Love your novice crews
I want to address what I perceive to be an outdated myth:
Novice don't matter.
Between catching up on practice results from yesterday and making sure that I'm ready for today and the rest of the week I'm a bit distracted but I want to get some thoughts down onto paper.
Let's get something straight. Novice matter.
Without novice you don't have a rowing program. Period. Varsity athletes are the bones of the program but the novice are the muscle. They hold things together. You can't do anything without them.
I have always cringed whenever I've heard a coach or athlete say, "novice results don't matter." My response is "why not?" Why don't novice results matter? The consistent answer that I get is that it's because they aren't varsity which to me is a rather poor argument.
1. How hard are you going to train and race when you know your program and peers and coaches don't care about how you do? Not very hard.
2. How do you plan on winning a points trophy without your novice points? In 2008 at NCRCs the UPS novice women took 22 out of a possible 26 points in their races. We missed the overall points trophy by 8 points - 60.5 to 52.5 - but the novice alone outscored 3rd place.
3. How do you convince your returning novice to row hard when they're varsity? The answer is, you can't. You've ingrained a mentality about yourself and your program and they will view you with skepticism. You'll have to build trust with these athletes whom you've made outcasts during their first year.
4. You're contributing to a problem that will inevitably lead to bigger problems. It seems harmless at first to mess with new rowers but it's not a stretch to see things going very wrong. One only needs to do a Google search to find cases of hazing in high school sports where lawsuits and careers are involved. It's simply something that could be prevented.
I'm not advocating that you put your novice on par with varsity. There is a hierarchy within the program and I firmly believe that the varsity are entitled to a few extra perks. They've given more and been with the program longer. However, I also believe that you need to treat your novice rowers and novice program with the respect that it deserves and when you see problems, you need to stamp them out immediately.
Novice feed your program. In many ways what they do and how they race and train is more important than your varsity. With varsity you already know what you've got. With novice you're training the next wave of athletes who are supposed to take over and push your program further than your current athletes. Love your novice and they in turn will help you. Abuse your novice and watch your program crumble.
Novice don't matter.
Between catching up on practice results from yesterday and making sure that I'm ready for today and the rest of the week I'm a bit distracted but I want to get some thoughts down onto paper.
Let's get something straight. Novice matter.
Without novice you don't have a rowing program. Period. Varsity athletes are the bones of the program but the novice are the muscle. They hold things together. You can't do anything without them.
I have always cringed whenever I've heard a coach or athlete say, "novice results don't matter." My response is "why not?" Why don't novice results matter? The consistent answer that I get is that it's because they aren't varsity which to me is a rather poor argument.
1. How hard are you going to train and race when you know your program and peers and coaches don't care about how you do? Not very hard.
2. How do you plan on winning a points trophy without your novice points? In 2008 at NCRCs the UPS novice women took 22 out of a possible 26 points in their races. We missed the overall points trophy by 8 points - 60.5 to 52.5 - but the novice alone outscored 3rd place.
3. How do you convince your returning novice to row hard when they're varsity? The answer is, you can't. You've ingrained a mentality about yourself and your program and they will view you with skepticism. You'll have to build trust with these athletes whom you've made outcasts during their first year.
4. You're contributing to a problem that will inevitably lead to bigger problems. It seems harmless at first to mess with new rowers but it's not a stretch to see things going very wrong. One only needs to do a Google search to find cases of hazing in high school sports where lawsuits and careers are involved. It's simply something that could be prevented.
I'm not advocating that you put your novice on par with varsity. There is a hierarchy within the program and I firmly believe that the varsity are entitled to a few extra perks. They've given more and been with the program longer. However, I also believe that you need to treat your novice rowers and novice program with the respect that it deserves and when you see problems, you need to stamp them out immediately.
Novice feed your program. In many ways what they do and how they race and train is more important than your varsity. With varsity you already know what you've got. With novice you're training the next wave of athletes who are supposed to take over and push your program further than your current athletes. Love your novice and they in turn will help you. Abuse your novice and watch your program crumble.
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