Share with me your child’s experience rowing crew

[Anonymous]

My daughter is a junior and rows for a FCPS high school team. She played several other sports before starting rowing her freshman year. She loves it. Heart and soul. It is an incredible time commitment but she has really found her people among the team and has had a lot of success.

Some colleges have expressed interest, but I’m not yet sure what that will eventually mean for if she will row in college and at what level.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wonderful sport!

My kid started in 9th grade, which is typical. He'd played B team-level travel soccer, but wasn't that great. Always a solid runner. He did XC freshman and sophomore year, but crew is the one that really "stuck." By junior year, he was getting nibbles from colleges, and he thought about pursuing it, but ultimately decided to stop after HS graduation.

It is an enormous time commitment. On a typical "practice" Saturday, we'd drop him off at the river at maybe 7 a.m. I thought it would be even worse, but usually college teams were out early and high school teams would get out around then. He'd be done around 11. On a regatta day, if we dropped him off at 7, he might be there until 5. Practices during the season were after school, and he'd get home at 7 or later. Practices during winter (brutal) were usually done at 5.

It was worth every minute. He really loved it and made great friends.

That’s wonderful. Will he ever row for fun (either at school or when he gets home) or is it not really that kind of long term sport?

Wut? Of course irs not a lifetime sport

Wut? Of course it’s a lifetime sport. You just have to live near a club. In our town in NE you can daily rent singles and we have adult rowing - both rec and competitive. I’m 52 and started in mid 40s.

Op - our town has crew and I’ve known several kids in the team and every single one stayed with it and loved it. I think it really helps that kids don’t start into
Middle/high school. And ours is a no cut sport. As PP noted - it’s a great recruiting sport for girls who want to row in college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wonderful sport!

My kid started in 9th grade, which is typical. He'd played B team-level travel soccer, but wasn't that great. Always a solid runner. He did XC freshman and sophomore year, but crew is the one that really "stuck." By junior year, he was getting nibbles from colleges, and he thought about pursuing it, but ultimately decided to stop after HS graduation.

It is an enormous time commitment. On a typical "practice" Saturday, we'd drop him off at the river at maybe 7 a.m. I thought it would be even worse, but usually college teams were out early and high school teams would get out around then. He'd be done around 11. On a regatta day, if we dropped him off at 7, he might be there until 5. Practices during the season were after school, and he'd get home at 7 or later. Practices during winter (brutal) were usually done at 5.

It was worth every minute. He really loved it and made great friends.

That’s wonderful. Will he ever row for fun (either at school or when he gets home) or is it not really that kind of long term sport?

Wut? Of course irs not a lifetime sport

Wut? Of course it’s a lifetime sport. You just have to live near a club. In our town in NE you can daily rent singles and we have adult rowing - both rec and competitive. I’m 52 and started in mid 40s.

Op - our town has crew and I’ve known several kids in the team and every single one stayed with it and loved it. I think it really helps that kids don’t start into
Middle/high school. And ours is a no cut sport. As PP noted - it’s a great recruiting sport for girls who want to row in college.

Really only through age 93
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2024/01/16/fitness-aging-richard-morgan/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wonderful sport!

My kid started in 9th grade, which is typical. He'd played B team-level travel soccer, but wasn't that great. Always a solid runner. He did XC freshman and sophomore year, but crew is the one that really "stuck." By junior year, he was getting nibbles from colleges, and he thought about pursuing it, but ultimately decided to stop after HS graduation.

It is an enormous time commitment. On a typical "practice" Saturday, we'd drop him off at the river at maybe 7 a.m. I thought it would be even worse, but usually college teams were out early and high school teams would get out around then. He'd be done around 11. On a regatta day, if we dropped him off at 7, he might be there until 5. Practices during the season were after school, and he'd get home at 7 or later. Practices during winter (brutal) were usually done at 5.

It was worth every minute. He really loved it and made great friends.

That’s wonderful. Will he ever row for fun (either at school or when he gets home) or is it not really that kind of long term sport?

It can be! He is interested; I guess it will depend on where he settles after college.

[Anonymous]

I have a junior DD who rows for a DC area public. The sport has totally defined her high school experience -in a positive way. The tribe of girls from the crew team are so close. It's a more diverse group than you would find at the school as a whole. They are all great students as well.

They practice after school every day. During winter they use ergs or lift weights. In the spring and fall they practice on the water and also have a Saturday practice. It's a big commitment but it also teaches the kids to be organized in a way that I'm sure they wouldn't be without this time commitment.

She is planning to row in college.

[Anonymous]

Do people know if it’s acceptable to row either spring or fall but not both?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do people know if it’s acceptable to row either spring or fall but not both?

We had a couple of kids who only did one -- but it was usually because they were playing a different sport at the time.

It would be at the coach's discretion, and probably depends on how competitive your program is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do people know if it’s acceptable to row either spring or fall but not both?

We had a couple of kids who only did one -- but it was usually because they were playing a different sport at the time.

It would be at the coach's discretion, and probably depends on how competitive your program is.

Most high schools in the area are just spring. Most clubs have spring, summer, and fall programs. Several of the competitive rowers on high school teams row in the off season with clubs.

However the vast majority of rowers only row one season.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do people know if it’s acceptable to row either spring or fall but not both?

If only spring, then could be ok. Fall is a short season and it wouldn’t be worth doing only fall.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do people know if it’s acceptable to row either spring or fall but not both?

If only spring, then could be ok. Fall is a short season and it wouldn’t be worth doing only fall.

FWIW at our school most rowers row fall and spring and do winter crew (just training at school, no boats). You can skip winter if you do another sport with conditioning. Novices can start in the spring (skipping fall).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s a great sport for an average or non-athletic kid to pick up with an incredible work ethic. No one starts much before high school so it’s a very level playing field.

Incredibly time consuming and a lot of expectations from parents.

For serious rowing you need the tall and lean body type but doesn’t matter as much in high school.

This is the opposite of our experience with two boys. It was completely toxic.

Sure it's great at the beginning, but then it will become cutthroat, unless you're son is the coach's pet. They ignored injuries. They ignored individual erg scores/broke promises for placement.

If you play football, even if you're on the sidelines, you are more or less with the team. However, if you're not in the boat for practice, you're running on dry land with maybe one other kid.

We had two coaches and both were objectively terrible. Honestly, we told our BS troop leader about one incident and he said he'd never heard about such awful/unprofessional treatment in all his years.

Girls crew on the other hand, totally fine.

[Anonymous]

It sucked!

Parent board had ridiculous expectations, such as that everyone had to arrive at 7am and spend entire weekend days at the rigattas rather than just coming for your child’s race. And you were required to bring food, which went to waste. And to fundraise, even though all the money went to supporting the top varsity boat that the board members kids were on. Basically an MMA scheme. And of course most of the obnoxious parents were convinced that crew was the ticket to their kids getting into an Ivy. News flash:Ivies look elsewhere for recruiting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My daughter is a junior and rows for a FCPS high school team. She played several other sports before starting rowing her freshman year. She loves it. Heart and soul. It is an incredible time commitment but she has really found her people among the team and has had a lot of success.

Some colleges have expressed interest, but I’m not yet sure what that will eventually mean for if she will row in college and at what level.

Same experience here, OP! It is a fun life long sport!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The time commitment is major: practice four days a week and regattas all day Saturday during the season, and because you have to get to the boathouse there is more transit time than most high school sports, depending on where you live. Lots of cleaning and hauling boats. It helps to be very tall. You have to be the kind of person who enjoys/thrives at doing repetitive actions while facing someone else’s back. My dh and one kid have the right build and mind for it and love it; my other kid and I find erging boring and painful—we are runners and it’s a different mentality, I think. Can’t really articulate beyond that.

Be aware that for girls there are genuine recruiting opportunities for college. Lots of girls from our school go into college rowing. For boys, it’s d3 only but I know only one boy who rows in college and it might be club rowing,

Everyone - especially rowers - find erging boring and painful. Rowing and erging are different, rowing is where the love is.

OP, middle or high school are good times to get kids interested in rowing. Summer can be a good time to try it out since clubs often have camps, or novice summer leagues. It's a great sport, is especially good at teaching teamwork since there is no "star" of the team in the way that you think of the QB as the star of the football team. I rowed in high school but not college, and I've rowed off and on as an adult too. Highly recommend.

[Anonymous]

DS started to row in the novice program in 8th grade and continued through HS. He ended up dropping music because of time commitment for crew. He rowed fall and spring and trained in winter. DS was very competitive and loved his coaches, teammates and program over all. He was recruited for college and rowed at a D1 school.