Dealing with Rowing Coaches

Many rowing coaches at the high school or club level coach rowing for the love of the sport. It certainly isn’t for the money. After all, how much would someone have to pay you to spend your early mornings and late afternoons during the winter and spring in a boat on a cold river or lake, usually in the rain, trying to get eight high-school aged kids to do the same thing at the same time?

With that in mind, here is some advice for keeping good relations with the rowing coach.

1. Volunteer to help. Most rowing clubs work only with lots of volunteer labor. Just ask what needs to be done, and offer to help. Most clubs need help in a wide variety of areas, including food preparation for regattas, boat and trailer maintenance & repairs, boathouse repairs, bookkeeping, travel arrangements, fundraising, banquet organization, newsletters, website maintenance, etc. You will find that many rowing club "problems" in the club are often resolved by volunteer labor.

2. Find out who does what in your club, and direct your inquiries accordingly. Avoid asking the coach about everything, eventually he or she gets overloaded with such inquiries and this contributes to coaching “burn-out”. Check with the club or parent’s club officers, assigned mentors, and other parents.

3. Listen to your rower’s complaints, but be prepared to put them in perspective. Rowing is a physically demanding sport, but it is unlikely that the coach is trying to “kill” the novice rowers. Spend a little time getting input from the parents of junior varsity and varsity parents before forming an opinion about a coaching style.

4. Avoid getting involved in “seating” disputes. The coach has the absolute perogative to assign seats in the various boats. The coach may assign seats based on strength, endurance, height, weight, skill, experience, or simply to give someone else some more experience. On top of that, sometimes different combinations of rowers will cause different results – it is all geared toward finding the right combination which will cause the boat to move like a finely crafted Swiss watch. When your rower complains about how he or she is being seated in a boat, listen sympathetically, but then encourage them to stick with it and try harder over the next few weeks. It may not sound fair, but seat selection cannot be democratic. Someone has to make the decision.

5. Do not try to engage the coach in a meaningful conversation during a regatta. A little small talk is okay if the coach is temporarily not occupied, but a regatta is not the time to register complaints about boat seating, newsletter contents, committee reports, travel arraingements, etc. Since the coach's mind is generally preoccupied, he or she won’t be likely to remember anything you say anyway.

PROBLEMS WHICH NEED TO BE ADDRESSED:

There are a few situations which the parent needs to correct. This should be done first by talking privately with the coach at a time convenient for him or her. If the results are not satisfactory, continue the discussion with the head coach or the club officers, or according to the club's "dispute resolution proceedures." Here are some of the types of issues which should be handled in that fashion:

a. Some coaches find themselves tempted by the goal of “sending a boat to Nationals” and concentrate all their efforts on the Varsity “A” boat, neglecting all others. If you find this occurring, and other parents have commented on it also, it is appropriate to bring this to the attention of the head coach or club officers so it can be addressed as a coaching issue. Remember, this is separate from a “seating” issue – it doesn’t deal with the issue of who is in what boat, but instead it deals with the proper allocation of club resources (coaching) among the different boats.

b. Coaches should refrain from using profane or insulting language, regardless of whether they are coaching boys or girls.

c. Reasonable accomodations should be made for disabilities. It is fairly common for junior rowers to have some disabilities including asthma, diabetes, etc. which can be controlled with medication, diet, and reasonable precautions. This doesn’t mean the rower is entitled to a seat in the boat, but on the other hand they shouldn’t be automatically excluded from consideration on the basis of a disability, either.

d. Inapropriate conduct of a sexual nature (suggestive comments, invitations to un-supervised private practices, groping, etc.). Quite frankly, I haven’t heard of any specific instances of this happening in the sport of rowing, but given the problems encountered in other sports it seemed worth noting.

e. Safety issues should be addressed immediately. Take the time to learn the club's safety rules and general safety rules applicable to rowing.

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