American Club Rowing Experience, Part 4: Ergos in the Ballroom

Potomac Boat Club training on Rivanna Reservoir (Photo: Andrew Neils)

Your erg room used to have a piano in it (probably).

You realize that there weren't always ergs there, don't you? And if your erg room used to have a piano in it, then somewhere in your boathouse are old black-and-white photos of formal parties in the building (picture the July 4th Ball from The Shining). And if this is all true, your boathouse surely has a ballroom (you know, a room for having fancy… galas?) It’s hard to imagine the Social Register crowd ever presenting their daughters to society in the same room where I puked after a PB on "The Cooler," but I'll be damned if it isn't still universally called 'the ballroom.'

So few of the fundamentals in rowing—if any—have changed. Catch together, finish together; push with the legs. For the love of God, back the blade in, bow four.

But a sport is more than its fundamentals. At some point, the ballroom became the erg room. That's a big change.

Get past the letter "E" at Masters Nationals, for instance, and you'll find a class of athlete that never touched an erg in college—because they didn't exist yet. (Well, at least in their current form.) Think back to your collegiate racing experience for just a moment: You rowed the erg. You erged... a lot. Just try and reverse-engineer what your experience might have been like without the erg. Then trade out composites for wooden hulls. Imagine rowing with tulip blades. Hell, conjure up in your mind’s eye an an All-American IRA grand final (I kid! ...kind of)—go ahead, I'll wait.

So, the fundamentals of the sport remain mostly the same, but lot of things on the periphery have changed—and for many, it's the sum total of everything on the edges of the sport that defines your approach to it. What's been an erg room for ten years was a ballroom for one hundred.

"Those 'Nasty-Ass Vesper Oarsmen' that won the Olympics in 1964? I know we're talking about Philadelphia here, but you can bet money they rubbed some of their club the wrong way."

This isn't at its core a 'Boomers vs. Snapchat' thing—it's a perspective thing. Even at the lower levels, most high school and collegiate rowing tends to embrace being loud and sweaty and competitive and generally somewhat obnoxious, and if you're reading this column (instead of working, or studying) you probably take this as a given. But not everyone is out there to qualify for the Boston Marathon; some people just want to go for a jog—and there are plenty of rowing analogs for the experience of getting a contemptuous look after a polite "on your left" on your favorite track.

At some point in your club career, a member of your club will chew you out for making a mess, and it'll have nothing to do 'with who is from what generation.' You'll be called 'ungrateful,' or your crew will be labeled as 'party animals' (... who wake up at 4:30am every morning). Your sweat puddle is 'disrespectful,' no matter how much you clean up the area—even if you mop the whole floor. "Yeah, well maybe you should try breaking a sweat," you’ll think to yourself, mainly because you're a little smug and more than a little self-absorbed (no? Just me?).

But you were sweating all over the ballroom—why would you do such a thing?

Sweat on the Riverside Boat Club 'ballroom floor' (Photo thanks to Brendon Stoner)

Times, methods, and requirements change, and you can't celebrate the achievements of the past while tut-tutting crews on their way to the next round of club glory. The modern land-training regime of high erg-mileage and—especially in the D.C. summer—buckets of sweat, is certainly one component of continually-improving standards of performance. The fundamentals haven't changed, but the way we chase speed now is pretty loud and sweaty and smelly.

"The best beers you'll ever drink will be bought by a stranger because you won a race."

This isn't entirely new, of course—I shudder to think what Brad Lewis' squat rack smelled like. But this modern regime is anathema to a lot of the athletes that came before it. You have to keep this in mind throughout your club career, in order to not come off as a jerk.

Achieving your goals requires busting your ass on land, on the water, and in the weight room—and side-eyes from the "stroll through nature" crowd or unsolicited criticisms from the weekend warrior squad are only a distraction. Cleaning up after yourself is the bare minimum for being a good member of your club, but bringing trophies home is pretty important, too.

History can be a great source of strength for a club, program, team, or individual. It's a lot easier to win a race if you've won it before; it's a lot easier to argue your club should buy top-of-the-line hulls if they've always bought top-of-the-line hulls. It's great to have teammates or fellow members that won the [Oxford and Cambridge] Boat Race or made national teams or rowed under That Legendary Coach That Changed Lives. But time machines don’t win races, and once-in-a-generation coaches aren't always succeeded by replacements up to the task. Speed yesterday doesn’t guarantee speed now.

Remember that those that came before you—they had to deal with this, too. Those 'Nasty-Ass Vesper Oarsmen' that won the Olympics in 1964? I know we're talking about Philadelphia here, but you can bet money they rubbed some of their club the wrong way. Big goals make big noise, and conspicuous effort makes you, well, conspicuous. Any crew that's done something great for the first time had to deal with a lot of folks that resented the way they chased that dream—and probably were a legitimate headache to a lot of folks at their club just trying to steal a paddle or a workout or a peaceful morning.

On the other side of the coin, there are probably a lot of athletes—teammates, even—that might be from a different generation or a totally separate experience with the sport, that love seeing hard work and sweat and grit no matter how loud it is or how bad it smells. Achieve great things, and strangers—whether they’re members of your club or not—will buy your next round. The best beers you'll ever drink will be bought by a stranger because you won a race.

Boathouses are never big enough, and never have enough equipment to share. Sometimes there's not enough ergs or sculls or hulls to go around, and sometimes members just rub one another the wrong way because of personalities. Sometimes, you’re a minor inconvenience, and sometimes, you really are being a pain in the ass.

In other words, there's someone at your club that doesn't like you. That's no reason to not do everything in your power to win.

-Peter Clements





 Coming up next week: What ‘training to win’ means as a club athlete. Taking weekends off to go do time trials; training every morning and finding the rare afternoon; cutting deals with your family, etc.

 Note: This series will be regularly published on Tuesdays between now and 2018 Henley Royal Regatta. View all posts in this series by clicking the label 'ACE Series.'

 -RR

Trending posts this month

"I Row Crew" — Rowing in 'The Social Network'

Image
Like many of the rowing faithful, I've been keeping up with the saga penned by Dan Boyne about the filming of the rowing scenes in David Fincher and Aaron Sorkin's The Social Network , and I must say I had high hopes going into the film. The first problem I encountered: the phrase, "I row crew." It was uttered so many times before anyone "rowed crew" on the water that I had trouble buying any of it later. It's understandable that the character of Mark Zuckerberg makes that mistake, since he has no idea about the sport. But when the Winklevoss twins themselves utter the phrase several times, one begins to wonder where Boyne was when these lines were not being chopped or changed. Seriously, who says that? As far as the actual rowing goes, the first scene, which has the twins out training in a pair along with the rest of the Harvard squad, is not all bad — it just ends that way. The line, "Those guys are freakin' fast" is certainly every b...
Read more

The 30 Best Rowing Coaches of All Time, Part 3: The Top 10

Image
The top 10 best rowing coaches, including guess who (Photo © Iain Weir / Rowing Photography ) It's time for the third and final part of our 3-part series on the best of the best in the rowing coaching ranks. These coaches not only command respect based on performance, but have also shown the ability to adapt to new circumstances, build dynasties, and ultimately help shape the trajectory of rowing as a sport. Honestly, it would be easy to extend this series into 10 more posts... But we wouldn't do that to you. As we've said before, the hope is that the following may serve to educate and spark discussion, as both an appreciation of history and of the coaching craft. Also note: As we stated in Part 1 and Part 2 of this series, there are few women in this list, but that is a reflection of a general underrepresentation of women in the head coaching ranks in our sport—and indeed (as has been well documented ) a growing number of NCAA sports in the United States. ...
Read more

So, are Naked Rowing Calendars a Thing Now?

Image
Warwick rowers are all in again this year (Photo courtesy of Warwick Boat Club)  The phenomenon started four years ago with the Warwick Rowing men's squad. Then, the following year, the Warwick women's team joined the fray. Now, Newcastle University's men and women are back on the naked calendar train. So, the question is, have rowing and naked calendars become a thing? The above video features the 2014-2015 Warwick women's squad—the third edition of the calendar , and, from the looks of it, the raciest. However, perhaps not so racy as that of the 2014-2015 Warwick men (see below). But raciness aside, all four of these teams have chosen worthy charities and have gone "the full monty" to make sure that those causes have received considerable contributions. The Warwick women contribute to Macmillan Cancer Support —a cause for which Warwick reports it has donated some £5,000. The Warwick men? Sport Allies —a charity that combats homophobia in spor...
Read more

Will It Make the Boat Go Faster? At Marin Rowing Association, Culture is Key

Image
Hands in after training  My alarm goes off—it’s 4:22am.  It’s been a while since I did this. Immediately, I think back to a college dorm room, rolling out of bed and running down the steps to carpool caravan to Marina Del Rey.  Not this time, though. It’s a Tuesday in late September, and I’m heading across the Golden Gate Bridge to Greenbrae, California, where I’ll meet with the Marin Rowing Men’s Masters squad. Fortunately, it’s an unusually warm morning—and when I roll in, the boathouse is already buzzing with activity.  Launch time: 5:10. Heading out into the Bay before dawn The Marin Rowing Association program has both men’s and women’s masters boats competing to win at every event they attend. In the fall, that can only mean one thing: The Head Of The Charles .  The boat that Coach Rodrigo Rodrigues and I spend most of our time with is the Grand Masters eight—average age 60+. But that’s just one of five crews that launched with us that morning. Everyone’s ...
Read more

Winter Workouts: Why Do Rowers Fear the Erg?

Image
Op-Ed from the RowingRelated Editorial Staff Friend. Not foe. (Illustration: B. Kitch) I am really frustrated by our sport when it comes to the erg being viewed as a torture device rather than a helpful tool that people can enjoy. This negative mindset, which is extremely contagious, plagues the sport, preventing athletes from training to their potential and possibly serving as one of the reasons that careers in rowing, at every level, are often so short. When compared to other endurance sports, I have not encountered an equal level of disdain for such fundamental mental and physical endurance training. My main problem is that everywhere I turn in the rowing community, whether it's high school rowers, college athletes, or even national team hopefuls, I hear of people dreading the erg. I've never heard about a cross country runner 'dreading' a track workout. True, basketball and football players may dread running wind sprints or other such conditioning acti...
Read more