The Valiant Crews
And with golden oars on majestic waters
We seek yonder blessed finish
We Battle with open seas and tyrant foes
Until our heaving chests do swell
And on our days of judgment, the waves carry high
And the winds howl like raving beasts

No ocean, no lake, no river too deep or long
As to hold back us valiant crews
And our journey remains such of fable
That our kindred may remember always
As our songs blare out on bagpipe horns
Our courage like Scottish blood and honor

And in draining breath and screaming
Our terror strays from bank to bank
As crowds of cheering lookers-on gasp
And fear of such painful sport
Friends and family all watch with reverence
As the shells cross the last line of finish

And for us rowers, no end save victory
Awaits our triumphant final strokes
Within our reach and yet so distant
Sweat and tears surround us
And in our final moment of glory
We thank the Lord for each other and for our boat.

By: Patrick Thumm

"It starts with stretching exercise at 5:00am and by sun up the boat is in the water. For the next two hours, eight rowers and their coxswain seek a perfect blend of group precision and personal achievement. That's the mental rush of rowing-- and the early morning goal is to reach beyond one's physical limits while keeping the shell moving steadily towards that unspoken dream."

-Advertisment in US Rowing

"Not everybody wins, and certainly not everybody wins all the time. But once you get into your boat and push off, tie into your shoes and bootstretchers, then "lean on the oars," you have indeed won far more than those who have never tried."

-Unknown

You Know You Are A Rower When...

a.. you don't mind walking in frozen bird poo barefoot
b.. everything you do is "in 2.."
c.. you need to have a small pushy person around telling you what to do all the time.
d.. you can get up, get dressed and leave before your eyes are fully open
e.. the phrase "cox box" doesn't make you giggle
f.. you believe the world wouldn't exist without spandex
g.. you only recognize your friends from behind
h.. when you need to go anywhere, you have a sudden urge to throw your car over your shoulder
i.. before you go anywhere, you are at Main 20 minutes early
j.. you stick water bottles in your shorts for no reason at all
k.. you feel naked without enough clothing for 10 people on
l.. you believe all authority figures carry a megaphone
m.. you sit in class leaning to your rigger
n.. half your body is bigger than the other
o.. you blame bad moods on "the balance"
p.. your friends need a rowing translater to decipher your language
q.. you can wear the same thing every morning for a week and not think twice
r.. you think sleeping late is waking up at 8.30
s.. when you sit down in class, you look for the tie in shoes
t.. you constantly check the tightness of nuts in chairs, handrails, door handles etc
u.. you bring up the beauty of dawn, and people give you blank stares
v.. your vision of going away for the weekend is other people's vision of hell
w.. overhearing people talk about how little sleep they get causes you to smirk
x.. you're giving directions to a friend and you say "turn to bow"
y.. you dress and undress one handed so you don't have to take one hand off the oar
z.. every time you sit in a chair you are mildly surprised to discover it doesn't slide back and forth

Things Your Coxswain Shouldn't Say
Keep going, they might catch a crab.
Just going through the umpire's wash
Faster up the slide!
(with a hint of hope) They're not going away as fast now
...97,98,99 ...
(On the way to the start), Is that OUR race going by ?
You're going to lose, DO SOMETHING!!
Pull with your hands (!)
Heard after 20 pretty good strokes of a 25k steady state row ... "that's good, one minute gone."
Give me another hard one!
Two, watch the buoy.
It looks shallow here...
Pull harder guys...my dad is watching!
Take a 10! You're dying!
Let's focus on our technique now (as you cross over the 500m down mark).
Are we at full pressure?
Weigh enough...so three can recover from his crab.
We are walking on the official's launch.
When does our race start?
Boy, those guys are fast!
Last 10 strokes to the finish! 10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1 okay only 5 more!
Let it run......in two.
Hold water All!!
They're going faster than us!
We are going to lose...
Hey guys, it looks terrible but feels great.
They expect me to know what `Weigh Enough' means?
Does anybody know which side the sandbar's on here?
OH SHIT!!
(Used while practicing for the Charles..) Now guys, this is the hardest turn in the course, Oh Shit, Weigh'nuf!!
(While your coach screams) "SAVE THE EQUIPMENT!!!"
One, Two, Three, Seven, Five.... (during a power ten)
Skeg?? what skeg?
Take ten to focus
Last minute....last fifty strokes...power twenty...power ten.. ..Almost There!!! (Head of the Connecticut)
Guys, I don't think this is our race.
We're not gonna let the varsity beat us, we're the novice men!!
Boy, I cant see anything in this fog.
Look at that!!
'cmon guys, that sculler is beating us
What are these strings for??
Don't get tired...
(During one of your first hard pieces in training): "Come on, pull harder than you have ever pulled in your life before!"
What the hell does that sail boat think it's doing?!!
(Before you push off from the dock) How does this thing work?
Give me a power ten. One. . .Two. . .Three. (yawn) .Four. . . .
We're four boat lengths down...keep up the good work.
(Head of The Connecticut) " I think I see the finish line, guys."
Is there a reason that no one takes this arch?
(After a brutal crab) "Hey, where does three think he's going?"

Personality Traits in an Eight
From the stern:

Cox:
It's pretty obvious what traits a cox must adopt and tries to learn to do a good job in this most unique position in the athletic world. I'll pass on the leadership stuff, napoleon complex garbage, and point out a secondary characteristic or two that coxes unintentionally inherit after riding in the box for a while.

They can't drive a car anymore. They take 10 miles to change a lane, oversteer, can't find the brakes, and yell to the car a lot. This has nothing to do with the coxes' former driving ability. Stick Richard Petty in a cox seat for a while, they'll take his drivers license away. Coxes also begin to squint a lot, no loss in vision, they just squint.

Stroke:
'It's a tough job but only I can do it.' The meekest, most frightened non-rower in the world - when plugged reluctantly in the stroke seat, stays meek up until the first few strokes. The first few paddle strokes, a thought grows in the wimps' sniveling little mind that this job is his/hers for life. Back on the shore, the real personality will percolate back to the surface. 'I hope you guys could follow me ok'. In the boat they're thinking: 'stop rushing, you weenies!" Strokes are born and made to be the most competitive person in the boat by far, and if they stroke long enough, become overly competitive in everything they pursue, or don't pursue.. Don't expect to finish a game of Monopoly, Risk, or Golf with a stroke. The only one that can beat him to the chow line is the three man (more later) because the stroke was delayed trying to put more oars away in the rack than anyone else.

Seven:
The seven seat is the Bitch Niche. I don't know if whining, overly bossy, big mouthed complainers are born, and I can't believe that the cosmic effect of this seat could possibly be so instantaneous, but you could teach Mother Theresa to row in a tank, stick her in an eight at seven for the first time, and as the stern four is rowing away from the dock, she'll turn around and yell at the bow four to 'set up the f*cking boat'. The longer one rows at seven, the more sophisticated and complex the bitching becomes, changing from a crude verbal rowing suggestion to the six man in the early stages to long winded level-voiced reasoned treatises after every piece explaining why the crew is slower now than last week. Ever wonder why when a coach drives up shell-side to ask how a piece went he says: 'So how did that go, fellas? -Not you seven.' I was a team captain, looked up to leader of my college crew, kept my mouth shut and did my job. I raced one week at seven, my coach told me to 'shut up Sullivan' in a post race meeting.

Six:
If you bred Arnold Swartzeneggar with a Golden Retriever, you get a six. Six is also Seven's yin. The gentle giant, gorilla in the mist. Six absorbs most of seven's bitching and keeps it from moving through to the rest of the crew. Six nods and agrees a lot. It is a hard thing for a normal person to row six. It seems like such a great seat, you're in the stern, the boats more stable here, but you are done with a rowing career at six, you find you been used. Sixes are characterized by great competence in execution of rowing and life, but poor self confidence and a propensity to self-flagellation. Take your 3 year stroke out of the stroke seat and stick him/her at six for a week. This will be the first time you ever hear him/her say: 'My fault, fellas', at the end of a poor piece. Sixes meditate. Sixes marry, go to work for, and lend their power tools to sevens. This support system keeps sevens with thriving businesses, mates they can walk all over, and a garage full of power tools at their disposal that they don't have to fix when they break.

Five:
God. Yahweh. Allah. Buddha. It's not that the five seat IS those things, it's just that's how (s)he gets treated. Five's stool don't stink, the catches don't hang. They're the older brother or sister that gets special treatment, and has no idea. If a photo is taken of the crew, five will look great, everyone else is caught with shirtaills out, and snot on the lip. At heart and soul, five forgets to change oil, pay phone bills, and turn in the forms to the IRS. Five is an example of what happens to a bum that is treated like a king, they act like one. Five has the greatest delta between image and reality. The fortunate thing is that the unearned unabashed worship lasts only as long as the time on the water. Five's on his own back at home. Five wears aviator glasses.

Four:
The Amnesia-seat. Take a genius with a photographic memory. Row said genius at four. Listen to him ask for the third time in the same warmup. 'How many of these 500s are we doing?'. Four seat is not stupid, just has immediate and catastrophic memory loss. At a start and 20, four settles at 21 because in the time the cox yelled 'settle in two', he forgot. In a Novice boat where the seats have been removed and cleaned, it'll be four's that went back in backwards. Four will forget to tell the boatman about his(her) stripped rigger nut - usually from the time he is told by the coach, until he arrives at the boatman's bench wondering what he's doing there. On that first day on the water as the ice is breaking up, who is rummaging around the back of the boathouse looking for a sweatshirt? Four is why racing shirts are handed out on race day.

Three:
Late in the water. Late to practice. Late to class. Late to work. Late out of the water. Late to his date. Late to the team bus. Late for everything but chow line. There is no competitiveness involved here, just an uncanny knack to have the first three rowers into the dining hall stopped by friends for a brief discussion while three breezes on by to the tray stack. Three generally gets assigned a sitter.

Two:
Lean to the Left, Lean to the right, stand up sit down fight fight fight. Cheerleader. What is amazing, is to sit at four or five after a particular piece - seven is whining about the balance, the spacing, no swing, rushing: two is back there with pom poms saying: ALL RIGHT GUYS! LETS DO THAT AGAIN!.... Two calls out names of power 10s. 'Awright guys - OAR CLASH TEN!' If he says something funny, he repeated something the bowman prompted him with.

Bow:
Comedian. The bow seat creates a strange fatalism. They know that in a catastrophic collision, they'll be the only one to die or get paralysed. Consequently there is a constant quiet stream of one-liners that two or three could probably hear if two were not cheering loudly. If the bow is joined by a cox in a front-loader, this trait completely disappears, since someone is now likely to hear him joke about three being late, five not pulling hard, or the coxn's course looking like a signature. (S)he can be humorless and witless off the water, but on the water when there is breath to spare, you're sure to catch a chuckle if you listen.