Novice rowers grow with every stroke of the oar

IU rowing assistant coach Josh Adam thrusts out his hands, fully extending his arms.

His right hand sits at a 45-degree angle, palm facing down, fingers loosely bent. His left hand lurks below, sitting like a flat table, palm up. His clutched hands only hold an orb of air, but he asserts it to be much more.

“Vanessa – what is this?” he asks freshman Vanessa Gee, her face contorted in utter confusion. There’s some sort of invisible object in his hands.

“It’s an imaginary black box, and I want you to put all of your fear and anxiety inside of it,” Adam says.

As she sits in the calmly rocking rowboat, Gee gets the picture. She pulls off her glasses and turns her head forward; tunnel vision.

Over the hum of the motor of the landing boat he sits in, Adam says she does it to keep her focus. If she can’t see her surroundings, she won’t swivel her head and worry about what’s around her; tunnel vision. Whatever works.

Moments ago, Gee hit what Adam calls the “oh, shit button.”

Taking the Oars
In novice rowing, it is a phenomenon that occurs quite frequently.

“When they all of sudden start to think ‘Oh my gosh, I don’t know what’s going on,’ or ‘I’m out in the middle of a lake, and I don’t know how to swim,’” Adam said.

He added that the instance is based on a loss in confidence, a doubting of skill, which is something all novice rowers go through.

Some members of IU’s novice team hit the “oh, shit button” less than others. Some had experience with the sport prior to college. However, for many members, rowing is completely new.

Some people just join on a whim, like junior Sarah Berline.

She first met members of the rowing team at an activity fair earlier this year and just felt that things had “clicked.”

Originally, she had a desire to play college soccer, a dream that never actualized.
Last year, she played club rugby, but lost interest in it.

Novice rowing provides the idea that anyone with a desire to succeed can become a Division I athlete.

The thought of a player on the IU men’s basketball team who has never touched a basketball until his freshman year of college somehow managing to make the team is inconceivable.

In rowing, the equivalent of this is an instance of regularity.

“We are sort of the last bastion of amateur athleticism in Division I athletics,” Adams said.

But this doesn’t make what they do easy. It takes a special athlete to do it and special coaching to develop such an athlete.

“What is required is dedication, commitment to bettering yourself both as a person and as an athlete and, fundamentally, a commitment to the team,” Adam said.

Learning the Water
On average, these girls put in 16 to 18 hours of “structured workout” on top of taking time to watch film and acclimating themselves to the sport.

IU coach Steve Peterson recalled a humorous conversation he once had with IU men’s basketball coach Tom Crean about the hectic training schedule involved.

“He’s asking me these questions about rowing and stuff like that and I’m telling him this stuff and he looks at me and smiles and goes, ‘So can you tell me why anybody would do your sport?’”

As Peterson will tell, there is no “Nike contract” at the end of the tunnel.

For novices, many might not make it to the varsity ranks.

“All the girls on this team want it, so you just have to push harder than anyone else will push,” freshman Courtney Luthman said.

Moreover, since 1997, when women’s rowing became an NCAA sport, recruiting has increased as more high schools cultivate rowing programs. Scholarship opportunities in the sport have boomed, leaving what was once the traditional pure novice – a walk-on with no prior experience – in even more desperate territory.

The reinforcement for these girls lies in a commitment to bettering themselves.

“I think it’s just the feeling that you’re accomplishing something and you’re
being competitive and, as you can tell, we’re all really close,” freshman Morgan Rebeck said.

For those with prior rowing experience on the novice team, racing is a huge draw.

“I think one of the really big things is racing. It is like one of best feelings in the world, even if you don’t win,” said freshman Mary Koewler, a former recruit of Adam’s.

For these girls, rowing is more than a sport. It is an outlet for development.

“Every single day, you have an opportunity to find out how hard you can go. You have an opportunity to find out how hard you can go and the limits of your potential as a human being,” Adam said.

He said that by building confidence, these girls learn much more than rowing technique.

“They stick with it because they’re like, ‘You know what, I found out I can do this, and Coach gave me the hardest workout I’ve ever had in my entire life as an athlete – and I did it,’” he said.

Strokes of Genius
Adam sits on the landing boat and watches his rowers.

“This is actually pretty good,” he shouts, enthusiasm in his voice. “Where was this, like, a second ago?”

The small watercraft he views stretches from coast to coast.

Freshman Madi Hall flanks the back, with Luthman in the front. In between the two are Berline, Gee and Koewler. The seating arrangement runs east to west, which is perfect, because for roughly two hours today, these girls must be a nation of five.
Synchronicity is imperative. Rowing creates bonds and what Adam calls “shovel friends.”

“If you have to call somebody at like one o’clock in the morning and tell them, ‘Be at my house in twenty minutes with a shovel,’ they’re just going to show up,” Adam said.

Looking at the five “shovel friends,” Adam is pleased for the first time all practice. It’s a long road, or waterway in this case.

But every time their oar blades tear through the placid water, another checkpoint is torn through, as well.