Go here

I'm not kidding. Right the **** now.

http://www.rowinghistory.net

Great site. Contribute a little if you've got the inspiration.

Time for a scolding

Three years ago in this space, I snarled at Central Catholic, a crew that (ironically) I would go on to coach, about what I felt was excessive celebration after a match race between Pitt, Fox Chapel and Central. It started a lovely little firestorm, the effects of which I still had to deal with when I started coaching Central later on. Jay Hammond and I had a long talk then and later about what I said, what he thought about it and celebration in rowing in general. Basically, we both think that such spectacles are best reserved for the Olympic Games or serious, major, end-of-season races. And I've tried to teach my crews that point of view over the years.

I was aware of the little stunt the boys of St. Joeseph's Prep pulled at the end of the Stotesbury Cup regatta a few weeks ago. I thought then it was low-class, garbage behavior and I still do. I haven't written about it because I wanted a little time to pass; I wanted to make sure I didn't put something up here in anger that I might later regret. But I've found as I get older, my first reactions are usually what I'm thinking later on. So, here we go:

A picture is worth a thousand words. Here are two. Then I'll add my thousand words anyway.





For those that don't know, here's the gist of it: after winning every other boat they entered, the Prep lightweight boat swam that broom out to their varsity after the varsity won the senior 8 grand final. The varsity got to celebrate with it on the water while they waited to get their medals, posed with the broom with the cup and then carried it back to their boathouse. I find such actions appalling.

Now, don't get me wrong: I've been involved in some very questionable celebrations in the past myself. In 1996, after "sweeping" the Harvard-Yale race, we swam out to the varsity boat and generally acted like idiots. I believe the varsity hadn't beaten Harvard in 11 years. So part of me does understand the reaction of the boys at Prep. They were excited at the accomplishment of their team, and that was a major, significant, noteworthy accomplishment. I give St. Joe's a lot of credit for that accomplishment.

But......

If I was the coach associated with that celebration, I would have been livid. It goes against everything I've ever taught my guys and I can't understand any coach that would be fine with this action. I mean, getting your picture taken with the trophy, your crew and an f'n broom? No, sorry, not me. Take that broom to the boathouse, boys, and sweep out the boat bay with it. I'll collect your medals and the trophy. Then we'll have a little chat about sportsmanship and "pretending that you've been there before." Two weeks ago I believed and still do, that their antics with the broom disrespected their opposition and a historical regatta. It sullied a great team performance, leading the conversation away from what all those athletes accomplished toward what kind of people they are.

To finish my Harvard-Yale story, yes we got a broom out at Gales Ferry. The next morning, we taped it to the flagpole over the boathouse, took a few pictures of it and then took it down. We needed that broom: We had to clean the place out and get it ready to wait until next year's crew moved in.

Death in sports

It's really easy, at first blush, to be flippant over the results from yesterday's Kentucky Derby. There's a sport for ya! We'll kill the first loser! HAHAHA! Somewhere, I know, there are television execs and horse racing officials thinking that Eight Belles euthanasia after the race just might produce an uptick in ratings and income for the sport.

After thinking about it for a bit, that tragic ending only illustrates the horror of horse racing. These horses are million-dollar pieces of investment funds. They're tools, living race cars. A totaled stock car leaves junk all over the track to be swept up, removed to the junkyard. A few parts might be salvaged, but most will be melted down for scrap. A "broke down" horse that "went lame" in horse-speak leaves a dead body on the track. Never mind that it was "only a horse." Something that was breathing just a few moments ago is now heading to the morgue. It's hard for written words to properly convey my disgust.

I understand that death does haunt most sports, to some degree or another. Part of what makes such activities compelling is the risk, either minute or significant, of serious injury or even death. Every sport that anybody can participate in has a waiver that must be signed, absolving the organizers of blame if someone should be killed by participating. There have been "reforms" over the years in various sports to lower the risk to participants and fans alike. Hockey put up netting behind goals after a 13-year old fan was mortally injured by a slap-shot puck. Baseball first base coaches have taken to wearing batting helmets after one of their number was killed by a foul ball.

My own sport of rowing as seen death as well. The horrid tragedy of Soctt Laio, dying as his crew crossed the finish line at the May 2005 Dad Vail regatta in Philadelphia is still a fresh wound in the world of rowing. Recreational "masters" rowers have been killed in collisions with powerboats and coaches are not immune as well, drowning in front of their crews. We examine what went wrong in every instance, looking for a way forward to make an incredible activity safer. Boats shouldn't be named for people killed on the water.

Horse racing seems different in my view. There won't be an investigation into what happened to Eight Belles. Racing fans will shrug and say "she needed to be put down so she wouldn't suffer." However, I am not comfortable with such a caviler attitude, nor do I think the average sports fan is, either. We've seen what happens, too often. Death dances around most sports, but the governing bodies have adjusted to push back that risk. Horse racing hasn't responded that way, and perhaps this explains the slowly eroding support that sport enjoys. I will not mourn its (hopeful) eventual passing.

More YouTube rowing

Check this one out: Some rower turning into a rapper.

Great Rowing on Youtube

For those looking for inspiration, as the heart of February closes about us, here are some great vids from Youtube:

Oxford/Cambridge "Inches" speech



Canadian Olympic team "Inches" speech



Men's 8+ final, Athens Olympics



2006 USRowing Junior National Championships, Men's 8+



And finally, an evil vid with the erg:

The Stupid Bowl

Oh, yea! This year's Super Bowl will feature the coronation of the New England Patriots. The NFC patsies will be the New York Giants. Two teams from the northeast, leaving the rest of the country with no real interesting storyline to watch. I don't believe anyone outside the northeast corridor really cares about watching the Patriots' "Drive for Perfection."

I, for one, will not be watching the game. I can think of many other interesting things to do than watch Fox put up slanted political reports for the first part of the day, followed by hours of insipid "analysis" trying to hype up the game, followed by three Eli Manning interceptions in the first half. Add in the usual terrible "halftime show" and more New England players dancing around, and this game promises to be a total snoozer. I'm predicting a total blowout, something like the real fun Super Bowls from the mid-1980s.

Care to join me in the Stupid Bowl protest? I'll be in Pittsburgh the day before, for the Three Rivers indoor sprints, hosted this year by Central Catholic. It will be nice to return to the 'Burgh for a weekend. I'll hang around on Sunday, then drive back to Cincinnati starting Sunday afternoon. If I'm lucky, I'll miss the entire game.

I just don't have the stomach to watch this. I'd rather watch people trying to lose lunch after erg tests.

Wintertime Cross Training

Will has gotten crazy about rock climbing this winter. This mania started with this picture, taken at Callaway Gardens in Georgia. The wall you see him on is about 40ft high, and he was quite pleased with himself afterwards. Since then, I've taken him out to a few different places, RockQuest in Cincinnati being his favorite. Below are a two shots of him climbing at their great indoor facility.






So, why talk about cross training while putting up pictures of my 5 year old climbing 45ft walls? Going to these various climbing gyms has given me an opportunity to observe the athletes that enjoy this sport up close, doing their own wintertime training. Climbing outdoors in freezing rain doesn't seem to be anything they would enjoy more than rowers enjoy racing in high winds on a 40 degree day.

So, how do high-end climbers train in the winter? It's their off-season, after all. There are some very specific skills they've built up over the years, or new abilities to work on. What do climbers do?

Guess what? They do the same thing swimmers do. They practice their sport in a simulated environment indoors. Does a wooden climbing wall exactly simulate the face of a granite cliff? Of course not. There's also no wind to deal with or footholds that fall out once your full weight pressed upon them. Just like rowers who deal with an erg that doesn't exactly mimic the feel of water or the the set of a boat.

Anybody guessing the point I'm making here? I'm all in favor of cross training. It makes a fun "different" activity to get into every other weekend or so. There is just too much evidence to suggest that cross training simply won't produce a faster boat. In a specialized sport such as rowing, there is no substitute to actually rowing to get faster.

Don't misunderstand my point, however, when the issue of weight training or flexibility is discussed. Both are worthy, focused tools used to increase power output and technique in the boat. Climbers lift weights fanatically, but they simply don't focus on the lower body strength like rowers must. Core muscle groups, upper shoulders and forearms are the favorites of climbers, where leg exercises and bench pulls are important to oarsmen.

So enjoy your cross training this winter. Once or twice a month. If, however, the fastest boat possible is your goal, keep rowing. That is, after all, the motion you're trying to perfect.

Beach Running

For Thanksgiving this year, my family is on the beach in Charleston, SC. There's miles of beach to walk and run, along with a heated pool for the kids. Plenty of fun for Will and his cousins and a big enough building to house all 25 of us.

I was thinking of hitting the beach tomorrow and talking with some of my family members of the running persuasion. Everyone knows that I can't run, and we brought an erg down to burn off some T-Day calories, but their conversation about running on the beach got me thinking about the running that happens in rowing.

In rowing, we encourage everyone to work in unison. In the boat, that's a requirement. On the ergs, workouts are structured so the weakest oarsmen many times are finishing at the same time as the strongest. Instead of working over a certain distance, we use elapsed time, such as 60 minutes of steady state or six 1-minute pieces.

However, when sent out on a run, a crew reverts to individuals. If I sent a team on a run down the beach, I would get multiple sets of footprints in the sand, and they would return to the start at different times. However, the military runs in formation and in step with each other. Why don't we encourage this in rowing? If anything, rowing is more dependent on such interdependence and unison, yet we let such an opportunity slip by. Perhaps this is something to think about in the future, when the team is sent out on a run.

Just a thought. Anyone have any comments?

When the coach rants

I'm going to add my two pennies into the Mike Gundy debate. For those that aren't familiar with what happened, read this column, that appeared last Saturday before the Oklahoma State Cowboys played. Then came coach Mike Gundy's post-game news conference:





Finally, here's the rebuttal column from the sportswriter.

When a coach goes on a rant like this, it's the product of a lot of frustration that boils over. Coaches deal with a lot on their plate on a daily basis, and the responsibility doesn't ever get easier. The highest duty is always to the athletes under your command, and good coaches get very possessive of "their" kids. We really become surrogate parents. Like parents, it's okay for us to discipline our kids, but look out if anyone out there says anything bad about our kids. Then papa bear comes out, and it makes for entertaining television. I really understand where Mike Gundy was coming from.

The national sports media had a wonderful few days with this. It made for great sound on sports stalk radio. ESPN radio had morning hosts that agreed with Gundy and supported his point of view and a midday host that called it insane and predicted Gundy's immanent departure from the college coaching ranks. Both points of view got passionate calls, which is what talk radio wants. I believe the media missed who was the target audience for that rant.

Gundy was going off for the consumption of his players. He had made a difficult move to switch starting quarterbacks, his defense had just been shredded in a shoot-out which the team did win, but controversy was swirling around the team, being fed by a columnist. She needs readers, so "stirring the pot" gets her attention. How does Gundy respond to this situation? Usual coach-speak might work, but won't take any attention away from a possible quarterback controversy or a week of questions about his defense.

So Gundy made it all about him, while making a very important point to his athletes: Coach has my back. It's us against everyone. We're a team, a family and coach will go to the mat for us. I'm sure the offensive players would love to exult about their great performance and the team's win, but I'm absolutely sure that Gundy's boys will follow him into hell after his rant on the media, because they know and they've seen that he cares deeply for them. Deeply enough to deal with a week or more of media insanity for them.

As a final side note, I think the columnist is disgusting. She claims "sources and facts," but actually claims not one. No quotes, interviews, nothing. She writes that her integrity has been attacked, but she doesn't understand what her function is. She's a columnist, someone hired to write an opinion. Columnists don't have to support their work with facts. They can make things up from whole cloth if they so choose. But somehow, she's offended that she got called out over and over again on national television. She doesn't like being told that her opinion stinks. Anyone can say that: it's free speech. Her problem is that it's getting far more airtime.

I like what Gundy said and did. I agree with him. He must be one heck of a coach.

The Hurt Locker

The Hurt Locker is the unfortunate byproduct of Swing. When the rhythm of the boat re-enforces the output of the oarsmen, they feel it as a sublime, unstoppable moment that can last for a few strokes or a few thousand meters. Swing encourages the crew to continue the output they are generating for as long as possible. Frankly, the crew might feel as if they could continue on that pace indefinitely.

The Hurt Locker opens up when the boat finally stops and the body, which had been fooling itself, suddenly realizes how much energy has been produced. Between two and three breaths, pain suddenly floods the various systems. Welcome to the Hurt Locker.

Once you've gone there, it is very difficult to get back to the swing the boat has just experienced. There's just too much pain. If you're lucky, you've timed your trip to the hurt locker with the last piece of the practice, or the final at the big regatta. If you're unfortunate, you've got to somehow muster up the physical courage to start rowing again in the next few minutes or hours to go all over again.

Jay and I took a trip into the Hurt Locker this morning. It was our best outing in the pair so far, with the boat set well and running straight. There were times as we swung downstream from the 62nd street bridge that I felt as if I were rowing an erg. It was Swing.

Of course, when that feeling comes over a boat, the rowers usually increase power to reenforce the good row they're having. And so on we went, steadily increasing the pressure and then the rating over the next 2.5 miles. I was breathing hard as we made the final turn under the wires toward the 40th street bridge.

Sweat broke out all over my arms we relentlessly pursued speed. I knew what was happening; I felt like I could continue this pace for a long, long time. There always seemed to be more energy, flowing from the boat, through me and into the water. I wondered why I wasn't hurting too much and why my hands had gone numb on the composite oar.

One last power twenty took us under the bridge. Even that didn't seem to tax me so much, it just required moving a little faster and drawing more power out and into the oar. Then we paddled and stopped. And the Hurt Locker opened like a yawning, stinking mouth of hell.

I had made some poor eating choices yesterday, and my guts were reminding me of them. Feeling returned to my aching hands, where fresh blisters from earlier in the week protested the continued abuse of this morning. My head pounded; I was dehydrated despite guzzling down a quart of water every workout.

It was very difficult to stand when we landed the boat. Jay's back was in agony. He had difficulity putting on his socks later in the locker room. I feel, now five hours later, as if I'd been up all night before going on the water. (No, I wasn't.) There's just no energy left in me, and my legs are aching now. No amount of caffiene has overcome the all-consuming desire to sit at my desk and sleep.

However, I now sit here with a smile on my face and content in my heart. It was a great row. I wonder if Jay's back will be ok for Monday?