Why do you row?

Simplicity does not sell well. The American public has not been very interested in simple sports during the last 50 years. Football, baseball, basketball, hockey, NASCAR and even figure skating have greater followings than rowing, track, marathons, swimming and speed skating. Once rule intrepretation, points, clocks and coaches are interjected into a sport, the results are compelling enough that people will pay to watch that event. For those first six sports, there are even people who make their living playing.

So why do we row? What is the allure to participate in such an expensive sport that will rarely, if ever, bring any attention to the athletes? Nike will never create a rowing shoe or get into the boat building business. Gatorade may feature rowing occasionally in their promotions, but it is fleeting, surrounded by other sports. While rowing makes its way onto some TV commercials or magazine covers, rarely is it even the subject of that media. SportsCenter will never have highlights from the NCAA rowing championships. There is no money in rowing, except for the boat builders.

Individuals row for the same reason they strive to learn foreign languages, write novels or learn to play music. For our own sense of self worth, that great feeling of accomplishment that comes from mastering something difficult few will understand.

I've noticed that groups of people train and race for different reasons. Similar to the motiviation experienced by soldiers, groups of guys will train their hearts out not for a medal, a coach, a scholarship or glory, for a country or personal. Teams go to the edge of endurance and pain for each other. Soldiers don't rise to great heights of bravery for themselves, they attack fortified positions because they refuse to let their buddies down. People don't go to war to win the Medal of Honor. It's the last thing on his mind when a soldier clears 20 wounded guys out from under machine gun fire. Instead, he is thinking about his guys, about their needs.

I'm not trying to somehow equate rowing with what happens in wartime. What Marines do and what we do are completely different, with the Marines being the ultimate team winning the ultimate tough competition. I am holding that sense of teamwork, self-sacrifice and devotion up as the model we should aspire to in our racing and training.

It is very simple. There is no Terrell Owens in rowing. We line up with our teammates, against another team which has trained just as hard and is just as devoted to each other, and race to see who is faster. No timeouts, official blunders, brilliant coaching moves to save the game or heroic individual performances to secure the win. One would think this would be just as compelling as the final 25 seconds of a basketball game with the ball in Michael Jordan's hands. But as I said, people don't like simplicity.

Perhaps that is the allure. Why do you row?

Categories: Rowing, Motivational, Teamwork, Training