All About College Rowing

By Christy Flom on August 15, 2015

A growing sport at both the high school and collegiate levels is rowing.

As one of the original Olympic events, rowing has continually captured the interest of younger generations beginning during people’s high school careers.

Photo Via Flickr.com

In a sport where being moderately tall is short by everyone else’s standards, rowing was never a main interest of mine. However, I have had a series of friends compete on rowing teams at the collegiate level and learned a great deal about the lesser-known aspects of the sport.

To start, rowing varies from school to school on whether it is a varsity or club sport. There are many competitive club teams whose schools simply do not have the funding for a varsity rowing team. The main difference is that varsity players can receive scholarships, which any student-athlete would like to receive in order to play the sport they love.

Aside from the varying levels of competition at the collegiate level, rowing is a very unique sport. The practices tend to be extremely early in the morning. It makes me tired when my friends tell me they wake up around 6 a.m. every day for morning practices, Monday through Friday.

The reason behind the madness of such early practices is that races always begin early, too. So it makes sense to keep the athletes on a sleeping schedule that permits them to be ready to race early in the morning.

There are up to eight rowers per boat that sit facing the stern and a coxswain at the front of the boat who directs the rowers and keeps the pace. There are certain types of rowing competitions that do not need the coxswain but the most popular events in college rowing need one.

The coxswain is a very tiny person, the direct opposite of the tall, strong rowers. It is important for this person to be small because they do not row and the rowers do not want to carry more weight than necessary. Having said that, there are weight minimums that the coxswains must meet before races, similar to wrestlers.

Coxswains have been known to eat ghastly amounts of food before a race in order to make the weight for their level of competition. By ghastly I mean stuffing a whole footlong subway sandwich, multiple cookies, and several water bottles down one’s throat without allowing them to go to the bathroom until after they are weighed.

It can also be the opposite where coxswains need to lose a pound before a weight and they barely eat anything until after they are weighed. The coxswain is a very intense position on the team, but a necessary one in order to keep the rowers on pace and going straight.

Photo Via Flickr.com

A friend of mine who rowed for a year at the University of Pennsylvania, Marissa Thompson, said that rowers, too, were weighed once a month. The rowers can either pull one oar with two hands or pull two oars one with each hand. In order to train for the races, athletes do different exercises on land and in the water. Aside from rowing in the water and using rowing machines on land, rowers run and do strength training to keep up their endurance for a long race.

Besides merely being athletic in order to complete the workouts and races, rowers are strong individuals with a desire to achieve. As I mentioned earlier how some schools do not have varsity teams, even those that do have one do not always have scholarships available for players depending on how new or popular or well-funded the team is in relation to other sports sponsored by that school. Without scholarships, the athletes must have sincere dedication to the sport to keep up the strict workout regiments and early races.

Rowing is also a sport that continues workouts year round. While there are no races in the winter, competitions continue well into the end of fall. Then, workouts begin for spring races. This amps up the time commitment for the athletes. Many sports have year-round commitments but it is especially impressive for rowing because many athletes are recruited on campus. I know at the University of Michigan there are always players, men and women, talking to people around the campus encouraging them to walk on to the team.

From the dedication and endurance of the athletes to the year-long workouts and long race days, rowing is hard work but for many athletes across the country it is well worth the effort. Competing in Big Ten tournament championships and Nationals against teams from all over make the sport exciting to follow and compete in.

Whether or not you are a morning person, rowing is a great sport for competitive people, especially those who love the outdoors and being on water. Granted, the water may be a little chilly, but at least it will keep you awake in the morning!

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