Most important is finding the right coach. Of all the various levels of this sport that I have been involved with, I have found coaching novices to be the most difficult. Nothing can be taken for granted. And anything which is taught badly is very hard to unteach later. Additionally, it is through the novice coach that the novices get therir first experience with the sport - if this is not a positive experience, then there is little hope of building a program. Too many college programs fail to realize this - novice coaches are often people who have not rowed all that much themselves who coach novices on the theory that anyone can teach the basics who has themselves learned the basics. It is not quite that simple.
First of all, the sport has to be presented to the novices as fun. If the novices are not enjoying themselves, then they will likely quit pretty quickly. Early mornings are best avoided (actually, they are best avoided even for non-novices, but that's another issue I'll get into some other time). The coach has to be enthusiastic - after all, if the coach did not feel strongly about the sport, would he be there? Sometimes novices wonder. They can not be allowed to wonder. This is a great sport, and they have to be convinced of that.
Novices cannot be rushed. I have watched far too many coaches let their crews try all eight full slide feathered blades by the end of the first outing. This is just silly, because the crew never gets it right and leaves frustrated rather than excited. I, personally, am one of the most conservative coaches I know when it comes to coaching novices. I won't go on to the next step until the one currently being worked on is mastered. I start off by pairs arms only. Gradually parts of the body are added, as is rowing by fours. This year, it took me two weeks to get to full slide, and a month to get to all eight. I wait to teach feathering until the day before I am ready to let the crew try all eight. Pressure comes even later, and that is taught by fours or sixes square blades. Only one concept should be worked on at a time, and new concepts should be added in a logical progression - the sport is difficult enough not to have everyone thinking about five hundred different things at once.
Every coach has a different internal logic to his stroke, and every novice crew and rower will have different areas which will need to worked on more than others, so I will not proscribe any particular manner of going about coaching novices. Suffice it to say that the process must be taken slowly and with great care by a coach who does indeed have a clue about why he is doing things the way he is. Rowing is a thinking man's sport - there is a lot going on here. It is not enough simply to teach the rowers what to do, it haas to be explained to them why they are doing it that way. This requires a lot of conceptualization - giving metaphors to non-rowing activities, especially bizarre metaphors, will help the novices learn more quickly and more effectively. If the novices learn to think about the stroke, they will more likely start coming up with their own questions to ask after practice. I have found that many of the technical questions I have been asked by novices are well-reasoned. Although the answer to many of their questions is often "it is a complicated issue which we will get to eventually but is too difficult to explain now," it is still worth encouraging them to come up with questions and to provide answers as best as possible. If the novices learn to think about what makes a baot move fast, they will become more open and more coachable, and this will make them better rowers down the line.
This brings the issue of different learning curves. Some people learn faster than others. This does not mean that some people are inherently better than others, and that must be stressed to novices so that the natural ones don't get cocky and the less-coordinated ones don't feel bad. Many times, I have seen novices take to the sport but then fail to achieve what their first few outings would have predicted. I have also seen uncoordinated people who, given the right amount of attention and desire, have developed into superb oarsmen. It is important that, where possible, novices be split up to work with people of their own speed. Those who can learn faster need different attention than those who must learn more slowly, so that they do not get held back. Those who learn more slowly need more careful attention so that they do not get left behind or get forced to move onto a new skill before they are ready. With the closer attention, they will still have a chance to develop in ways they would not if they were stuck in crews with novices who learn more quickly. I have been very fortunate this year to have all of my novices learning on the same curve - no one is trailing behind at all, so I have been able to set boats based entirely on class schedule and to follow the same program with both boats. When I have had my crews out at the same time to try racing each other, they have split all their pieces. I couldn't have made them more even if I had tried. But this is unusual, and normally attention needs to be paid in different amounts to different people.
One group of novices which is often neglected is the coxswain. Most people who are new to the sport have no concept of what a coxswain is (other than the stereotypical wimp who shout stroke! stroke! stroke!). I stress the importance of the cox from day one, including the fact that most coxswains secretly want to row. In discussing all the exciting things a cox really does, I emphasize safety. This is to make it quite clear to everyone that safety has to be the number one concern. Also, by stressing safety I make it quite clear why everyone must be turned on at all times. Then, from the very first practice I let the cox give the commands. Too many coaches give all the commands themselves, leaving the poor cox to just sit there and feel useless while the rowers also begin to consider the cox as useless. I make it clear that if I give a command, I am merely feeding it to the cox. I go over with the cox how to give commands, and coach the cox as I would the rowers, giving positive and negative feedback. Not only does the cox need to learn, but the rowers need to learn about the use and importance of the cox.
Another question which comes up is what equipment novices should use. Many programs do not have the luxury of much choice. But when some choice is available it must be exercised wisely. For example, there is no point putting novices directly into fine racing shells. It is better to use heavy stable shells. These set more easily, and are also less at risk from damage by novices (or, in the very least, the consequences of damaging these boats are less than if the damage the good boats). The boats should be wired for a coxbox (for safety reasons above all else, but also for the same other reasons good boats have coxboxes).
The question of oars is more problematic. Until last year, every novice crew I'd ever coached I had sent out with wooden oars. I did this because they were heavier and clunkier, thus providing stability to the boat and being less likely to get out of control. Novices liked them because they were unlikely to go feathered or squared on their own and because it was always perfectly clear what was going on with them. However, last year I found that some novices could indeed start immediately with Dreissigacker oars of the macon-shaped variety, although this took a little coordination and I still didn't do this with every crew. But even for novices who start with wooden blades, it is pretty crucial to switch them over to Dreissigackers (and I use the brand name on purpose - I've yet to see another brand of composite oars which I find at all useful) as soon as it is time for them to go somewhere - leave the crew with wooden blades for too long and they will start fighting the equipment and be unable to advance as quickly if at all. About a year ago I visited Harvard's boathouse and found out that Harvard no longer uses macon blades even for its novices, on the theory that its crews will all be racing with hatchets come springtime, so they might as well learn with hatchets. I had always been skeptical: hatchets are more difficult for novices to row with because of their bladesize, plus hatchets have a way of masking deficiencies in technique which are more clear with macons. But this year, I am now coaching at a college which due to a limited budget retrofitted its macons with hatchet blades a couple of years ago, so I had no choice but to use hatchets. The results have surprised me. Sure there is a lot of splashing, but the novices are handling to oars better than I had imagined. But, then again, the group of novices I have to work with is atypical - they are all coordinated and quick learners.
But this last item about using hatchets even when it might not be desirable at the moment underscores another point: the racing season is not upon us until the Spring. It does not matter if the novices are going as fast as possible at the moment, or that they win any of the head races they will enter this term. All that matters is that they are learning the foundations of what will make them go fast when it counts: the Spring racing season. This means that their first term in the sport must be fun, so that they want to carry on through the hard and depressing winter months, and that they learn the fundamentals well so they can build when they return to the water after the winter, and that they feel they are accomplishing something every week - getting better, learning new things - so that they can sense their improvement and understand the direction they are heading.
I cannot, of course, guarantee success. All I hope to do with novices is give them a liking for the sport and to give them the best opportunity I can provide and the best chances I know how to be able to compete in the Spring. This article came to mind when I thought about how many boat clubs are unconcerned with anything other than their top boats, how they let their novices whither and fail to provide them with adequate coaching, and how they then cost themselves in the long-term. Investment in novices is the best investment a club can make.
For my own part, I actually enjoy coaching novices now and then, because it allows me the chance to review the fundamentals of rowing and to rethink the rowing stroke I teach to better crews. It forces me to think what it is that makes boats move fast. As long as the rowers are willing to be there and have the right attitude and commitment for the level they are at, I don't care who I coach - men or women, lightweight or heavyweight, novice or international.