Got a need for speed and savings? Take 15% off the SpeedCoach for a limited time!
Coaching Confident Coxswains
Coxing is scary.
The first time I sat in the ninth seat was one of the worst experiences of my life. The coach had a policy where every new coxswain started out in the men’s heavyweight varsity eight. The stroke seat of that eight was the rower version of Jekyll and Hyde: nice enough outside of practice but a completely different person in the boat (cut to the scene where Hyde tramples the little girl).Add to that a take-no-prisoners coach who knew exactly how he wanted to break (in) new coxswains:
When the skeg got caught on the lip of the dock and broke off: "That was your fault. Stand next to the skeg when you’re putting the boat in the water."
When we ran aground on a sandbar: "That was your fault. Check the water level online before practice. Get out of the boat, wade it into deeper water, get back in and row straight to the boathouse. Your crew can thank you for making them redo this workout on the ergs."
Sometimes it seemed like this was a strategy to avoid making cuts. Coxswains who couldn't handle the criticism quit, and those who continued to show up were deemed worthy to remain on the team. These comments can seem abusive when listed together out of context, but they all had explicit directions on how he wanted the coxswain to do things differently in the future. Sure, he was direct, but directness was helpful in establishing his expectations.
Most of what he said to us was actually an effort to prevent coxing mistakes:
In a meeting before the first practice: "Bring sunglasses, a hat, and a waterproof digital watch with you every day to practice. If you don’t have those things go to the store tonight and buy them."
"Be the last one in the boat and first one out."
"1V, keep the middle position. The big smokestack is your point. 2V and 3V steer off the 1V and keep one meter between the blades."
There were moments, mostly when I was the target of this special brand of constructive criticism, when I wanted a trapdoor to open underneath my seat to I could swim back to the dock. Two years later I switched teams and started coxing for a coach who had a much softer approach. It took less than a week to start missing the first coach. With him, coxswains understood exactly what was expected of them; and if they did do something wrong, they knew exactly what it was, why it was wrong, and how to do it differently the next time.
There was an unexpected side effect of being held to high (though sometimes seemingly impossible) expectations: it sent a clear message to the crew that the coxswain was totally responsible for everything that happened to the boat and the athletes, and were therefore unquestionably in charge.
