While I do not have time to write a formal essay at the momemnt, something did occur to me at practice today (March 11th): the coach's hat syndrome.
Many coaches I know have a knack for showing up at practice wearing bizarre hats. I'm not sure how this all started, but it does represent a positive trend in the sport. I am known for my odd variety of hats, and today I was completely outdone by Pete Ismay, my men's novice coach, who found a truly strange item in his apartmentmate's closet. I will concede defeat for now.
So, what's the deal with all the hats? Well, for practical purposes, they keep the head warm when we coaches have to spend all day at the river. As long as I am wearing a hat, I figure, why not wear one which keeps the crew on its toes?
The role of the coach is to get the crews to see things differently so that they can improve. Rowing technique itself is basic. What is difficult is getting athletes to execute. This requires the coach to find ever more creative ways of expressing concepts. Sometimes these are merely new words and phrases, sometimes they are analogies (even bizarre ones), and sometimes they are even obscure stories. Half the time, I don't even know what will come out of my mouth next. Most crews I have coached can tell stories about me prancing around my launch (or, in England, the bikepath) demonstrating some rowing concept by imitating spider monkeys, samurai warriors, rice cookers, Snoopy pretending to be a vulture, or whatever. They have constantly asked me where I come up with these things. Frankly, I have no clue. I just say whatever comes to mind. Sometimes this works to get a concept across, sometimes it does not. But if it makes people think differently about their rowing, then it is effective.
So, that indeed is the role of the coach. To get rowers to make changes in their rowing, to get them to visualize what they are doing and what they they should be doing. No one should ever be left in a rut, and sometimes they need to be jarred loose. That is where being bizarre comes in.
So, what's with the hats? Again, I don't know. I do not think much about my hat collection. This is a sport prone to garrishness, so I wouldn't think that the hat would make such a statement. But I still get comments. Unfortunately, I have not found any new hats lately - the last one I got was my Wolfson scarlet-and-gold-striped overly-tall ski hat with the pom-pom (looks like something out of Doctor Seuss), but otherwise my hat collection may be getting stale. Here's the current inventory of hats I wear to practice:
Barretina from Northern Catalonia (red fabric flops over the top and onto
forhead).
Afghani Mujaheddin cap (as modeled in war with Soviets).
Green Korean-War vintage US Army winter hat with ear flaps.
Traditional Hungarian lambs-fur (not wool) tracht hat.
Wadham College BC ski cap (pale blue with Maltese Cross, has been
derided as looking like something a garden gnome would wear).
Wolfson College BC ski cap (described above).
Harvard Crew sun hat.
Wolfson College Rowing wool baseball cap (scarlet, over-large brim,
doesn't break in too well).
Plus an assortment of baseball caps which don't elicit comments.
I don't think most of these look too bad, but I am not known for taste in clothing (color-coordination is not my thing, dressing like someone from a New England prep-school in the 1980s is - indeed, I still wear many of the same clothes I wore back then) and have had all of these commented on rather regularly. I'm sure the next hat I get will get a number of comments - but, I swear, I don't look for these things intentially. Just like I never know what will come out of my mouth next when I coach, I never know what I will wear to practice (or even when I dress myself off the water, for that matter).