All right, all right, all right, shaddup!
Dad Vail is a huge race, where some fast crews can come out from. IRAs usually have a slot open for a few boats from Vails. Steve H said it best from the previous comment section, and I think his words should settle anything. Vails have fast crews. Fast like Harvard or Princeton or Cal? Perhaps not in the 8, but damn fast. Earn a medal at Vails, and you've accomplished something noteworthy. On the order as the world championships, IRAs or Henley? No, but it's still a great accomplishment.
One more time on the club vs school "debate": There is none. Line up their best 8 vs your best 8 and go race. In high school, that's not unfair to anyone, because the kids have been rowing for the same period of time, give or take a year. But lining up Pitt's novices vs the Yale freshman boat and you've got an unfair advantage for the Yale kids; most Yale freesh have been rowing for three years before they came to college, whereas the Pitt freesh are all walk-ons, learning the sport. So, there is a difference at the collegiate level and should be different leagues to reflect that difference, in my opinion.
This Saturday, two boats each club: Central Catholic, Fox Chapel and Pitt Crew. Jay Hammond and I will come up with seedings, but I will be starting the Pitt boats towards the end of the pack. From the top of the island below the dam to the 31st street bridge. No rating caps. Two buoys, under the 62nd street bridge and at the turn above the power lines. Cut a buoy, get DQ'd. With 6 boats, it's going to be head race style, but the idea of starting everyone even is tempting, very tempting.....
This should, I hope, put an end to the smack talking. I'm going to punish Emily for throwing gasoline on the fire and starting all this anyway. The betting line will come out later this week.
Categories: Pitt, FC, Regattas, Rowing, Juniors
10 comments:
Just a quick question: EARC/East. Sprints is a private regatta open to x-schools. Right?
Ok. Looking at the "Head of the Chattahoochee" race on regatta central, I notice that there is an event titled "Womens Freshmen Novice 8+." Now, tell me if I'm wrong here, but wouldn't that mean that every member of a boat in that race would be a freshmen in college, and a novice that is just learning the sport? Wouldn't that make the playing field level, because they all have the same experience?
On to the Yale vs. Pitt debate.
Yale recruits it's rowers, and therefore it fields a better team than Pitt does. Yale races EARC, Pitt races Dad Vails.
For the past 4 years, Fox Chapel has had at least 1 novice in the Varsity 8+. Last year it had 3 (Tosh, Drew, Pat). The year before it had 3 (Dave, Adam, and technically Markie V).
(that paragraph isn't entirely relevant, but deal)
Temple, Michigan, La Salle, Marietta, hell, even Vermont all recruit rowers. They all have kids that have rowed prior to college. They are just like the EARC schools in the sense that they field a recruiting class that all have competed in rowing before. So where is the difference? It's Temple's eight guys vs. Yale's eight guys.
I guess this is why they created IRA's?
How many meters is that going to be?
Hey Jay, you think steve h. could possibly be that eloquent? C'mon, no knuckle-dragger could possibly spell out words longer than four letters.
Steve... yeah EARC sprints are open to EARC schools only. I think Delaware lights race too, but they had to apply for some sort of special circumstance. Also, the "novices" in the novice race are not all 1st year rowers. Some schools have frosh novice 8+'s made purely of seasoned rowers. The problem with comparing Temple's recruiting class to Yale's is that 1) Temple might have something on Yale and 2) The recruiting classes can be very different. Both UCONN and Yale recruit basketball players, but you get a very different crop. And hell yeah, thats why they created IRA's, so sometimes we can stick it to the big boys.
"zqeligj"
I regret that I will not be in town on Saturday. I would love to race this weekend. My competitive itch is going crazy.
Good luck to all (and guys, don't leave pitt and central in your wash for to long.)
All right, so you are saying that recruiting classes are different because one school is more likely to get the cream of the crop while the other school gets the crust left on the inside of the pasturizer.
Couldn't it be the same way in H.S. though? One school may be more prone to pull out the better athletes for crew, while other schools put out the football rejects.
Whoaaa, I don't like the idea of racing without six seat. Not cool, Brother X. You need to stay and race. Who's going to row six? I can't- I'm a four seat.
Yeah, Steve it could be the same way in high school. For example, my town was a big soccer town, all the parents supported it, all the best atheletes played it. I was one of the first people on the newly formed rowing team and it consisted more of clearing forest by the river and fighting other schools for water time than actually rowing.
For a few nearby towns (Simsbury and Glastonbury) crew was their football. They had thousands of dollars of alumi support while I am our towns' oldest alum. They also drew out the best athletes. They also regularly spanked us with B and C boats.
I'm not trying to make excuses, but it really does take a team to build an 8. You need that competition pushing you. Complacency will prevent you from moving as fast as you can. (Hmmm I think I got off subject somewhere.)
I do think, though, that it is up to the high school team how they want to conduct recruiting. They can do it however they want and if they are not getting the "cream" it is ultimately their own fault. (But the wonderful thing about rowing is that as long as you try as hard as you can, you can be fast, you don't have to be a perfect specimen.) It is a little different in college. It is still up to us to get people to come here, but you come to Stotes with me in the spring and try to convince the high school kids to pass on their Yale or Temple rowing career to come row for us. (I'll bake you a pie or something.)
All that being said, give my high school a few years and a few boats and there should be no excuse for losing to anybody. Give all our Pitt novices a few years and there is no reason they can't be rowings at IRA's, it is a choice that the rower has to make.
With High School and Collegiate athletics, everything is based on the program. Its all program, program, program. In Pittsburgh, NA, Gateway, Woody High, they are the big football schools. It doesn't matter who is on their team, they are good. Obviously in college you have your USC, Michigan, Texas, etc. etc. They have a need for a great program in college. This goes for all High School and collegiate sports, not just football. This is because students are processed more or less over a 4-year or sometimes shorter period and then they are gone. In professional sports you can bank on a "franchise" athlete who will anchor your team for sometimes more than a decade. You cannot do this in high school and collegiate sports due to the fact that you simply don't have anyone around for that long. Therefore, the better program emerges. USC has not had the same players for the last 3 years, but they still have not lost a game. This is because their program is one of the best in the country. They have a method and style of football that just works, no matter who you throw in the mix. Once you prove yourself as a great program, you start getting the big name recruits and it all just spins in a big circle and a historic program is born. Vermont rowing is not a historic program. Yale is. It would not be sufficive to say that it is just your 8 and our 8. It all depends on the program and a lot of the time club vs. school sport has a lot to do with that.
Jay, you can't be for one and against the other. I believe we have proved that with the similarities between the club vs. hs and the EARC vs. Dad Vails.
Guys, you're undervaluing the most important fact of why there is a major difference between HS and college rowing: ALL HS crews start with rowers that have never done the sport before. They all have to teach their athletes to row. Some colleges get high end rowers with lots of experience, some get low end experienced athletes and some have to teach walk-ons to row. I think this weekend showed some of the benefits of experience in racing.
Post a Comment