July eighth 1999 seems to be the day that Oxford started paying attention to this column.
I know I keep promising that letter about pot-hunting and that every month I keep pushing it back. I am afraid it’s going to have to happen yet again this month. I am studying for the Massachusetts Bar Exam at month’s end (uh-oh, I just admitted I am a lawyer - most people do not know that - actually, I am not a lawyer and only one of my degrees is in law, but I have decided to try to get a license anyway since I am eligible). This is a tedious, time-consuming, and mind-numbing activity. My brain has turned to jelly and I am drooling on the keyboard. I had budgeted enough time to write one time this month. I was indeed planning on finishing that half-written piece on pot-hunting, but then all hell broke loose and this became my one writing break instead.
My Letter from America is not exactly the most read site on the internet. I get regular visitors, to be sure, who write to me from all over the world to discuss issues I have raised. Of course, I had been getting e-mails from people all over the world since long before I ever started writing the Letter from America. I have a reputation as someone who responds to e-mail queries, so people of all levels in this sport have taken to asking my advice on anything and everything rowing related (readers: please feel free to e-mail me whenever you want to discuss something, although keep in mind that my e-mail correspondence this month will be limited until after the Bar Exam). I’m not always well-informed or right, but I enjoy discussion.
I have viewed the Letter from America as a bit of a folly. Though written at the behest of the Wolfson College Boat Club (hence I make a lot of gratuitous references to Wolfson and to the application of some of my ideas there), most of the people who visit the site are not from Oxford at all. Indeed, I have discovered links to my site from some very unlikely places (Leon High School in Florida is the most recent random addition I have discovered. -- Hello, guys, you are famous now!). Every so often I will get an e-mail from Oxford to discuss one issue or another at greater length, but I figured most people over there were pretty oblivious.
Then, this morning (July eighth), more people from Oxford visited my site in one twelve-hour period than normally visit in an entire month. I received a handful of e-mails - congratulatory and outraged. I do not think I have kicked up this much fuss anywhere since I left Oxford in a puff of smoke in July 1996.
In previous Letters from America I have remained pretty consistent in my views on Oxford rowing. No one has made a fuss until last month’s letter. I assume that probably because people were training for or enjoying the festivities at Henley until last weekend, no one was paying attention to the letter I posted last month until today. Since, much to my surprise, I have everyone’s attention, I think it is appropriate to offer some clarification.
The things I write in the "Letter from America" are meant to provoke thought. They are not meant to provoke mayhem. At times they may serve to make people think critically about the sport. When I went to school (Phillips Exeter Academy - an odd place indeed), I was taught to think critically about everything - to tear everything apart because whatever got built afterwards would inevitably be stronger. We made a lot of arguments for the sake of argument (indeed, our grades depended on it). As a result, everything got taken with the appropriate amount of salt.
For those who know me well, you will know this fact about me. For those who know me less well or not at all, there is a tendency to take what I say too seriously. If I offend anyone, and I know I do, then I am sorry. I am trying to make people think - I am not trying to make people upset. I am generally pretty quick to apologize, and I do apologize publicly here right now. The overwhelming response to my June letter has been positive, but I still feel the need to at least clarify my views for the benefit of those who have objected to them.
One clarification I should certainly make that, it was pointed out to me, may not occur to some readers: I have been out of Oxford for nearly three years. I have been back twice since, the more recent time for less than 24 hours this past January. On neither visit did I venture near the river. All of what I know about Oxford rowing in the last three years comes vicariously. Facts I mention are therefore out-of-date, and impressions are based on what little I have heard second-hand. Readers, please take note. This is a Letter from America, not a "Letter from Oxford." I do not always know what I am talking about - but I usually make people think, which is the idea.
Not in the way of excuse but in the way of explanation, readers may notice that my articles are generally more coherently crafted, as opposed to June’s one which is - as I described it when I posted it - a "rambling piece." As I explained above, I am spending this Summer doing a very brainless, tedious, and time-consuming activity. So I plowed out the article as it occurred to me, proofed it, and posted it. Normally I write at least two drafts if not more. As a result of today’s fireworks, I have decided to take the original version of June’s Letter off-line, and have written a second draft in conformity with my usual custom.
The second draft is not much different from the first, just a bit more tightly written. Readers should still take it within the context I have described above.
What has happened in Oxford squads in the nearly three years I have been away? Well, OUBC has hired Sean Bowden as Head Coach, perhaps the best coach in Britain (but, I am told, the old guard retains critical power). OULRC has moved on from Chris Jones’ fine leadership - but importantly has more-or-less stuck to the system Chris brought in when he was coaching. OUWBC has made attempts to improve on the problems I characterized when I was still in Oxford - or at least its Old Girls have tried to make those improvements on its behalf. And OUWLRC has indeed been the most-improved squad of the decade with recent successes which should come as no surprise given much of what it instituted several years back under Ben Hunt-Davis.
I might add that you know things have changed when I felt inclined to bet on Oxford in the men’s heavyweight race this year - that is the first time I have ever bet for OUBC over CUBC (the bet only consisted of a pint of ale, but that’s about all I ever bet anyway). I bet skeptically, as I know the Oxford bias of the British press which was my only real source of information about the form of the crews. But my faith in Sean Bowden outweighed my skepticism. Oxford’s loss served to further fuel my underlying belief that the problem is not the coach but the system, and from what I understand the people most responsible for maintaining that system remain in place. Again, keep in mind that my impressions come from sitting on this side of the Pond, not that.
My views on Oxford rowing were reinforced this Spring when, after several years of failing to find anyone with the machinery to transfer European-format video tape to American-format, I found someone able to do it. I got to watch on video, for the first time in three years, four hours worth of footage I had accumulated in England: the complete men’s heavyweight Blue Boat races from 1993-96 including interviews and features, ample footage of Isis/Goldie, some clips of the Oxford and especially the Cambridge women, and film of the Notts County lightweights. As enlightening as the rowing footage was, I found the off-the-water films just as interesting. These included interviews with Oxford and Cambridge men’s heavyweight rowers, and I was reminded of the huge contrast in attitudes between the two - from the interviews alone it was possible to tell why Cambridge would win. Steve Royle even gives the BBC a long spiel about why Oxford’s training methods are superior to Cambridge’s and therefore Oxford should not change anything even if it is losing - all the while virtually ignoring that Cambridge crews which looked inferior to Oxford on paper were beating the Dark Blue senseless on the water. When I showed some of these clips to my rowers this Spring, even they picked up on it despite not being British and not knowing anything about the two programs. But, I guess I should point out once again that this video tape corresponded with my time in Oxford and not with what may or may not be happening today. I only mention it now in order to give people who reacted to my June Letter a chance to understand the angle I was coming from.
One of the purposes of my June piece, however, was to get people to think hard about the value of doing squad. I still have my misgivings, and there will need to be some drastic changes before I will be swayed otherwise. I still feel that such changes would include a degree of merger and collaboration between the four squads (although this cannot properly happen until OUBC reforms itself first). Until then, I think people are giving the short-shrift to college rowing. There is so much untapped potential in college rowing at Oxford, despite the small size of the colleges. Sensible training and planning can and does produce fast crews even without waves of schoolboy or schoolgirl rowers. Collegiate rowing is so much more manageable than university rowing and the rewards are far greater, in my opinion. My reaction against doing squad was for the most part based on this premise. And my call for college crews to go chase after OUWBC in the Summer was also based on a challenge (a bit harder for the men, since OUBC has more mercenaries and pseudo-students, and unlike CUBC rarely puts out eights come Summer).
My ideas are by no means unusual. Even in Oxford, other coaches shared similar opinions while I was there. Few colleges have implemented these plans in the long term - Exeter College men have been a shining exception for the longest period: a college boat club with real spirit, which may lend athletes to the university squads but which keeps them nevertheless involved in the college scene, and whose squad athletes did not, from my observation, develop the "I do squad therefore I am a superior being to you mortal college rowers" attitude which seems to prevail among many squad athletes even if they do return to row for Eights with their colleges. I am not a fan of mercenaries, and rowing is often better without them.
About a year and a half ago, I had a long conversation with another American (who will remain nameless, but it should be obvious from the context) who had spent time coaching in Oxford back in the 1980s. This was a man I had coached against in my first year back in the US, and for whom I had great respect by reputation, even though I had never met him personally before that conversation. I might add that he was even less cautious in his words of disgust for a certain former OUBC head coach than I have been - probably because he had the misfortune of working with the man directly, whereas I only observed.
These Letters from America, therefore, are meant to show different ways of thinking and to provoke thought among the readers. Even if the readers do not change their ultimate opinions as a result of reading my writing, if they are forced to think hard about their opinions in order to emerge more confirmed in their original convictions, then I am doing my job. I am glad I have produced some debate over there as a result of June’s column. However, I am not glad that some people I have respect for have taken offense. I must reiterate that I do not mean to offend anyone. The fact that people have taken my comments much harder than anticipated shows that I have. For those who took offense, let me apologize again.