Oh, man. Where do I begin?
I know I didn’t do a recap of nationals last week but that was mainly because I think I knew that as soon as I hit “publish” the season would officially be over. There are plenty of stories I could tell from the few days we were in Princeton but I’ll keep things short. As you know, we took two crews over there to race at the SRAA Nationals – our MJr4+ and our WL8+. Our men unfortunately didn’t make it past heats after finishing fourth with only the top three to advance. They all came off the water knowing that they hadn’t rowed their best race but they had a great attitude and were perfect examples of how to take a loss in stride. The funny thing about their race is that despite not moving through to semis, out of the 24 crews entered in their event their time still placed them at 7th overall after finals were completed, which we were all pretty happy with.
Our women also finished 7th overall. They made it out of heats but not semis, where they finished fourth with only the top three moving on. Even though the girls were disappointed to not be rowing in finals, all that subsided after a couple minutes and a rousing pep talk from our head coach. They all went into the race committed to leaving everything on the water and they came off saying they had nothing left to give by the time they crossed the finish line. In the end, that’s what you want though. You can’t be disappointed when your team/teammates looks you in the eye and say they gave it all they had.
Everywhere I’ve coached I’ve bragged about Marietta – I’ve compared every team to them because they set the bar so damn high in terms of expectations, sportsmanship, pride, coaching, etc. and now not only do other teams have to continue to try to live up to that, any crew I coach from here on out has to live up to this lightweight 8+. What makes me prouder than anything else is that I can finally stop bragging about the boats I coxed at Marietta and start bragging about the one I helped coach. I mean, I’ll still talk up my boats when I can but it’s more exciting now to brag about the things these guys have accomplished. I don’t really know why. My coach and I were talking about this on the bus ride home and when I said that he just smiled so I assume he knows what I mean and/or felt the same way at some point when he started coaching.
So, what’s the takeaway from this season? There are too many to count but the biggest one is that coaching girls is hard. Like, way harder and way more frustrating than coaching boys but it is a ton of fun in ways that coaching guys never could be. I definitely have a new appreciation for it. The payoff is that eventually everybody figures each other out and solid relationships are built, you’re given the nickname “Mom” that you without fail start responding to (even when it’s being yelled in the middle of a crowded regatta), and, if you play your cards right, you end up with a text that says there’s a massive slice of Reese’s PB cheesecake from The Cheesecake Factory with your name on it in the hotel room across the hall that you get to eat while listening to a group of girls tell you about their way-too-complicated love lives. I’ll be honest though, I wouldn’t have had it any other way.
Unrelated but if you haven’t yet, please head over to Google Docs and fill out this quick survey. It’s eight questions long, super simple, and completely anonymous. You can read more about it in this post. Thanks for your help!!
Filed under: High School, Video of the Week Tagged: marietta high school, marietta tiger navy, sraa nationals 
