The Rowing Podcast
The Rowing Podcast
Jan Harville - "The Soviets...they were huge."
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I sit down with legendary coach Jan Harville to chat about her first summer training with the US Women's National team and the "water battle" with the Soviets in New Zealand.
My guest today wrote at the University of Washington from 1970 to 1973, winning an AIAW silver medal in the pair in 1972. She earned a degree in medical technology in 1974. She was a member of the United States national team from 1978 to 1984, and competed at the World Championships in 1978, 79, and 1982, 1983. She was a member of the 1980 U.S. Olympic team and competed in the Women's Cox 4 at the 1984 Summer Olympics. She was inducted into the U.S. Rowing Hall of Fame in 1991. My guest returned to Washington in 1980 as a women's freshman coach, then became head coach in 1988. A nine-time Pac-10 coach of the year, she was also National Rowing Coach of the Year in 2002. Under her leadership, the Varsilla crew won thirteen Pac-10 titles, including a streak of eleven straight from 1992 to 2002. My guest led the Washington women to win the first ever NCAA women's rowing championship in 1997, then again in 1998 and 2001. She continued to lead the Huskies through to the 2003 season. In her sixteen seasons as the head coach, she produced eleven national championship boats and forty-one of her crews captured conference titles. She also coached U.S. teams at the World Championships from 1987 to 1999. I'm honored to have as my guest today Jan Harvel. Jan Harvel, it's it's wonderful to have you on the podcast. Thanks so much for taking some time and joining me today.
SPEAKER_01Well, thanks for asking me. It's a pleasure to be here.
SPEAKER_00Starting off really very much from the beginning, you know, where's your hometown? Where are you from originally?
SPEAKER_01Uh, Seattle. I grew up here. I went to school here, high school, University of Washington. I worked here as a microbiologist until I started coaching. And now my husband and I live in Edmonds, which is just a little north of Seattle.
SPEAKER_00How did you first get hooked into rowing? And um, you know, what was your first exposure? Was it, did you have any sort of rowing in in high school, be it, you know, uh some sort of a varsity team or a club team or after school, or did you get started at the UW?
SPEAKER_01Oh, I got started at UW. I uh uh I think when I was I have a vague memory of when I was in high school of going down to opening day, you know, one year with my dad. My dad would always drag me down to the husky, you know, baseball games, basketball games. And, you know, I think we went down and watched the rowing once, but uh, you know, it didn't didn't make a big impression on me, except that, you know, I was in the news here a lot and I'd heard of it. I rode at Washington from 70 to 73. I didn't even row my senior year because I was uh I was in the medical technology program and you had to be at seven o'clock um in the morning labs. So uh, you know, I didn't um, you know, internship or whatever it was. And for women at Washington, that was a club sport. So it wasn't necessarily low-key. I mean, we were trying, we were, we were working hard and everything, but it was not a, you know, it was not a varsity program and it was not a, I would say, big experience, but for me it was because it was this ultimate opportunity to be on a uh team. High school sports in Seattle, girls in the 60s and before, there were no no sports. You did uh after school PE. So you did like badminton or tumbling or basketball or whatever you're doing in PE, you got to do after school. And so that those are all the sports I ever got to do. So when I got a chance, when when I came to uh I went as a freshman, there was a sign-up in the hub in the student union building and it said, uh, join women's crew, no experience necessary. And I just went, awesome. That's that's for me. I I didn't really even know what it was, but it sounded good. I pretty much got going with it right away. A few of us graduated, you know, about that time in 74. We got going with the rejuvenation of the Lake Washington Rowing Club. And so we started rowing a little bit. Bob started coaching us a little bit in the mornings, and Carol Brown was from uh Princeton. She'd rode on the Olympic team, got a bronze medal. She came to Seattle and she for grad school and she said, Oh, hey, I'm looking for a starboard to row with. So we started rowing a pair some of the time. So now all of a sudden, we had two people who'd been on the recent women's Olympic team. And so it was like, oh man, you know, maybe this is something possible. So that was kind of the time period because when I graduated from Washington, I got married. I had a full-time job as a clinical microbiologist. So my, you know, my life was kind of moving on, kind of doing this rowing thing on the side. You know, no concept of future in rowing or coaching, or I mean, there weren't there were no women's varsity sports really at that time. Uh Washington, I think, started varsity rowing in 1975. So that was after I was done.
SPEAKER_00Something I think that's very special about your perspective in particular is the fact that you've gotten to not only witness but be a part of the evolution of women's rowing from you know where it was like you're like you were saying, much very much a club sport or something that was, you know, after school or something that wasn't part of an part of the institution, if you will, to getting to coach the team during one of the first NCAA women's championships. Can you talk a little bit about that um that journey and some of the changes that you saw and how it's been from your perspective?
SPEAKER_01To watch women's drawing then, I guess, advance in terms of you know, equipment for women. Because of course we start off the equipment was men's equipment, left over, you know, men's freshman eights, and you know, to get women's shells, women's oars, to get scholarships and the NCAA. That was a huge step. And I think when, not that I think the NCAA is perfect, but I think the NCAA as a governing body, I fought for it all the way because I figured if we're gonna get stuck with uh, you know, somebody administering our sport, we might as well, you know, we might as well get something out of it. We might as well get a great uh regatta. We might as well get as many athletes at the regatta as we can. Uh at first they were just gonna do uh an eight from each school. And we're going, excuse me, you know, you're adding all these numbers in for gender equity and Title IX compliance. You owe us more than that. You're gonna have to pay a little bit more. And so at least they came up with two eights and a four for the team championship. But I think that that was a, you know, that was a big step in recognition for women. Not that it really changed what the athletes were doing or, you know, they're still racing, racing hard and working hard and training and everything everybody's doing. Um, but I think that it came with a recognition factor as soon as we tagged tagged on the NCAA. When we won the first championship in 1997, it was a big deal. I was kind of blown away. I was very surprised at the press to looked at it differently, the public looked at it differently, the athletic department looked at it differently. I mean, a lot more credibility. That was a huge step. And then kind of went from there.
SPEAKER_00A lot has really changed, even the distance of the races. If I'm not mistaken, it used to be a thousand meters. Is that correct?
SPEAKER_01No, you were not mistaken. I mean, you you, you know, when they started having women's rowing at the uh world championships, they must have just decided. I mean, I don't know exactly how the conversation went, but I'm sure it went, oh, we have to have these women rowing, so well, we let's just make it a thousand meters so that, you know, of course they can't row 2,000. I mean, they're too weak. It took quite a while. I mean, our the world championships were a thousand meters till I think it was 1985, it switched to 2K. A thousand's pretty awesome. I mean, you just blow down the you just, you know, one year was on the national team, we rode it a 40 all the way down, higher start and higher sprint. Nothing below 40. I mean, that's just how you did it. You know, you did you couldn't make any mistakes. I mean, we had one race where we had a little bit of a not even a crab, not a mini crab, just an ore cot. Man, that's the race. You know, it's over.
SPEAKER_00My only uh my only experience with any sort of shortened distance rowing, and you might be familiar with this, I'm not sure if you've ever raced there, but it was Canadian Henley. There's something called the Dash for Cash, which is some sort of an extra, it's you know, a 500 meter, you know, they move a whole bunch of floating docks up to the 500 meter to go, and you know, they do a whole bunch of sprint races, 500 meters. I I can relate to what you're talking about, where basically, I mean, there's no idea of like a stride out or you know, hitting quote base. It's like if you if you were the crew silly enough to think you were gonna have a base pace at some point, you know, you lost. You lost seats immediately because the speed is so fast and you just have to keep it going. The racing might have almost been more intense in some respects, only being what, three minutes, three and a half minutes, somewhere in that range, depending on the conditions. I mean, very much.
SPEAKER_01Well, we could it could be as long as three and a half if a horrible headwind, but we were under three. And so, yeah, it's it's fly and die and hope you don't die. You know, I I like coaching 2K better. I mean, there's more strategy, it's you got more chances if you screw up, you know, you got you can play games a little, you know. You have more opportunities in a 2K race, and it I think from a coaching perspective, I probably like 2K better, but I would never want I I I have raced it a couple times, you know, when we did some scene, you know, master not masters racing, you know, like a lumba reunion races or something. That's for the birds, I don't need to do that.
SPEAKER_00You know, central to the idea of the rolling podcast is the idea of story and and sharing personal experiences, and hopefully one that really uh stuck with you. So, what story would you like to tell us today about uh, you know, maybe your own background, maybe it'd be a practice, a race, um something that really stuck with you and and impacted you.
SPEAKER_01Um I'm gonna talk a little bit about the first summer I was on the U.S. national team, and that was in 1978. Um, it was really a turning point, I guess, pretty much of my life. I mean, it started me down uh a path. Well, I had to pick a path, basically, of where I was gonna go, and it kind of determined kind of a starting point from there. Like I said, I graduated from Washington in 1974, I got married, I had a full-time job as a clinical microbiologist, and I was all, but I was also continuing to row with some a group of UW alums and a few others at that time, and including Carol Brown, who had been on the Olympic team in 1976, which was the first year of um uh first Olympics for women's rowing. We rode mostly singles, you know, a little bit of extra training because we had to do it really early. We were all working somewhere. And Bob Ernst was coaching us a couple times a week. He had been on the uh Olympic coach in 1976 also, and he uh was the men's freshman coach at Washington. Uh, you know, kind of got towards 1978, and my goal that summer was to find out basically if I was good enough to compete on the national team in Olympics. And if not, I was just gonna move on with my life. Um, you know, it was like, okay, I'm going for broke here because I, you know, I don't have a lot of money, I don't have a lot of time, I'm gonna have to decide whether this is worthwhile or not. Um, so that year after the national championships, we had raced well, and a small group was selected by the national team coaches to go to Europe. Uh a much larger group was invited to this uh development camp in San Diego, uh, run by Chris Kosnowski, which was his first time with the U.S. team. He had just come from Canada. That was a trip in itself, so that was fun. So I got invited to this development camp, which was probably good I didn't get in the first group because I had I had way too much to learn. And I felt like I got a lot of positive reinforcement at that camp, you know, and maybe improved my technique just enough to help me along the rest of the summer. I remember my evaluation with Chris, and he he sat, he they took turns, there were several coaches, but they he he gave me my evaluation. He said that my technique was very good, but I needed to increase my upper body strength and that I really should aim for a 1980 Olympic team. You know, I felt really good about that. And then I got invited to the um the national team selection camp for that summer in Philadelphia. So I was pretty psyched. That's kind of what I was looking for. I was looking for an opportunity and I was looking for, you know, positive reinforcement, you know, that I maybe I could be good at this if I, you know, if I work at it more. So it felt really awesome to be moving on. I I'm not really sure what I expected, but I know that when I went to Philly, I only packed my uh summer rowing clothes because uh my husband had to send me a box of clothes for the fall. And because we're going to New Zealand and it's gonna be cold, right? And all I have are like shorts and tank tops. So, you know, at the end of the summer, it's like, oh, you know, when I end up making the team, it's like, oh, yeah, I need more clothes. So anyway, there were at this camp in Philly, there were there were about eight of us from this development camp, and there were about eight rowers who had raced in Europe. Uh John Hooton was our coach. Um, he was also the Vesper coach. Uh he was just, he was just great. He he was so honest and so helpful because he he kind of would tell you how you were doing going along, you know, like we'd be doing seat racing, and he he'd say, Yeah, yeah, Jan, you gotta do a little better here, you know. I've got to be more aggressive. You know, you're doing well, but kind of in contention if you don't say screw up, but you know, if you, you know, be more aggressive or whatever, and I'm going, okay, be more aggressive. You you know how people tell you be more aggressive, and then they don't tell you what you're supposed to do to be more aggressive, right? And so I remember we did a lot of seat. Yeah, so we did a lot of seat racing in COX 4s, and we did mostly, you know, two-minute pieces, like uh the whole first time was all two-minute pieces for weeks. The end, they I think he did more three-minute, because our races were about three minutes long, or a little maybe a little bit more at that time for a thousand meters. Uh, you know, so I decided, okay, I'm just gonna work on this being more aggressive thing. And I was a rookie, so I had to seat race once we started the seat racing. I, you know, you start you race at the bottom, and then you kind of start moving up a little bit, a little bit up. But I had to race everybody. And I I got I got that, I understood that. So I'm just going, I started counting strokes. I would count like tens, and I keep starting tens and tens, and then when I didn't think I could do 10 strokes, like solid, aggressive, then I would go to fives, I'd do fives, and then I go down to threes, and then I do ones. And ones were really bad because you just, you know, you have to close your eyes and just do one at a time. And the whole rest of my rowing career, I just I I counted strokes because it was like it's what got me, don't think, just pull harder thing. Because sometimes that one stroke was just you're just figuring out how how to pull as hard as you can for one stroke. Well, that stayed with me forever. So I think that was very helpful. I know there was one woman on the team who'd been on the team, uh, she'd been on the team before. And John kept racing us because she was probably the bottom of the top group. And uh, and I kept beating her. And um, you know, we were racing like every day for a while. I mean, I kept beating her by a little bit. Each time I raced her, I beat her by a little bit more. And then finally she just she just left the camp because she could see she, I mean, she was just beat. And so she wasn't even there that next afternoon, and um I ended up making the team. Helped my confidence, obviously, to make the team, but I also felt like I'd outfought somebody who had been successful. That really helped my confidence as the camp, you know, as the camp went on and I continued to do well. So from there we, you know, we were aiming for New Zealand. It was the the world championships, it was the first time they were held in New Zealand. Um, it was gonna be expensive. It was the boats had to travel there in uh containers, and you know, so a lot of the teams were doubling up teams. So like um we we had eight sweep women, and so that there's a Cox 4, but the Cox 4 was also gonna double up in the in the eight. So it was gonna be a small team. And that was the other hard thing about making this team is it weren't there weren't very many spots to make. I think a couple people who'd been on the team took this summer. I don't know why they did, but they'd taken this summer off, so that probably helped my odds a little bit. But I was pretty encouraged by making the team that summer. And uh I look back and I I feel like I had this really, really strong motivation, and I got a lot of good encouragement as I went along the way. And that, you know, that helped me immensely. Success always does, but I I think just the motivation was really my key thing because nobody else really cared whether I made the team or not. It was like, this is my shot. Anyway, so we got to New Zealand, and it was uh first day we're there. I was uh Lake Kairopiro, and it was just beautiful. Flat water, glass, uh, beautiful scenery. I mean, I just couldn't imagine a more beautiful place. The next day, it was like pouring. I have two photos, the first day, and then I have the second day photo, and it's the rain is going sideways. The white caps are like I don't I don't know how big, I don't know how you measure the white caps, but uh miles per hour. I don't know. It was unrollable. Uh we were rigging our boat that second day, and the Soviet team comes in. It was the Soviet Union then. Um, they were the reigning world champions. They were huge. I mean, I mean, like huge. I literally, I'm sure my mouth was just open. I was just shocked. They put their coxswain, took turns with their coxswain on their shoulders, and they did squat jumps. Not just squats, but they'd squat down and they would jump in the air with their coxswain on their shoulders. Talk about intimidation.
SPEAKER_00I mean, I was gonna say, did they do this in front of everybody so you could all see?
SPEAKER_01Oh yeah. Oh yeah, they're doing the boat, but I mean they had tent they had these portal, I mean, they had just started this race course there, and they had they had no structures, no, no um boat sheds or anything. They had tents. And so, yeah, they're just in the boat tent doing this and right in front of us, and we're just going, uh oh, this isn't good. And uh then we heard them talking, and their voices were so low, deep, and we're going, uh-oh, steroids, that's what we're talking about. I guess I had never seen it. We didn't really talk about it much because there wasn't anything we could do about it, you know, it wasn't gonna change how we were gonna approach our racing, but um, they were intimidating. We get to the day of the finals. Now we have the the worst, uh this is the worst race day water I've well I've raced in. I mean, I've seen I've seen as bad. But you know how when they don't want to cancel the races and they change the schedule to send a you know a victim crew out, they send an eight down to just see if see if they're gonna make it. That was us. So they they changed the schedule and we're first, and they sent us out. And then I've never seen this before either at that time. You know, they had those uh they had the uh lane buoys that you had the bow person hang onto the rope so you could stay in your lane. And uh I I literally had to pull the the buoy into my into the boat in my lap. I had to hang I had my oar under my arms because I had to hang on to the you know the rope with both hands because I couldn't it couldn't I couldn't hang on with one hand and because the the wind was so in the I'm in the bow and the water is going over the bow, over the bow and over the bow spread, in you know, right on my back. And we'd already bait, you know, we'd already have to stop and bail at the starting line. Finally they just said go or parte or whatever we were doing then. You know, if the race was just a blur. I mean, we ended up coming in fourth. The Soviets were like eight seconds ahead in in a thousand meters. That's like curvature. Then the East Germans, Canadians, and us were all we weren't seats apart, but we were, you know, half a length apart or something. So we weren't, you know, it wasn't horrible, but it was just like a, you know, it was one of those water fight things. And we, you know, felt like we got out muscled. And of course then they delayed the races after ours. Our four ended up winning a silver medal. So they had doubled up against some of these other folks and they um they got a silver medal. So we kind of all felt you know felt okay about the racing and, you know, certainly about the, you know, performance of the team. And I but I think for for me the experience was just, you know, well it was life-changing because it it allowed me to commit to going on to compete with the national team and Olympic team. And then that's how I got an opportunity to coach. You know, I wasn't sure if we were going to beat the Soviets um but I was willing to give it a try. So I kept rowing till 1984 and I never managed to beat the Soviets in an eight, but we caught up with the East Germans. We beat them a few times and we got we got a lot closer to the Soviets. That toughness and confidence that I learned that summer really completely set the foundation for um you know the rest of my rowing career but my coaching career as well. I know I learned a lot more technique and training in the years to come, but I think that's pretty much when I this is when I learned to pull hard and I I really I'm one of those people that pulling hard is when in doubt pull harder. I think that's that's the biggest thing how did you first get into coaching?
SPEAKER_00You know what were some of the inspiration points for that and and how did that evolve for you?
SPEAKER_01Well it happened actually before I'd um gone away for the summer in the 1980 um Olympic team camp I'd um I'd been taking leave of absence in the summer to row from my um microbiology job. And you know they were they were great. They'd let me go and you know I'd get a leave of absence and then I'd come back and I work full time and um but you know I as much as I sort of enjoyed what I was doing and what I trained for, I didn't like I guess I was getting tired of working inside and working in the lab and micro is kind of interesting but there's a lot of repetition and um it was like puzzles and you know I kind of like that but I just decided I'd already applied to go back to UW in the fall of 1980 as a fifth year or whatever they called it then. And I wasn't quite sure what I was going to do but I was you know I want to do something different. And then we, you know, we're training for the uh Olympic team we got the boycott going on um which is a whole nother topic the team had gone you know got selected we went to Europe and raced you know instead of going to the Olympics we came back home and part of our training camp was in I think Rotzeberg West Germany Bob Ernst had been the freshman coach he had been the freshman men's coach and he got the he got promoted to the women's head coach in 1980 that summer and he put a sign up and he said he's looking for a novice coach assistant coach at Washington and to please see him if you are interested. And I go hmm okay I thought about it I went and talked to him while we were at the camp and he says what you mean you're interested and I go yeah I was thinking about it he said well why do you want to do that? And I said well I don't know I just thought it was rowing I thought it might be interested I haven't done any coaching so I don't know if I'd be any good at it and he goes oh well okay think about it some more see if you really are interested and talk to me later about it and so when we got home to Seattle I you know I went down the boathouse and I said yeah I thought it over I I really want to give this a try and he says what are you going to do with these hundred women show up on the first day and I I said well I'm not sure yet I guess I'll have to figure it out and he goes okay okay I'll help you and he did he was a you know got the job and he was immense help and as I like to tell people I you know was really excited to get the job but I it was like a 50% pay cut I was getting I was making I think $18,000 in 1979 as a microbiologist and I took the coaching job for 9,000 but I was still psyched. So anyway that's how that's how I got you know that's how I got coaching. Coaching at Washington I was the freshman coach or novice coach. Bob gave me a bunch of notes of what he did with the freshman team when he he became the women's head coach but he had been the men's freshman coach. He gave me a whole lot of notes and we sat down and talked about things. You know on the first day of school there's like 200 women show up you know and it's like okay you know I I I hope I know what I'm doing. You know talk about having to fake it you know because I really you know I had some good structure from Bob some ideas but I mean that took a while to get that under control. So it seems like Bob was a was a pretty profound influence not only as an athlete but as a coach too I mean you know he must have played a really big role in all of that I would imagine oh yeah I mean he I mean uh he was an immense help for me and you know as a role model in how to super organizer uh super um you know disciplined training program um you know weightlifting with he was doing weightlifting with a woman I mean like a lot before women were really doing much weightlifting um recognizing that women's upper body strength uh particularly you know you come in as a freshman is a huge you know weakness in the sport of rowing and um you know designing programs for that and you know and even when I became the head women's coach and he was the he became the men's coach at Washington uh you know we collaborated with a a lot with training programs and with you know integrating the you know the new oars and the the new ergs and doing erg workouts and you know we were having people with a lot of then we got a lot of back injuries and then you know working on how to eliminate that from our training and huge part of my success I certainly wouldn't have been successful without you know my experiences with him or or or his help what kept you with coaching and I I I asked that question because you know to be to get hooked on rowing as an athlete is one thing but I think to be hooked on on rowing as a coach it almost seems like a calling it seems like uh universally whenever I've spoken to coaches about it there was some sort of a calling moment or something where they felt like you know this is really for me something very different about this. What was it that hooked you early on and probably kept you with it for as long as you were part of the part of the program and part of the uh the coaching world I don't know that's a tough question I I don't think there was a moment or you know I guess I felt like I belonged you know I felt like my history of being there of of growing up with a sport from the time I was a freshman you know watching the whole program evolve and you know we fought for some things but you know a lot of that just was coming along the way you know too and I I never wanted to be a teacher. I didn't think I'd ever be very good at it. I think now maybe I would have been but the thought of getting in front of a class and teaching just that just didn't sound interesting at all. I didn't I just didn't think that I well you in fact speaking in front of people is not my big thing. It took took me quite a while to get over some of those things but I don't know I think it's just the sport just I think it's the I think collegiate rowing particularly and having a team sport for women and so many of the women I coached uh had never done another sport. I mean it wasn't I mean we got a few rowers in the beginning uh and then as time went on certainly it you know as we got successful and it was an NCA sport and we attracted you know some international rowers and you know we had some pretty high level rowers coming in we still had athletes coming in you know the bulk of our team were people who never rode before and I'm I'm just I'm a true believer that it's um it is the ultimate team sport and it teaches people about themselves and about how getting along with other people that maybe they don't know or don't like uh it teaches people how to get along um in other walks of life and business and uh I think having women to be able to have you know that opportunity to have that experience is and particularly at a high level is um truly important and so I guess uh that's pretty much where you know my commitment or interest was um I don't know that it's a calling but you know certainly uh a developed interest if your closest friends could only describe you using three words meaning you know three distinct adjectives which words do you hope that they would use for you say hardworking honest maybe dependable what drives you and what motivates you personally spiritually professionally I don't know I just I always look forward to the next day and whatever else whatever I have going on you know whether it's even helping take care of my mom these days or uh my husband and I go for long walks every day and you know we we haven't a lot of our life together we've been married a long time and we haven't been able to do that and I don't I'm not able to run anymore so now we're walking and um watching the birds and you know enjoying the day on the flip side of that what is something that um I guess really kind of turns you off in terms of a motivation from a motivation standpoint? Oh I don't know negative things um people with excuses I don't just kind of a waste of time and energy I guess who is somebody that you admire in rowing and why I've probably got a thousand people I admire in rowing um I don't know probably probably some of my teammates who came just before me you know who who were I don't feel like I was a I wouldn't feel like I was the trailblazer. I feel like people like Anita de France and Carrie Graves Carol Brown you know were the the women um rowers before me that didn't have any role models and um so I'd say probably Carol because she's the one who came to Seattle and for grad school and she gave me a call to see if I wanted to row with her and you know and we ended up rowing together for eight years. And she had been where I wanted to go and um she wasn't the biggest rower or the best rower um but she absolutely was probably the toughest. And that you know just gave me a path forward and I really admire her for her toughness and determination.
SPEAKER_00Do you or did you have a favorite kind of um pre-race mantra that you would use to prepare yourself and to focus in before a big performance?
SPEAKER_01Well I'm not quite sure what mantra is but I don't think so I think I just you know I just be you know I just try to be prepared you know practice whether it's rowing or coaching practice everything that you're gonna do on race day uh beforehand. So there's just there's nothing new there's no surprises but on the same time be prepared for anything do you have a favorite race course or a favorite regatta and why? I would say Luztern is my favorite race course just because the first time I went there it was just I'd never seen anything so beautiful for you know for a race course and you know the the natural beauty the the geez the water's calm all the time and um I don't know it was just beautiful. Regatta I guess I would say um you know Windermere Cup opening day because it's I'm biased and it's just crazy and exciting. If you had not gotten into coaching uh what do you think you what else do you think you would have been interested in trying your hand at professionally I've thought about that a little bit you know get to be my age you kind of look back and I I see all this rowing stuff and you know and the microbiology and I go well you know I might have been um might have been a photographer I I'm not sure about that I love photography and I take a lot of photos and work on them these days but I also might have been a wildlife biologist I really enjoy enjoy the outdoors and I enjoy uh you know birds and animals and things and I I enjoy reading studies of people who've done you know done things when I get a magazine article or something and I always find that really intriguing.
SPEAKER_00If you could offer advice to the following three people what would you say to a rower, a coxswain and to a coach?
SPEAKER_01Oh for a rower I'd say you know work work hard every day to improve and try to find a role model and figure out why they're successful and um see if that can help you along the way coxswain I'd say steer straight you know do your job and be prepared. And what was the other one?
SPEAKER_00Yeah what would you say to a coach?
SPEAKER_01I would say always look for ways to improve um keep learning uh don't get set in your ways uh I you know look to the national team coaches to go out and see what they're doing and you know they're always helpful and always let you go out and and I learned a lot from going out with people who are better than me. And I would also say look at other successful coaches at your school in you know in other sports find out what they're doing and what attributes they have that you know might help you look at what you're doing differently. I would I guess I would also like to encourage rowers and coaches who are missing out on their seasons, you know, and maybe uncertain about their future to just hang in there. You know, there's always a positive side if you look for it