This is my fifty-first column and counting.  It amazes me that what began as a simple idea to “write home” (as it were) to the folks at Wolfson College, Oxford, has turned into a long-running column.

A few months ago, shortly after moving to Switzerland, I thought I would wrap things up at fifty columns - a nice round number.  After all, there is only so much I can say after all this time.  At first, back in June 1996, it was just supposed to be a few simple observations or training tips for the benefit of the folks I used to coach and anyone else who was interested.  Somewhere along the way, more and more people were reading the letters, writing their responses, and providing new questions.

I get correspondence from all over the world, and from people at all levels of the sport (even some non-rowers).  Indeed, I am sometimes surprised who reads.  Many of my columns are inspired by questions asked of me by readers.  I am already preparing an entry for February on how to steer - a topic on which one reader wrote me for advice because she could find no comprehensive resource on the web.

From the practical issues like steering to the controversial issues, I have tried to make people think.  I do not want to be boring, and am happy to stir some controversy if it gets discussion going.  Much of what I write needs to be taken with the appropriate amount of salt, of course - something some readers have not entirely caught onto.

It is, of course, true that in recent months I have written some odd pieces.  I have received some e-mails from people concerned that I am advocating the use of drugs and alcohol.  I do no such thing.  But it was worth suggesting that maybe we need to think about rampant drug-testing and alcohol policies which breed irresponsibility.

My most controversial column, in terms of response produced, was so quite by accident.  In June 1999, I wrote a piece in which - mixed in among other things - I essentially said it was generally a waste of time for Oxford rowers to row for the University squad and that they should instead concentrate on rowing for their colleges.  Little did I know that at that very moment that subject was the topic of a passionate discussion in Oxford.  One of my regular Oxford readers put a link to my letter in the Oxford rowing newsgroup, my site received a flood of hits, and I received a ton of e-mail.  Thankfully, the e-mail was overwhelmingly positive.  But I did receive some criticism from one reader who felt that I needed more clarification - specifically, since most of the folks who read that month’s column were not regular readers, they did not necessarily know me or my context.  This critic pointed out that I had not been in Oxford for three years at that time, and that I was privy to no insider information.  Instead, my comments on Oxford were based entirely on my own time there in the past plus little bits of gossip and publicly-available info I had heard along the way since.

I am accused, quite rightly, of being a bit self-centered in my views.  I can only talk from personal experience and opinion, after all.  What I do know is my own personal experiences, and part of the object here is to describe those in a way that I hope makes people think.  As for my opinions, I do not pretend to be privy to insider information - so what is opinion remains that.  Sometimes, I am not necessarily sure that what I write even represents my own opinion.  But I hope there is a value to thinking out loud.

I suppose the one recurrent theme in much of my writing was actually evidenced in my somewhat unusual comments on drug testing and on the U.S. drinking age.  I try not to let my personal politics intrude on my rowing - or indeed my non-rowing career.  But I guess my knee-jerk in favor of personal liberty and responsibility gives me away.  Yes, I am an unrepentant ultra-conservative (of the anti-statist American quasi-libertarian variety).  I believe in the Rule of Law, to be sure, and playing by the rules and good sportsmanship are very important to me, because they preserve the order in our society and allow everyone to maximize their freedoms.  But the “Law” need not be oppressive.  Hence my strong opposition to organizations such as the NCAA (which tends to creep into my columns on just about any subject as the epitome of evil).  I have been known to show my disdain for other organizations with totalitarian tendencies.

Take a recent discussion on rec.sport.rowing, for example (to which I personally did not contribute any articles).  It began by reporting circumstances surrounding the tragic drowning death of an Oxford lightweight rower on a training camp in Spain.  The river conditions had been declared safe by the host club, the crews went out, a freak storm hit and the boats were swamped.  One rower tried to swim to shore instead of hanging onto the boat (first rule of capsizing: stay with the boat, since it is buoyant) - and he was washed away and drowned.  Since the only people who knew the full facts were not at liberty to write details pending the police investigation, the discussion on the newsgroup turned to water safety generally.

Now, I am all in favor of water safety.  And I am all in favor of rules to regulate water safety, when such safety concerns other river users.  Therefore, for example, I am all in favor of things like bowballs.  I am also in favor of action against people who disregard the safety of others (and am on record as being very upset that one famous US coach never got more than a slap on the wrist for killing a sculler about ten years ago when he was driving in a launch with pointy pontoons down the wrong side of the river while not looking ahead and literally gutted an oncoming sculler.  Later that day, I had brunch with some traumatized eye-witnesses.  Whenever I mention this incident, however, I get told off.  Accidents happen, but this was easily avoidable and entirely inexcusable.  But it should serve as a lesson in safety, and it did result in the rules of the river being more strictly defined.)

But the safety discussion on the newsgroup was not about such things.  It was about personal safety.  There was some discussion about how eights could be designed to float better when submerged (as smaller boats can, because they have a greater proportion of enclosed air-pockets).  There was also discussion of other design issues or equipment issues which might aid in safety - including lifejackets.  All of this was good discussion.

But the lifejacket issue, as Brits know, can be somewhat overbearing.  This is because in Britain in the mid-1990s, the Amateur Rowing Association made a rule that all coxswains were required to wear them at all times on the water.  What a stupid rule that was.  Now, I am not opposed to a cox choosing to wear one.  I would also not try to dissuade someone from wearing one.  I would also not object to the ARA launching a publicity campaign to convince coxes to wear lifejackets.  But I do object to it being a requirement.

First of all, it should remain as a matter of personal choice - if a cox drowns because he chooses not to wear one, then so be it.  No one else is hurt by the decision.  Second of all, it is just plain silly on the vast majority of places people row in Britain.  I coxed a crew at Bewdley in 1995 and chose not to wear my lifejacket normally (where I found it in the way) and instead hooked it around my waist and sat on it like a cushion.  This was a literally reading of the new rule, which only said that the lifejacket must be worn and did not specify how it was to be worn.  The umpires threatened to disqualify my crew, though, so I gave in since I did not feel like arguing.  But one of the umpires who shouted at me said that “it won’t do you any good if you wear it like that.”  I felt like shouting back that it would not do me any better to wear it normally.  Bewdley is on a river maybe 3.5 boat-widths wide at its widest.  It is so shallow that hatchet blades scrape the bottom even in the center of the stream.  The regatta is held in July, the only warm month in England.  Coxes are simply in no danger of drowning in any way that a lifejacket could save them.  A boat cannot roll over, because the river is not deep enough for the riggers to go all the way under.  So for a cox to go for a swim (figuratively speaking, because the river is not deep enough for that either), he would have to be launched from the boat in a collision.  Any such collision sending the cox flying like that would also do serious damage to the cox, making drowning the least of the coxswain’s worries.  Under such conditions (unconscious and/or severely injured), how would the cox inflate the lifejacket?  Answers on a postcard, please.

Of course, there are other models of lifejackets that do not require the cox to inflate them.  There are the already-inflated ones or the ones stuffed with buoyant material - but those tend to be rather bulky and not very useful for a cox stuffed in the coxswain seat.  The bulkiness restricts the cox’s mobility, and this is actually more dangerous as the cox is less able to look around and be fully aware of the surroundings.  There is also the self-inflating variety of lifejacket - these are idiotic for a water sport, if you think about it, and even more so in a country like England were it rains most of the time.

There are certainly rivers in England where a lifejacket on the cox might be a good idea.  I don’t think so, but I won’t object to someone else thinking so.  However, more rivers there are closer to the conditions at Bewdley.  Even so, there is no need to require lifejackets.

Furthermore, I may have missed a few posts to the newsgroup, but I got the impression that the ARA now requires coaches in launches to wear lifejackets as well.  In this respect, I gather from the newsgroup that one club was fined and threatened with a ban from competition because they had a coach who refused to wear a lifejacket in his launch.  It was the coach’s choice.  Why should the club force him?  And why should the ARA discipline the club?  Here is yet another example of rampant totalitarianism.

I guess that outburst will produce some more outrage… oh well.

When readers write in, I do try to respond as soon as I am able.  Interestingly, the topic which I have done the least responding to was actually that June 1999 piece on squads.  I was in the midst of studying for my bar examination and did not have time to respond to the multitude of e-mail I received.  I did produce a clarification in July 1999, and a few promises to write personal responses.  Somehow, the personal responses got lost in time, so I apologize to those who are still waiting a year and a half later.

Anyway, despite what I thought last Summer, I am still writing.  Although I thought that I would end after fifty columns, I keep getting mail from folks telling me they enjoy reading and hope I will keep writing.  And those who do not enjoy reading can simply not read.  Again, it is a question of choice.  And I am certainly an advocate of freedom of choice.
 

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