Moving from Novice to Varsity

This fall my novice year was up, so I tried out for my club’s varsity team. In this post, I’m going to try to best explain the transition from being on a novice crew to a varsity crew. As a coxswain, you have so many more responsibilities and just have to be way more efficient with everything you do. Also as a varsity coxswain, everyone expects more from you and knows that you are a figure of authority.

 

Tryouts

During tryouts you want to put your best self out there and make sure to show the coaches that you want to be there not only because you feel obligated to be there. Also, make sure to touch base with all the coaches to let them know that you are in it for real. As soon as you walk into the boathouse act like you own the place.

 

Responsibilities

As a varsity coxswain, you are in charge of basically everything: that all the information is relayed correctly to the rowers, spreading boats, adjusting oars, organizing weight circuits, recording all the workout data, making sure that the rowers are fueled. As a novice coxswain, we had it easy, we barely had any responsibilities, and there was usually a lot of hand-holding by the coaches to lead us in the right direction; on varsity you are expected to pull your own weight.

 

The Coaches

Your relationship with all the coaches is essential to your development as a coxswain. They will guide you through your last years of high school so building a relationship is key to being successful on the team. As soon as the first regatta passed by and I had a race recording, I sent it to all my coaches so I could get as much feedback as possible. I also recommend meeting with your coaches briefly after every practice, just to talk about what you can work on and what you did right. Also, use your peers as a resource by sending them your tapes and have them give you feedback. Talk to the senior coxswains as well because most of them are already committed to college so they know what it takes to be a good cox.

Well, that’s all for this post, see you guys next time.

 

The post Moving from Novice to Varsity appeared first on The Cox Blog.