Boats, buoys and bonds
MARIETTA, Ga. — “We have alignment…. ATTENTION…. ROW!” Your coxswain yells out the race start, “Half, half, three quarters, full!” The race has begun. This is the usual Saturday for a rower on the Marietta High School Tiger Navy team. For years High school students have gathered at the Harmar Rowing Club Boathouse to learn how to row and every year they learn just that and more. The knowledge that you gain as a crew member won’t just last you the season but will last you a lifetime.
Rowing isn’t as easy as people make it out to be and if you ask Joe Tewksbury (The coach for the girl’s crew), “If rowing was easy, they’d call it baseball.” Rowing is a physically, mentally and emotionally draining sport. From the long practices on the ergs to the hot days on the water when you have rowed for an hour and are just now getting to the dam. Every practice can be painful but is also equally rewarding. Not only does rowing teach you about how to properly row or how to load a trailer full of boats in under 20 minutes, but it also teaches you the importance of communication and teamwork. Yes, I know every sport has a level of teamwork, but they all have teamwork up until one person makes a shot or hits a home run.
Rowing is a different type of teamwork. A type of teamwork that requires a whole team to push, because they know that it’s not just one person crossing that finish line. Not just one person moving that boat, but every person in that boat engaging every muscle in their body to make that boat move and ever teammate crossing that finish line in one boat together. There is never one winner or one person that carried the team, because every person holds up their own part in their boat. If you don’t believe me then take a coxswain out of a boat of eight rowers and see if they steer a strait line. You can pull harder than the person in front of you, but you’re both going to cross the finish line at the same time. See with rowing you learn a new kind of teamwork. One that makes you realize that you don’t always have to have one person making the shots to win, because winning with 8 other people being just as proud of you as they are themselves makes all the hard practices so much more worth it.
From the Monday practices to getting up at 6 A.M. on a Saturday every week, the Marietta High School Tiger Navy Crew continues to work vigorously to strengthen not only their strokes in the boat, but the bonds that we build with our teammates. My advice if you’re looking for a new sport to try out or are just looking for something fun to do, talk to someone about joining the crew. Besides, if you try it and it’s not for you, you’ll still gain a new family and enough wise advice and dad jokes from Joe to pass on for years. So, put your crocks in sport mode, grab your spandex shorts, join the Tiger Navy and enjoy the next couple years of getting mad every time someone says, “Oh, you’re a rower? You must have some really strong arms.”
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