Article January 1, 2002 Issue

HOW I BECAME a coxswain

by Name removed by request—Los Angeles, California

In my junior year of high school I wanted to find a sport. A couple of my friends had heard about crew, and it sounded interesting. So I went to the tryouts for the crew team at the Marin Rowing Association near our school. The Rowing Association is comprised of all the schools in Marin County, California. There were 70 girls trying out for 30 positions, and a lot of coxswains trying out for only 5 coxswain places. When I found out what a coxswain was, I decided to try out for one of the positions, and I made the team.

A coxswain is like an assistant coach. We are the connecting voice from the coach to the rowers, so a coxswain should know a lot about the technical aspects of the sport — about each part of the stroke. We steer the shell [racing boat] and keep track of the stroke rate per minute. We lead the rest of the crew through set workouts. We also motivate the crew during the races and make specific calls or corrections to each of the rowers. If we make a call that's unnecessary, the other crew members don't want to hear it. A lot of them have had so many years of experience that they can tell if we really know what we're talking about.

During my senior year I was doing crew six hours a day, six days a week. I got frustrated because it was time-consuming. At that time I was also busy filling out college applications. At one point I got a little stressed out and felt like I was going nowhere. I came home and I was really sad. My parents said, “You know, you can quit crew whenever you want. It seems like it's a real stressful sport for you. You don't have to do this to yourself.”

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