Race against Dayton

The novices had their first race/scrimmage today against the University of Dayton Flyers. We had them race three, one thousand meter pieces. Dayton had a four and we had two fours.
For the most part, we matched up very nicely against UD. The guys controlled the rating, rowed fairly long and stayed poised through the workouts even though we were at a lower rating. The Bearcats ended up winning the majority of the pieces.
This is always a great rivalry for us and it was great to make it happen. Hopefully we'll be able to pit these two squads against each other this spring to see how far we've all come.

Fall Begins

Yesterday was the first day of school for UC, and the gettin' was good for recruiting. As it stands, we have about 150 names for interested recruits. We have one of the best recruiting setups we've ever had (I'm blogging while I'm running a recruiting table right now). The inside table has a projector playing rowing videos above a table with rowing shirts, medals, posters, an oar, fliers and a sign up sheet. The outside table has a UC rowing banner and oars. Pretty fancy stuff. 

We haven't wasted any time tapping into this year's freshman class, the biggest class to ever step foot on the University of Cincinnati's campus (more than 6,000 students). 

Still on the agenda is finding additional assistant coaches, finalizing our fall schedule and continuing the recruiting efforts.  

New Head Coach

I'm pleased to announce that the University of Cincinnati's new head coach is Keith Young, a former University of Central Florida and Vesper Boat Club rower as well as coach for Edgewater High School and the Orlando Area Rowing Society. Keith brings almost a decade of coaching experience to the team and we're excited to have him on board.

Now we've all got to get to work.

The team's budget has been cut significantly for this coming year (from $27,000 to $17,000) and we have some pretty out of control expenses. Our Shelter Cove lease agreement is still pending... problem is they want $12,000 for a year's lease. The team has never paid that much for leasing a space in its history and I'd be damned if we should start paying that the year we lose ten grand in our budget.

We also have some fun stuff to do. Our big recruiting push is coming up and practices are soon to follow. I'll keep you posted.

Back on the Horse

I rowed today. Competitively.

A week ago Tony Geara asked me if I wanted to row in a master's race in Indianapolis today. I practiced throughout the week and finally made it happen.

The men's four I was in had Tony, this guy Geoff, and former teammate Nate Gallimore. I had a blast (it helped that it was only a 1 kilometer race, not 2.) We also got some hardware for the day - 1st place in a mixed 8 and 2nd place in the men's 4.

The race was with the Great Miami Rowing Club. Many thanks go out to them. I had a lot of fun.

As for UC, we're looking for a new head coach, as we parted ways with Brent toward the beginning of June.

Polls, again.

Alright. Polls. Too many of them.
The standard in most college sports is two polls. Men's basketball, for instance, has the AP poll as well as the USA Today coaches poll. That's about it. Same goes for football and women's basketball.
Rowing's a different breed, however. There are 10 polls split between the two genders in collegiate crew. They just made a new one. The IRA poll. It looks strikingly similar to the US Rowing poll minus any club teams. Pretty stupid.
With too many polls, it trivializes the significance of them. Groups shouldn't be so compelled to create new rowing polls when there are already so many available.
The problem with rowing is that someone, somewhere, wants to get involved in a way that's unneeded. They have to know, deep down, that creating more polls doesn't benefit the world of rowing in any way. But they do it anyway. Rowing organizers and coaches are a lot like PTO moms. They'd have a bake sale if they thought someone would give them credit for it. The result is a convoluted mess that collegiate rowers have to be entangled in. Even dumber is that some of the coaches who are voting on this, vote in multiple polls. Just pointless.

The future (as of right now)

First a quick congratulations - the UC women's varsity 4 won second place at ACRA nationals this past weekend in Oak Ridge, Tenn. That's a pretty impressive feat. The pair also competed but didn't make it to grand finals. The novice didn't go. Not my choice, it was Figg's. To no one's surprise, University of Michigan won the varsity 8. But to most people's surprise, UC Davis was second and only eight seconds back. I always had a liking for them since my sister went there. Grand Valley State finished third and Purdue failed to make to make it to the medal podium.

So...

I'm looking for other coaching positions right now. I'm not sure if I'm doing it for my future or if I'm just having fun seeing who would take me. As of right now I've applied to jobs at UC San Diego, Sonoma State, University of Vermont, Endicott College and a boat repair company in Philadelphia. I don't have too many credentials other than a year's coaching experience, so I think my chances are slim. Still, I think it's worth a shot.

I technically could stay with UC next year and live a little easier.

My dilemma is this - financially and security are right here in Cincinnati. I love my apartment and my parents live here. But it may be a better move for a hopeful career in coaching to take the first opportunity that opens in another city.

I also contacted Cincinnati Rowing Club over the weekend to see about a membership to use their facilities. That may be a welcoming change. Sometimes we all need to get back to the basics of why we like something to revaluate what's really important.

Quick side note - Done with school in less than two weeks.

Oh, Jobs.

So here's the thing - in three weeks I'm going to be graduating from the University of Cincinnati. My major, Journalism, is the third biggest major in college of arts and sciences. There are more than 200 students. That said, my assumption would have been that most of the students are not getting jobs in a journalism related field when they graduate. But, as I've found, many of them are.
"I am hoping to get a job in editorial photography," said student Francesca Nixon. "So yes, I plan to stay in the journalism field."
Someone else from the e-mail address woodruaj wrote "I plan on working for a newspaper and free lancing for magazines," they said. "But if I find myself not being able to pay the bills my fall back is event planning. Go figure."
Some students have even more ambitious goals.
"After college I plan to either become a columnist for a magazine or start my own," said student Courtney Myrick. I can't imagine either one of those are easy tasks.
What I'm getting out of this is that people don't even have specific plans in mind, they just know they want to get into a certain field. With something like journalism, which seems to have lots of people and not many jobs, I wonder if it's a good decision.
I won't say that it's the main reason I want to do coaching instead, but it certainly plays a part. With coaching I've seen dozens of job openings all across the country and I know for a fact there aren't 200 prospective rowing coaches coming from any one university.
Another option some people told me about was grad school.
"Following graduation I am going to take a masters degree program in screenwriting and film direction," said journalism student Jathan Fink. "My plan I'd actually to work in feature films and television."
Student Tiffany George has similar ambitions to me.
"I'm going to grad school to get my master's in education so that I can hopefully teach high school English/communications/journalism, be the adviser to the yearbook or paper, and coach soccer," she said.
Similarly, student Desire Bennett said she's going to try to go to law school.
"I plan on applying to law school after I get my journalism degree and if I'm lucky and able to, I'll maybe do some freelancing while I'm in law school," she said. "Ultimately though, I believe I'll be doing something in the field of Law/Advocacy or something like that."

And there it is. People know they are doing one of two things; more school in order to get into another field or working as a journalist. I just never felt it was that cut and dry. I'm surprised there are not more people like me who are going with a passion they have outside of school.

I've thought about this a lot the past year and coaching instead of going into journalism just seems like the right fit for me. I love rowing. I don't necessarily love writing on deadline. We'll see though. Maybe 10 years down the road I'm going to be a coach for a school and writing freelance during the summers. That wouldn't be so bad, I guess.

Quotes were from a question I posed on the journalism list serve for the University of Cincinnati

P.S.
There ended up being one response that actually made sense to me after I already wrote the story -

Chris Reid wrote:

"As of right now, my focus is strictly to get the degree. My minor is in more of a technical field. Its really unclear where I will end up," he said. "I'm not limiting my options. There are plenty of English/Journalism/Communication jobs out there that require a bachelor's in one of those areas. A typical "journalism" job seems unrealistic."

There we go.

Body types

I never quite understood the reason for the difference between male and female rower physiques. In my five years of being around the sport I've noticed this:
men tend to be lean, sometimes muscular and undoubtedly more athletic than the average couch potato. It makes sense given the strength and endurance components of the sport that they would be.
Women involved in the sport, however, range from athletic to fat. I've seen whole boats of scholarship women who looked like they could beat me in a pie-eating contest. My coach once pointed out to me that the varsity 8 I rowed in my sophomore year was lighter than the top women's varsity 8 that same year. That's pretty remarkable. So how is this possible?
"I've always wondered that too. I guess we, as females, think that since we practice daily for 2 hours, it gives us the right to consume anything. I guess not," said Meredith Murphy, a rower from Great Bridge high school.
Brooks Dame of Episcopal high school says "I think since you work so hard at practice you're starving so you go home and eat. Guys in general have a higher metabolism so they're OK. Females don't."
Metabolism may be an issue. I just don't understand how female rowers can be more overweight than someone who isn't involved athletically. In every other endurance sport I've ever watched, the female participants were really fit. There have been so many instances in rowing where they just aren't.
Shane Lewis of Dowling University writes "I would like to propose a rule that certain girls that are overweight cant wear spandex in public like certain girls that aren't overweight."
I think what he's saying is that they should be more self conscious. I can't say I completely disagree.

Quotes were taken from my discussion topic on a Facebook.com rowing forum

Another weekend in Philly/South Jersey

This weekend was a whole lot of rowing. Dad Vail on Friday and Saturday in Philadelphia and the ECAC right across the river on Sunday. The novice guys did pretty horrifically. Varsity women did pretty badly too. The pair did fairly well, however. They were the only boat to make it past the first round at Dad Vail.

Vails is kind of a circus of sorts. The race isn't a good one by most expectations but it's fun. There are vendors there and thousands of spectators and athletes. While in Philadelphia I heard the race mentioned on the radio, on TV and on the front page of the Philadelphia Inquirer. I always felt Cincinnati could be a good rowing city if only if had that kind of support. Visibility is half the battle for the popularity of rowing. I'd say 99 percent of UC students don't even know where the team rows. This is not true for students at Temple, Penn, St. Joe's, La Salle and Drexel.

ECAC was much more low-key. It was also cancelled half way into the day after high winds (much like Indianapolis). Regardless, it's been a long trip and it'll be good to be back home.

Head coach Figg said he thinks we should go to the American Collegiate Rowing Association's national championship on May 21 now. He was originally against the plan but has since changed his mind. It's a good race though. It's the only chance everyone will get to race teams from all over the country. It's very well represented.

Last year Jared Kentner (Skittles) and I rowed in a pair during it's inagural race in Oklahoma City. Very good race.

Indianapolis Invitational

Indy Invites was pretty standard this year: high wind gusts canceled afternoon racing.

The novice guys didn't even get to race in a final because of the winds. This happens just about every year. In my four years of going to this race, they've canceled racing twice and should have canceled another two times. The conditions are just atrocious on Eagle Creek Resovoir. This year I even witnessed a women's eight capsize during a race (one of the funniest things I've seen in a while).

There were good moments though. Our varsity 4, which had two novices in the boat, won a third place medal. The next race we have is for this Saturday against Miami University. This should be a tremendously winnable event.

Polls

I can't say I'm upset about this week's polls. Three of the schools in the top four spots are public universities and none of them are from the East coast. That's a rarity in itself.

I also look at this poll and think to myself that UC rowing has been so close to this point. If it weren't for a number of setbacks, we could have been ranked while I was rowing. The reason? In 2006 we beat M.I.T (now ranked No. 13) and Dartmouth (now ranked No. 18). I especially like seeing M.I.T. finding their stride. It's been a
while since they've been relevant nationally.

Pictured above is UC's rowing team in front of M.I.T.'s boathouse in Boston.

US Rowing poll courtesy of row2k.com

Men's Varsity Eight

Team (1st-Place Votes)	Points	Previous Week
1. University of California (10)	385	1
2. University of Wisconsin (10)	371	2
3. Stanford University	354	5
4. University of Washington	333	3
5. Harvard University	323	4
6. Brown University	298	7
7. Columbia University	277	6
8. Northeastern University	258	8
9. Cornell University	235	9
10. Syracuse University	201	10
11. Boston University	200	12
12. Yale University	167	14
13. Massachusetts Institute of Technology	147	17
14. Princeton University	143	11
15. United States Naval Academy	128	13
16. Oregon State University	112	15
17. George Washington University	74	16
18. Dartmouth College	47	18
19. Georgetown University	36	19
20. Trinity College	29	20t

Not Ranked But Receiving Votes: University of Michigan 28, Gonzaga University 19, University of Pennsylvania 14, University of California at San Diego 13, Holy Cross 5 and Purdue University 2.

(This weeks men's varsity eight voters: Craig Amerkhanian, Tom Bohrer, Topher Bordeau, Michael Callahan, Chris Clark, Paul Cooke, Brooks Dagman, Dan Gehn, Fred Honebein, Zach Johnson, Curtis Jordan, Todd Kennett, Greg Myhr, Todd Pearson, John Pescatore, John Pojednic, Dave Reischman, Mike Teti, Steve Todd, Mike Zimmer)

Southern Intercollegiate Rowing Association

So SIRA was this weekend. We didn't go, but it's still interesting to keep an eye on. The best I ever did at this race was win the petite finals in the varsity 8 back in 2006. But the race has changed a bit, adding an assortment of teams from the Northeast (Temple, St. Joe's, Delaware). It's only gotten more competitive in recent years.
The men's varsity 8 event this weekend was a close one - Florida Tech 6:09.6 followed by Grand Valley 6:13.13 followed by Temple 6:14.00 followed by Purdue 6:15.3 followed by Jacksonville at 6:15.7. Virginia, who used to win the event perennially, finished 4th in the petite final. Who knows what happened there. St. Joe's and Marietta College also failed to make the grand finals.
And once again club teams around the country are clinching their fists at the the Intercollegiate Rowing Association's decision to exclude unfunded teams from competing in the IRA National Championship Regatta. Grand Valley, who finished 2nd and Purdue, who finished 4th in the grand final are technically club teams who are now excluded from going to the IRA effective this year. But Jacksonville, St. Joe's and Marietta, still funded by their school's athletic departments, could be qualified.
It's a shame that this ever had to happen. The IRA nationals was what made collegiate men's rowing such an interesting sport. But the good old boys network on top of the IRA sided with conformity instead of tradition when they ruled that starting in 2009 they'll no longer invite self-funded teams, regardless of performance during the course of the season.
If SIRA proved anything this weekend, it's that unfunded teams can compete and shouldn't be ignored.

Quick side notes:
Grand Valley's club women also finished 2nd in their event. The rest of the 6 schools in their final were NCAA-sanctioned teams.

Concerning UC rowing:
We have less than a week before Indianapolis Invite. Some of the schools the novices will see this coming Saturday raced at SIRA. Ohio State didn't have a good showing, finishing last in their opening heat. But Purdue novice won the petite final. It's just a matter of getting in position.

First Post.

It was bitter sweet when my rowing eligibility finished in the fall of 2008. I was happy to be done. I was happy I wasn't going to hurt myself by pulling an oar anymore. I was happy that I could be lazy.
But, in truth, I need rowing. I needed to be pushed and to push back. I need to feel that for more than just four years. I want to race again.
In the time since the fall I've been coaching the freshman guys at UC. It's been a different kind of fulfillment. Most importantly, it's kept me engaged in the sport that I've immersed myself in. If everything goes the way I plan it to, then I'll be coaching for a long time to come. Even if this means moving somewhere else.

Just recently I started getting back on the horse. I contacted a former teammate, Steve Glowacki, to help me get back into some semblance of shape. Once he graduated, Steve took a liking to cycling and endurance training. Our gym sessions have been embarrassing for me - Steve lapping on the track, Steve out pulling me on the erg (rowing machine), Steve schooling me on body weights and Steve thinking the whole thing is funny.

But it's just the beginning. Right now I'm weighing in at about 190 lbs (10 lbs more than when I was in rowing shape). So let the games begin.