Tks for the responses on early morning practices.

What are the costs associated with it? We are zoned for Walter Johnson. My MS child is interested for high school.

Often novices are in the afternoon, even at schools like Sidwell and Visi that have morning practices for the experienced boats. Learning to row for the first time in the dark, on a river with very cold water in March, not the easiest, so daylight a lot better for novices. But overall the morning practices worked well for my DD at Sidwell, no traffic that early, now with Parknow mobile easy to deal with parking in Georgetown just off K street and walking to boathouse from there, not dealing with the one way traffic issues on the parkway after 7am, and then done and after school time for homework and other activities, with a strong incentive to go to bed early! The time in traffic was MUCH worse in the afternoon, so the morning practices felt a lot more efficient.

For those people making stuff up, you don't need to be a "big girl" to row. Colleges have lightweight teams where girls who weigh 130 and under can be recruited to row (mine was to an Ivy). Also, coxswains are tiny girls and they can and are recruited as well. I know one who was recruited to cox at Harvard for the men's team from a so-so public h.s. in MD since she also rowed at TBC.

Anonymous wrote:Do any HS have morning practice? And how does that play into a regular school day?

Visitation and Sidwell Friends practice only in the mornings, from 5:30am to about 7am. They are off the water in time to be back at school and showered/changed for first class at 8am. But teams that practice in the morning usually have less time on the water, compared with teams that practice in the afternoon. There are a bunch of other schools that practice I think 1-2 days a week in the mornings. Wilson is one of them. I think I've seen BCC down there in the morning as well.

Anonymous wrote:I'm curious if any High School kids at Wootton, QO, RM, Churchill, etc. that don't have crew trek to DC for the Capital Rowing group that someone mentioned earlier? I had a good experience with crew in high school and would like my DS to have an opportunity to try it out also.

May want to ask on the MD forum.

Do any HS have morning practice? And how does that play into a regular school day?

I'm curious if any High School kids at Wootton, QO, RM, Churchill, etc. that don't have crew trek to DC for the Capital Rowing group that someone mentioned earlier? I had a good experience with crew in high school and would like my DS to have an opportunity to try it out also.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A good choice for big girls. Colleges love it.

What about little girls?

no

a former coxswain

and they didn't make me carry the puke bucket

Anonymous wrote:A good choice for big girls. Colleges love it.

What about little girls?

Visitation has a crew team.

It is time consuming because there is no "off" season. No difference in time commitment between high school and college, imho. Your student needs to learn the value of either going to bed early because of morning practice, or becoming very productive and good at time management because of afternoon practices.

Anonymous wrote:A good choice for big girls. Colleges love it.

This is the second time somebody has posted that colleges love it. I have to say, crew is like any other sport, in that colleges love it if you're of such high caliber that they can recruit you. This means you have very low erg times, for one thing. You won't get much of a boost in the application process if you're slow or heavy for the weight ranges. Also, the most competitive colleges have started to recruit crew members from Eastern Europe, unfortunately.

It is true that, at many colleges, there are lot more walk-on spots for the crew team (not varsity level though) than for other teams. I don't know whether a suggestion that you might possibly walk on carries very much weight, though. Also, if you thought high school crew was huge time black hole, wait until your kid tries college crew! Crew has to be something your kid really loves doing, to make it worth it as part of a college application strategy.

A good choice for big girls. Colleges love it.

???????

DD did crew for the first time this spring. She gave up her regular spring sport and is now hooked on crew. However this last quarter her grades went off a cliff due to the HUGE time commitment. Practice was every day till 7 pm, not getting home till almost 8pm tired and exhausted. She really had to work long and hard the last few weeks of school to get her grades back up. Thankfully she had 3 good quarters.

How do you balance it so that grades aren't affected? She will be junior in the fall.

TC Williams in Alexandria is far and away the best. They have their own boathouse and I see their kids rowing there even in the summer.

That said, the Gonzaga Varsity beat Drexel U two years ago.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/gonzagas-rowing-team-makes-its-mark-at-henley-royal-regatta/2012/07/04/gJQAiGXYNW_story.html