The trials and tribulations of not trialling
Oxford is a funny place for more reasons than one, and the way that rowing happens here is different from anywhere else (with the obvious exception of the other place). The sport is very popular and practised by a huge number of students to varying degrees of seriousness. From the beer boat to the blue boat, almost everyone has a go at messing about on the Isis.
Oxford rowing functions on a sort of two-tier system. There are the blues squads and there are the college crews. To get into the blues squad you either arrive as a pretty clued-up, serious athlete or you graduate from college rowing to the blues' summer squad and from the summer squad to trialling for the blue boat.
In my first year I rowed for college, in my second year I trialled and rowed for the blues, in my third year I went to Paris and in my fourth year I took on a challenge that surpasses all these former experiences. I became that least valued, most derided and perhaps most central figure in Oxford rowing - the college captain.
Now, at school I was blissfully unaware of the amount of completely boring, intricate and essential work that goes on behind the scenes to allow rowing, and especially competitions, to happen. I am experiencing it now, and wonder why Mr. Conington, Barry, Gordon, Mr. B and the rest ever filled out more than one regatta entry or ARA safety report before deciding that hockey coaching was not such a bad way of spending your time after all.
But college rowing brings with it a very different set of challenges from those faced by school coaches. Primarily these result from the total lack of compulsory games sessions at university. I challenge anyone to stand up in front of a load of eighteen year olds who have just left home, been given almost total freedom to watch as much morning television and drink as much alcohol as they like and are about to discover that lectures before 11 o'clock are essentially voluntary, and try to encourage them to do a sport which involves waking up at 6am more than three times per week and requires them to train up to eleven times per week. And you cannot even send them to the headmaster if they do not come to training.
This was my task at Oriel College Freshers' Fair back in October. Of the thirty or so girls who thought that rowing at Oxford would be a glamorous and exciting experience to tell their grandchildren about, only about twenty were still keen when I told them they had to take a swim test, about sixteen turned up to the first training session, and around six are still rowing now. No wonder I keep joking that what the Boat Club needs more than a new erg is a cattle prod.
Added to the understandable problem of getting past rowing's bad press so that students can actually find out how great it is, is the specific problem that my college has faced this year. 2006 was the year that Oriel won the double headship in Torpids (very important Oxford rowing competition), which was an historic first. It was, sadly, also the year that we came second from bottom on the Norrington Table, which ranks colleges in Oxford on the basis of their degree results.
Cue the meeting with the Provost telling us that unless we get a first class degree we will never own a house or educate our children (I am not exaggerating - one don actually said this), and a reminder that a third and a rowing Blue will no longer add up to a job. All my nice little fresher novices were henceforth convinced that rowing would result in them inevitably failing their degrees. Great.
So this year has mainly been about try to hang on to, or train up, enough talent to ensure that we can retain the headship which we won last year. Experienced finalists who should have guaranteed Oriel's finest women's torpid ever have fallen by the wayside as their tutors crack the whip and tell them that their three essays a week cannot be compatible with nine rowing sessions. We have had our fair share of injuries. We have suffered from weeks of flooding. But thanks to our great coach, John Cameron, who used to coach at Monkton, and thanks to the unwavering enthusiasm of those bitten by the rowing bug, we now have a pretty competent Torpid.
So fingers crossed for the beginning of March and another double headship for Oriel. Of course, the boys have also got to produce the goods. But under the coaching of Henry Bailhache-Webb, I am sure they will pull it off too.
The thing I have hated most about being captain is the college captains' meetings. If I have to sit through another two hours of people debating whether the spinning area on the Isis should be above or below the small yellow starting post, I will do something very nasty with said spinning post. On the other hand, it has been a great year for understanding how rowing works, how much politics it involves, how much people are willing to sacrifice to be part of a great team and how much people do appreciate the hard work that goes on behind the scenes.
I thought that captaincy would be a nice step down after the rigours of blues training. How wrong was I! Bring back the straight-forward 'turn-up and pull hard' era. The twenty e-mails I send before breakfast to boatman, first crew, men's captain, second boat coach, kit company and bursar are a different type of tiring. But it will be worth it if we get blades...