Lineups
Hello Loyal Readers,
I believe we might be done with the Peek Inside series. I've run out of ideas, and currently do not feel like involving you in the monotonous process of job applications. I do dislike writing cover letters. They simply do not come easy for me.
Row2K has been running a series where they pose a question and have coaches from various programs write in responses. The topic today: Crew Selection.
First, I have to be honest. I don't put a lot of value into discussion topics on Row2K. I personally find their articles to be the diet anything of journalism. The titles sound interesting, the substance is incredibly wanting. They are up there with ESPN nowadays. But getting opinions from coaches is very helpful. It's interesting to see who values what, what their opinions might be, etc. I suppose some might find talking about selection to be giving away the farm, but it would have been interesting to find out some of the thought process behind how crews are selected.
So the question posed was this: What do you think is the most important seat in the eight, and what characteristics do you look for in the athlete that races in that seat?
There is only one answer for this question, and with all due respect, if you give any other answer, you're wrong.
The most important seat in an eight is...
...The coxswain.
The eight is not a blind boat. It's a 60 foot craft capable of reaching upwards of 19 mph, more if it's an international boat. Every single seat in the boat is facing the stern. There is one person, and one person only who can steer this boat, who can motivate and drive the boat, who can run the race strategy and adjust on the fly. That's the coxswain. That's what you train them for.
Correction: That's what you SHOULD be training them for. Let's be honest, coxswain training is low on the laundry list of things coaches do when building boats. I've been at 10 different programs, and only one of them has had a dedicated coxswain training program.
Let me put it to you plainly. Not training a coxswain is like spending years building a sports car, and just as it's ready to race, you grab some random person who looks like they fit in the car to drive it. You haven't the foggiest idea what their skill level is, if they're even remotely qualified for the task at hand, and now you're telling them to go win the 24-Hours at Le Mans.
Good luck with that.
I love coxswain training, partially because I was never trained as a coxswain. I was simply shoved into the seat because I'd spent a semester rowing. My coxswain training began and ended with what the tiller did. Because of this, I have a very different view on training coxswains than others might. My approach is hands off, and a lot of practical application. My view on what makes a good coxswain doesn't include height or weight, and instead centers on personality.
You have to want that seat, and the responsibilities that come with it. It is thankless. You lose, you're going to be blamed. You win, and the crew takes the credit. You'll be screamed at by coaches, and other athletes. You'll be told subtly or not so subtly that you're not pulling your weight because you don't do the same workouts, and yet you're indispensable. You are in charge of a $45-60,000 sports car, and eight lives, plus you're responsible for the the other $45-60,000 dollar sports cars and lives around you.
Stroke the most important seat in the boat? Seven? Bow? Absolutely not. No seat in any coxed boat is getting across the line without a coxswain.
Ah, you say. But what about blind boats such as the 4-, or 2-, 2x, 1x, 4x? Those don't have coxswains.
And to that I would say, go back and read the question that was posed, and then let's have a chat about reading comprehension.
But ok, let's put the coxswain aside. What seat outside of the coxswain is the most important?
I'm going to have to go with the last answer: Each seat is important. Stroke seat sets the pace. Seven seat backs them up. Six seat translates the stroke to the rest of the boat. Five, four, and three seat along with six drive the engine. Two seat and bow set the recovery, and help pick up the front end.
Stroke seat has to be a come hell or high water person. I'm going to sound like an old man here, but things have shifted significantly since I was rowing. It used to be that stroke seat was the biggest asshole on the team. Put the nicest person in stroke seat and they become the biggest asshole on the planet. They yell, and scream, and no one can follow them, and they're always being rushed.
I miss those days. Whatever happened to stroke seats thinking they were gods? Nowadays, strokes are timid, shy, and too worried about disrupting the boat.
I want a stroke seat who is going to take the race to the other boats in conjunction with the coxswain. I want those two so in time that they can read each other without words being said. I want a stroke who is going to set the race pace, and everyone else better fall in line with them, or the coxswain jumps down their throats. If the race pace is 36.5, then the rest of the boat better be in time with that. When it comes time to go, stroke seat goes, and everyone else follows.
But what about boat selection?
I believe in analytics. I believe analytics is the key to building a successful program that can sustain its success. I believe your culture should revolve around analytics and what you put into it. A coach or program that is not building an analytics department, not diving into this new way of building teams is a dinosaur - to quote "Moneyball" and they will go extinct. That is a guarantee.
That being said, I do not believe for a moment that you can be 100 percent analytical. I believe there is value in experience, the eye, and gut feeling.
When I coach coxswains, I tell them that the nagging voice in their head, the very tiny one that's almost whispering, is instinct. And you can either help that grow, and become great, or you can ignore it, and I'll won't let you cox a barge for Learn to Row.
I believe that instinct matters, and still matters when it comes to analytics. So I try and take an 85-90 percent analytical approach and the rest is gut feeling.
Boat selection, in my opinion, comes down to what you believe makes a crew fast, and what your training has dictated. My training and my stroke are my own beliefs, and so I build my crews around those beliefs. That fits the culture I am building, that fits the training that we have done, and that consistency means that I eliminate the variables that could blow things up by making selection seem random or even slanted.
I tend to assemble the crew, and work on seats later. Perhaps I've just been fortunate, but I've never struggled to find a stroke seat. There's usually at least two options for each lineup.
I'm also not afraid to go against convention. If I believe the best stroke seat is a starboard, then my boat will be a starboard. I know many coaches who would resist that. Why? I haven't the foggiest idea, but I've worked with plenty. A boats rig can't be changed! It just can't be changed!
Why not?
Because! And they go and force the issue and the boat isn't as good as it could have been because of "because" and that's an opportunity lost. I can tell you that I've worked at two programs where I met with severe resistance when I wanted to change the rig of the boat from the "standard" port stroke to starboard. Both times I battled through an entire spring season before getting my way. One boat won two championships including a national championship, and the other finished 4th at nationals.
Look. I'm not going to spill how I go about evaluating my lineups. I've yet to run into a coach who will tell you exactly how they build their boats. You might get an idea if you could get a crack at their data - I don't know of, and haven't met, a single coach who would give you a peek into their data - but everyone will build their boats similarly, and yet with their own personal flare. I don't believe you should give coaches more credit if they have successful crews any more than you should not talk with a coach who isn't as successful. It's like comparing times across regattas: Don't.
Build your boats consistently, and make sure your training and evaluations match the builds. If you build off of seat races, then don't suddenly switch to evaluating off of erg scores. If you like to build off of 500 meter pieces, then don't switch to 1500, or 5' pieces. Keep it consistent.
Have a reason why something happens. I tell my crews this every year, multiple times a year:
"This is how I build my boats, and a majority of the crew selections will follow this. However, every now and then there is a chance that I go against what the data is saying. I chalk this up to instinct, or intuition. I don't like to do it, and I don't do it often, and I will explain why when I do. But just so you know, it can and does happen."
But even then, the time that I go against what the data says still falls into how I build boats because they know that could happen, and they know that data isn't everything. Everything an athlete on my team does goes into evaluation. Every day is an evaluation. Everything they do out of practice including behaviors, and academics factor into lineup decisions. So even if I decide that person B should be in the boat despite the data pointing toward person A, they understand that it never came down to a single piece.
But do selection as you will.
I believe we might be done with the Peek Inside series. I've run out of ideas, and currently do not feel like involving you in the monotonous process of job applications. I do dislike writing cover letters. They simply do not come easy for me.
Row2K has been running a series where they pose a question and have coaches from various programs write in responses. The topic today: Crew Selection.
First, I have to be honest. I don't put a lot of value into discussion topics on Row2K. I personally find their articles to be the diet anything of journalism. The titles sound interesting, the substance is incredibly wanting. They are up there with ESPN nowadays. But getting opinions from coaches is very helpful. It's interesting to see who values what, what their opinions might be, etc. I suppose some might find talking about selection to be giving away the farm, but it would have been interesting to find out some of the thought process behind how crews are selected.
So the question posed was this: What do you think is the most important seat in the eight, and what characteristics do you look for in the athlete that races in that seat?
There is only one answer for this question, and with all due respect, if you give any other answer, you're wrong.
The most important seat in an eight is...
...The coxswain.
The eight is not a blind boat. It's a 60 foot craft capable of reaching upwards of 19 mph, more if it's an international boat. Every single seat in the boat is facing the stern. There is one person, and one person only who can steer this boat, who can motivate and drive the boat, who can run the race strategy and adjust on the fly. That's the coxswain. That's what you train them for.
Correction: That's what you SHOULD be training them for. Let's be honest, coxswain training is low on the laundry list of things coaches do when building boats. I've been at 10 different programs, and only one of them has had a dedicated coxswain training program.
Let me put it to you plainly. Not training a coxswain is like spending years building a sports car, and just as it's ready to race, you grab some random person who looks like they fit in the car to drive it. You haven't the foggiest idea what their skill level is, if they're even remotely qualified for the task at hand, and now you're telling them to go win the 24-Hours at Le Mans.
Good luck with that.
I love coxswain training, partially because I was never trained as a coxswain. I was simply shoved into the seat because I'd spent a semester rowing. My coxswain training began and ended with what the tiller did. Because of this, I have a very different view on training coxswains than others might. My approach is hands off, and a lot of practical application. My view on what makes a good coxswain doesn't include height or weight, and instead centers on personality.
You have to want that seat, and the responsibilities that come with it. It is thankless. You lose, you're going to be blamed. You win, and the crew takes the credit. You'll be screamed at by coaches, and other athletes. You'll be told subtly or not so subtly that you're not pulling your weight because you don't do the same workouts, and yet you're indispensable. You are in charge of a $45-60,000 sports car, and eight lives, plus you're responsible for the the other $45-60,000 dollar sports cars and lives around you.
Stroke the most important seat in the boat? Seven? Bow? Absolutely not. No seat in any coxed boat is getting across the line without a coxswain.
Ah, you say. But what about blind boats such as the 4-, or 2-, 2x, 1x, 4x? Those don't have coxswains.
And to that I would say, go back and read the question that was posed, and then let's have a chat about reading comprehension.
But ok, let's put the coxswain aside. What seat outside of the coxswain is the most important?
I'm going to have to go with the last answer: Each seat is important. Stroke seat sets the pace. Seven seat backs them up. Six seat translates the stroke to the rest of the boat. Five, four, and three seat along with six drive the engine. Two seat and bow set the recovery, and help pick up the front end.
Stroke seat has to be a come hell or high water person. I'm going to sound like an old man here, but things have shifted significantly since I was rowing. It used to be that stroke seat was the biggest asshole on the team. Put the nicest person in stroke seat and they become the biggest asshole on the planet. They yell, and scream, and no one can follow them, and they're always being rushed.
I miss those days. Whatever happened to stroke seats thinking they were gods? Nowadays, strokes are timid, shy, and too worried about disrupting the boat.
I want a stroke seat who is going to take the race to the other boats in conjunction with the coxswain. I want those two so in time that they can read each other without words being said. I want a stroke who is going to set the race pace, and everyone else better fall in line with them, or the coxswain jumps down their throats. If the race pace is 36.5, then the rest of the boat better be in time with that. When it comes time to go, stroke seat goes, and everyone else follows.
But what about boat selection?
I believe in analytics. I believe analytics is the key to building a successful program that can sustain its success. I believe your culture should revolve around analytics and what you put into it. A coach or program that is not building an analytics department, not diving into this new way of building teams is a dinosaur - to quote "Moneyball" and they will go extinct. That is a guarantee.
That being said, I do not believe for a moment that you can be 100 percent analytical. I believe there is value in experience, the eye, and gut feeling.
When I coach coxswains, I tell them that the nagging voice in their head, the very tiny one that's almost whispering, is instinct. And you can either help that grow, and become great, or you can ignore it, and I'll won't let you cox a barge for Learn to Row.
I believe that instinct matters, and still matters when it comes to analytics. So I try and take an 85-90 percent analytical approach and the rest is gut feeling.
Boat selection, in my opinion, comes down to what you believe makes a crew fast, and what your training has dictated. My training and my stroke are my own beliefs, and so I build my crews around those beliefs. That fits the culture I am building, that fits the training that we have done, and that consistency means that I eliminate the variables that could blow things up by making selection seem random or even slanted.
I tend to assemble the crew, and work on seats later. Perhaps I've just been fortunate, but I've never struggled to find a stroke seat. There's usually at least two options for each lineup.
I'm also not afraid to go against convention. If I believe the best stroke seat is a starboard, then my boat will be a starboard. I know many coaches who would resist that. Why? I haven't the foggiest idea, but I've worked with plenty. A boats rig can't be changed! It just can't be changed!
Why not?
Because! And they go and force the issue and the boat isn't as good as it could have been because of "because" and that's an opportunity lost. I can tell you that I've worked at two programs where I met with severe resistance when I wanted to change the rig of the boat from the "standard" port stroke to starboard. Both times I battled through an entire spring season before getting my way. One boat won two championships including a national championship, and the other finished 4th at nationals.
Look. I'm not going to spill how I go about evaluating my lineups. I've yet to run into a coach who will tell you exactly how they build their boats. You might get an idea if you could get a crack at their data - I don't know of, and haven't met, a single coach who would give you a peek into their data - but everyone will build their boats similarly, and yet with their own personal flare. I don't believe you should give coaches more credit if they have successful crews any more than you should not talk with a coach who isn't as successful. It's like comparing times across regattas: Don't.
Build your boats consistently, and make sure your training and evaluations match the builds. If you build off of seat races, then don't suddenly switch to evaluating off of erg scores. If you like to build off of 500 meter pieces, then don't switch to 1500, or 5' pieces. Keep it consistent.
Have a reason why something happens. I tell my crews this every year, multiple times a year:
"This is how I build my boats, and a majority of the crew selections will follow this. However, every now and then there is a chance that I go against what the data is saying. I chalk this up to instinct, or intuition. I don't like to do it, and I don't do it often, and I will explain why when I do. But just so you know, it can and does happen."
But even then, the time that I go against what the data says still falls into how I build boats because they know that could happen, and they know that data isn't everything. Everything an athlete on my team does goes into evaluation. Every day is an evaluation. Everything they do out of practice including behaviors, and academics factor into lineup decisions. So even if I decide that person B should be in the boat despite the data pointing toward person A, they understand that it never came down to a single piece.
But do selection as you will.
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| Final selection for the WN4 that won WIRAs & ACRAs in 2016 |
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