I had the opportunity to speak with a sports-management class at UMass Amherst about the current college-

athletics landscape and the experiences of collegiate coaches.

The students, all sports-management majors, were engaged, curious, and thoughtful in our conversations as they sought to understand the collegiate coach’s experience within the larger athletics landscape. They asked about how coaches balanced the sometimes conflicting pressures to drive elite performance while still receiving positive student-athlete reviews at the end of the season. They brainstormed about the challenges coaches face in recruiting effectively from the increasingly necessary transfer portal.

Listening to them, I wondered what their future careers might be. None of the students there was a varsity athlete.

It’s highly unlikely any would become coaches. Some, though, will likely go on to administrative roles within college athletic departments. Indeed, several were already working at internships in compliance and elsewhere in their own department.

They may go on to be administrators who oversee sports directly and even athletic directors.

Though they have not been in the trenches, these students were approaching the work of sports management with curiosity about and empathy for coaches.

Do they need to be educated about the realities of life on or leading a team? Sure.

But that will be the responsibility of the coaches they lead. If that is done with care and honesty, there’s no reason they won’t develop into positive and productive partners for the coaches and teams they one day oversee.

As coaches, it’s our responsibility to get those around our teams on board with what we’re doing. Assume that others are coming into the situation with the best of intentions—until proven otherwise—and you stand a much better chance of building a lasting, beneficial partnership.

MADELINE DAVIS TULLY

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Active Tools 10 Barret Singer 29 Bont Rowing 17 Campus Quilt 60 Concept2, Inc 68 Durham Boat Company 4 Explore Oak Ridge 67 Fluidesign 6..7 GLRF 59 Hudson Boat Works 2..3 Leonard Insurance 33 Muser Inc 27 Nielsen-Kellerman 5 Peinert Boatworks 28 Phil Stekl 56 Pocock Racing Shells 24 RegattaCentral 27 RegattaSport 63 Robbie Consulting 59 Row America 15 Rowing Catalog 34..39 San Diego Crew Classic 12 Shimano North America 13 SportGraphics 8..9 Swing Ventures 64 Women’s Coaching Conference 31

read “3 Steps To A Sparkling Clean Rowing Shell Hull” in Mike’s book MaxRigging.]

My first step is to use a rubbing compound. I usually treat the hull once or twice a year with the compound to remove the gunk that attaches to the hull over time. This is critical if you do wax your hull, or if you row in water that has pollution in it (and, unfortunately, today most water does have it).

Rubbing compound is an abrasive, usually in a liquid or almost-liquid form, and it comes in different levels of grit. I think of it as liquid sandpaper. There are two critical components of successfully using rubbing compound. One is selecting the correct grit (I use 1500). The other is to follow the directions, and I mean follow.

Using compound can be a mindless job, but that doesn’t mean that you should be mindless. Care needs to be taken that you only clean the hull, and don’t damage the paint. Gentle strokes, usually in a circular pattern, work fine. Some people profess that using a bow-to-stern motion is best. This does have its merits, but usually

only if you are using a heavier grit.

My second step is to wash the hull prior to each race. I try to do this the day of the race, when the boat is ready to go. That means if we’ve transported the boat, I’ll wash it right at the racecourse.

That’s not usually a hardship. A bucket, a sponge, a little soap (I use dishwashing detergent), a little water (which tends to be available at racecourses…hint, the river or lake), a little scrubbing, and in 10 minutes the hull is clean. I then just rinse off the soap and let the boat dripdry.

(For what it’s worth, one thing I’ve noticed is that people love, I mean love, to help wash a racing hull. There must be something sensual to it. Almost without fail, every time I wash a hull, people flock to help.)

So if you’re thinking of waxing your rowing shell, clean off the wax before race time.

Remember: Naked is fast!

Whatever you do, don’t trade time in the boat for time cleaning your boat.

As noted earlier, “it’s not the chariot, it’s the horses.”

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NOVEMBER 2024

65

DOCTOR ROWING A NDY A NDERSON

For a Faster Boat, Go Naked And other pearls of wisdom about the care and maintenance of your chariot, though it’s really all about the horses.

Dear Doctor Rowing, I have begun to scull again recently after years away from our fair sport. I row on salt water and yes, I do spray my boat and oars after every row. But despite this, there is rust on the hardware of the sleeves of my Concept2 sculling blades. How can I get rid of that oxidation and get them looking pristine again?

Sincerely, Rusty in more ways than one

Dear Doc, Is there any speed treatment I can do to my hull?

Sincerely, A veteran sculler The best thing to do would be to feed and water your horses and not worry too much about your chariot. In rowing terms, don’t obsess over the boat. Get yourself as ready as you can.

The boys I work with talk constantly about finding “free speed.” Unless you’re an Olympic medalist, I don’t think you’re going to find any answers looking in the “free file.” Believe me, those gold medalists who looked so great—they got there with hard work; there was nothing free about it.

But I understand. Time was, I spent hours preparing my crew’s boat to race, too. Here’s the best description of what you can do from former USA boatman Mike Davenport: Waxing a rowing shell has benefits, such as protecting the hull from damage from the sun and from pollutants. (Of course, there are also downsides, like messing up a nice pair of pants.) However, one of the benefits of waxing is not speed. A good wax job will actually slow your hull down.

What is the best treatment for a hull when you’re looking for speed? The answer is, “Nothing!” A naked hull is usually the fastest. You see, when a hull is gliding through the water, you want to have the smoothest possible surface that you can. Smooth is fast. The smoother the hull, the less friction…and that is good.

If your hull has a good paint job and is free of dings and checks, then its maximum speed will come from being clean. Think of it in these terms: “Clean is fast.”

So waxing a rowing shell can slow you down. So how do you clean the hull? In my opinion, it’s a two-step process. [For more details on this, CONTINUES ON PAGE 65 >>>

66

NOVEMBER 2024

PHOTO: INTERSPORT-IMAGES.COM

One thing I’ve noticed is that people love, I mean love, to help wash a racing hull.

Just when Doctor Rowing, who has noticed the same issue with both his oars and his sculling stroke, was about to surrender, (I can’t know everything), an answer came via text.

“I am happy to report that soaking the screws in vinegar for about 30 minutes completely removed the rust…. I used an old toothbrush. Nice and shiny now!”

But who was my mystery savior?

I texted back, confident that it was not a scam. I knew the number but had never added it to my contacts. The reply came quickly.

“Shelly.”

A masters sculler whom I had met over the summer.

Good for her.

Referees | High Point University | Michael Callahan

NOVEMBER 2024

| VOLUME 31 NUMBER 10