August 2000
Fun
One of the main differences between coaching a club and coaching a collegiate program is the base pool of potential rowers, and the ways needed to attract them. A certain amount of emphasis must take shape on the concept of fun. I am one to believe that fun plays an important role in collegiate rowing, as well, but the issue is more salient with club rowing. This, I might add right up front, has nothing to do with seriousness. Fun does not mean any less serious.
Collegiate athletes have less choice. If they enjoy rowing and they want to compete seriously, then the decision the row is obvious. Within an academic setting, participation in sports is a natural fit. And if an athlete wants to row intercollegiately, that athlete has little choice but to row for the college. If a choice exists, it exists for very few: some people may get to choose between rowing heavyweight or lightweight, depending on their weight and whether their college offers separate squads. Coxswains can sometimes choose up to four squads.
Club rowers have more choice. It is often more difficult for them to fit rowing into their work lives. They have to decide that it is worth doing - and that if they do it they should take part in the club's squad rather than just racking their own single in a club and rowing on their own time. Furthermore, in larger rowing areas, they may have a choice between several clubs - Zurich, for example, has about a dozen clubs, most of which row from the same set of boathouses.
So the question comes up: why should people row for a particular club? Because they enjoy it - they are having fun.
Even the most serious rowers need motivation. Enjoyment is motivation. When they start dreading going to practice each day, then they need a change. For a club to build a strong squad, it must make the rowers want to train.
This is something I have long felt, and which I think working with a student-based program helps teach a coach. Students often need to be motivated - not because they lack seriousness, but because of their age and their inexperience and the pressures of academic life. Balancing a training program around the academic stresses of students is often tricky, but if a coach can do that successfully and keep students rowing - and rowing seriously - then the skill can prove very useful coaching a club.
Club coaches can easily fall into the trap of all-or-nothing. They may not be flexible enough to balance all of their rowers' schedules - so that if a rower does not conform to the coach's ideal training schedule, then that rower is either pushed out of the club or simply trains independently, which undermines the club's competitive squad. Likewise, if the coach is not demanding enough, then the rower either loses motivation and quits or the squad simply does not train hard enough on the whole, which also undermines the club's competitive squad.
It has been interesting observing the arrangement at Belvoir, my current club. I came in mid-year, in the final year of Dave Martin's tenure as head coach. I think it helps greatly that Dave has coached student crews in the past, and it shows in his success with Belvoir. We have a large and competitive squad, but aside from the age range of the "Regattierende" (the squad which races in regattas, as opposed to the recreational rowers) it resembles a collegiate club in many respects. This year the ages of the competitive squad ranged from 15 to 43, which meant that a wide variety of personal needs and issues played out. This required great flexibility. Some rowers train all the time, some less so. Some train alone in their singles during the week and can only make squad practices on weekends. Dave's program has accommodated this. Could some rowers be faster if they trained more often? - certainly - but they know the drill.
When coaching students, the number of practice slots in a week is necessarily limited. Some students will train more than others (some overtrain, but that is another issue). But there is only so much the coach can require. The coach must nevertheless be demanding. Find this balance collegiately, and then adapt it for the different needs of a club program.
The flexibility is not an issue, of course, if the rowers stop enjoying the rowing. The rowing must remain fun. There have to be set goals, to be sure, for where the club will end up at the end of the competitive season, but a lot needs to happen along the way. It is not just about getting the body to peak at the right time, but about making sure everyone is psyched to come to the practices along the way. There is a mental aspect to this sport.
Dave has frequently mentioned why he thinks Belvoir has been so successful at the Swiss Championships each July - and it is not just that he has written them a good training program. Almost more important than the overall training plan is that the focus along the way is not just winning in Lucerne each July. It is the special trips along the way - the chance to race in other countries and at major international events. The athletes who have the opportunity to make those crews get more than just the experience out of it - they have short-term goals for focus. Each of these goals fits within the overall training program, but it is often hard to motivate in September for a championship the following July - or even to motivate at all in the harsh winter months regardless. Plop in a few overseas regattas, World Cup events, and whatnot, and suddenly people are training harder for the opportunity. And those who do not get to go - either because they fail to make the crews or because they have work or personal commitments - still gain as members of the squad as a whole. The boathouse becomes an exciting place to come down to on a regular basis.
Besides the different age levels, Belvoir's squad has its different competitive levels as well - from international down. Many of Belvoir's serious rowers will not have the chance to represent Switzerland in international competition, just as many collegiate rowers will never have the chance to make the varsity boat. But all serious rowers are still valuable members of a team. The more friends take part, the more it becomes fun to come to the boathouse - rowing can a social outlet, and when that social outlet goes hand-in-hand with athletic seriousness, the training can become all the more productive. The more rowers, the more competition for seats, the more everyone trains harder and all boats go faster. Like many successful collegiate programs, Belvoir mixes up its rowers, crews, and line-ups in training, and this has brought the bottom end of the squad up and pushed the top end even higher.
Another nice thing around here is the concept that everyone should have the chance to win a Swiss championship every year. Unlike collegiate rowing, with its boat hierarchy, club rowing is a bit mix-and-match. People can and do race more than one event. So Dave has tried his best to arrange line-ups in different ways in order to let everyone have a chance. For example, this past July our flagship boat, the Open Women's Eight, was not our strongest possible line-up. We put enough of the strong folks in it to make sure we won by several lengths (the 3.5-length margin was the closest anyone has come to Belvoir in years), but he also made sure we got some women in there who might not win in the smaller boats. (Much to my surprise, I ended up coxing the Eight myself, so even I have found myself a Swiss National Champion all of a sudden!). Despite - or because of - this mix-and-match approach, Belvoir has dominated the big-boat marquee events - 8+ and 4x Ð in recent years.
I would say that I used to be a very single-minded coach. I'm sure those who knew me in my first several years of coaching will agree. I knew where I wanted to be at season's end, and how I intended to get there. I eventually learned my lesson one rough winter, and I found that, even if the athletes had the same objective I did, that they needed more short-term fun if they were to reach that goal. If they stopped having fun, if they started dreading practice, then they would not mentally train as hard, and then they would start to falter, and finally we would either lose top rowers to mid-year attrition or simply fall flat and not reach the goal, leading to greater discontent.
What I learned was that we needed fun. And that fun made for more serious training. Practices needed to be spiced up, and trips added. The athletes needed to be given breaks from time to time. The schedule needed to be firm overall, but still flexible, to account for differing needs. If people enjoy coming to practice and they have short-term events to look forward to (which fit within the long-term schedule - distinct from breaking a year into tiny disconnected components, as some programs do to their detriment), then they will be working harder to the long-term goal.
In a club program, this is more apparent. Why do people come down? Why to this club? Why row with the squad instead of alone in a single? Why pay all this money to do this (a question which can equally be asked in non-varsity-status collegiate programs as well)? Is it all worth it? It should be a worthwhile experience. If it is, then the club will prosper.