As I've said multiple times, getting comfortable, I believe, just gets boring and can lead to a negative outcome. Last year, I got too comfortable and my season sort of plummeted, but that's just an example. More specifically this year, I've had to change a lot rowing wise to reach a new height and make the boat go faster. While it is quite scary at times, or even frustrating, I see it as an new challenge that makes training and racing a lot more enjoyable.
To build the best 8+ possible for the end of the year, most of the guys on the team have paired up so that we can better prepare it and not constantly switch from sweeping to sculling. Only one of the guys is rowing the single because he's trying to be selected on the National team. The first big switch was moving from port to starboard. If you've rowed with me, you'll know that I have rarely touched that side even though I pride myself in the ability to do so. Although I rowed 25% of last year at starboard, I never had to fully move over. This time, I had to put in a lot effort in making sure that I was doing things as well as I could because in a pair it will get obnoxious. I'm pretty lucky for having a pair partner who has been patient with my alteration.
That's where the next switch comes in. We came back from break to our given boat, but it was rigged to starboard. Not only did I have to make sure I was rowing efficiently, but I also had to stroke. At times, I wanted to jump out of the boat because of how much there was to think about, but we pulled through. We had a few sessions in that lineup and as we progressed, we both realized what the other could and couldn't do in their respective seats. As we moved back to our original settings, we started off with a much cleaner approach to our rowing and could empathize for one another. This link of understanding is not a given and makes me enjoy every stroke, even when the water isn't at its best.
Mentally and physically, training has been difficult, but shows its progress. I really think that if we continue on this path, we will find more and more speed as we grow closer to important races. I'm excited to see how we can do. Until then, enjoy what my hand looked like the week I switched to starboard with a cheeky comment from Olympic champion Pete Reed.
Stopping time, going inside your head, and simply analyzing the images that run through your mind as you think of what has occurred during the past 12 months. That’s how I sort of review my year. Because I’ve spoken about the great times and the mishaps of the first 6 months throughout my posts, I’ll just come back starting in September. I want to specifically talk about rowing and the lifestyle I adopted.
After a solid summer in Florida, having fun and training hard, I came back to France to start the second year of my master’s degree. With about 3 weeks until Sprint Nationals, the group worked to clean up our rowing and put together the best performance we had to offer. Just to explain the context, in the 80’s, our club was top of the line for the men and had an outstanding men’s 8+. 20 years later, our president wants to rekindle that glory and keep it running. This championship regatta was the first step towards that. As underdogs, all we wanted to do was get to the A final, obviously, realizing that we were amongst 30+ other crews on a distance that separated 1st and 6th by just a few seconds. Long story short, we surprised ourselves, but especially the rest of the opponents by just missing out of the A final and finishing a very close 2nd in the B final. For me, that was a solid way to end a difficult year of rowing.
Coming off something positive, I adopted a culture, you might say, where I trained but with no goals, besides just building myself a good endurance base. When it came time to race the single at the only head race of the fall, I was too preoccupied with my technique and moved away from making my body go through hell and the boat go fast. That performance was deplorable and shameful. I was behind people that usually belong under me on the lists. That was a huge wake up call! I was kind of stuck in a purgatory state at that point. Luckily, my cousin Julien came along. He started making me think about what I wanted, what I was ready to do for that to happen, and how to perceive myself in the coming weeks and months. With his help, I straightened back up and trained smarter. When I say smarter, I mean training at a level that is adapted to what I want to accomplish and understanding what is going to happen during tougher parts. When it came to my erg test, I was confident in my capabilities. If you know me, erging has never been my forte, but I still work towards ameliorating that. I wanted to complete a test by hitting the splits and some. I set out to go 6:34 to do so with a plan that would get me there. I got on the erg and did just that…and some! I went a little faster and beat my PR in 6:32. Finally, I was able to have a positive performance on the machine and an uplifting moment that set me up for progress.
Once we passed that weekend, I took a few days to decompress in Lithuania (that is a story for another post). In November we usually race a duel in a 8x+ against the club of the Basse-Seine. This match is the oldest in France and is 88 years old. It was planned the weekend of the Paris terrorist attacks. We legally weren't allowed to have a race and we also didn't feel like it was appropriate. We moved it to this past weekend.
A photo posted by Scott Del Vecchio (@scottdelvecchio) on
When I got back, we were closing in on 2016 and our yearly Christmas race: la Coupe de Noel. This was the 50th edition so the club invited many world, European, and Olympic champions from the past including Jean-Christophe Rolland and Michel Andrieux (2000 Sydney M2- Olympic race).
I had set out to race with my buddy Antoine Lagouge, but he was hurt so I switched at the last moment to my friend and teammate Thomas Fadie. We did not have the best equipment and hadn’t practice, but that did not stop us from starting last and finishing first on the 9 km race which had two turns. We won with by raw time, but finished 2nd with age adjusted time. That whole day was a lot of fun and the partying finished in the early hours of the morning with a few stories that I won’t share... I couldn’t stay the whole night as I had an early flight to catch a flight the next morning.
In conclusion, 2015 was a rollercoaster of events, some that I deserved and some that were questionable, but it is all part of life. I learned from these situations and can’t wait to be on top of my game in this coming year while facing an angry crowd of rowers who are desperate to get to the Olympics this summer. I wanted to add that I have moved away from the single toward the pair with Antoine Peronnet, meaning I switched to starboard. We are working on getting faster for small boats qualifiers and helping our 8+ get faster for June.
This blog post is just a class project that I had to make for a culture and sport's class. I chose to not include the names of the people I interviewed for this blog. Enjoy and don't be afraid to comment if you have anything to add.
The NCAA. A disgrace fronted by gold medals and smiles?
By Scott Del Vecchio Jan. 11, 2016
Ohio State Head Coach Urban Meyer hoists trophy after Buckeyes defeated Oregon Ducks, 42 to 20, in the College Football Playoff National Championship Game at AT&T Stadium on January 12, 2015 in Arlington, Texas The USA, a world of sports, where dreams are made of gold, and part of every great champion’s road to victory, but at what cost? Hidden behind confetti and trophies, is an organization that could be reexamined. College sports in the United States lives within a different dimension then the rest of the sport’s world. The sovereign empire that is ruled by the NCAA and assisted by media and money is not as glamorous as it is made out to be for the fans. The inequality and rules that do not always make the most sense truly show the moral and financial disarray of the greatest nation on Earth. In a way, it takes part in situations that lead to think, in the same manner as the rest of the planet thinks of this colossal nation’s system, which is that it is another American capitalist enterprise that fills its socks…basketball socks you could say, with money, while college players do everything and anything to pay for school whether that means taking out loans or eating ramen noodles for dinner.
Is the NCAA a hypocrite?
The National Collegiate Athletic Association is the largest non-profit association in the United States that governs over 1,000 universities and their +20 sponsored sports. It dedicates its time to overseeing performance within the structure, the sports’ championships and keeping anyone from breaking its set rules, which seem simple, but are a lot more complex and hidden then you would think. Most rules that are broken are either due to a failure to upkeep the academic quality demanded to play college sports, for instance, scoring under a 2.0 GPA during the semester or testing positive on a drug test such as cannabis. The student-athletes who are concerned with these offenses are usually warned, punished, and even kicked off the team and/or out of the school. On the other hand, there are multiple rules that seem to be in the gray area between black and white, or should we say right or wrong. Such rules like not accepting money for playing your sport to keep the status of an amateur athlete (Payment Prohibition. No member team shall make any payments for play or expenses directly or indirectly to any player;) or being denied a meal from a coach because they cannot favor one athlete over another even if that athlete has no food or money to eat [Services (e.g., movie tickets, dinners, use of a car) from commercial agencies (e.g., movie theaters, restaurants, car dealers) without charge or at reduced rates;]
Morally, where does right stop and wrong start, because as a coach, how do you let one of your athletes go to bed without eating dinner knowing that they have to be at practice the next morning before their 8am class? This is where monetary involvement appears to be quite incomprehensible. The NCAA made $912.8 million last year, 84 percent of which came from one, three-week event: The Division I men's basketball tournament. (Indystar.com)
How to read the money flow, graph by: Haoyun Su and Mark Alesia/ The Star, 2014 With revenue closing in on 1 billion dollars each year, the NCAA fills its pockets thanks to the hard work and competitiveness of athletes playing in front of crowds hectically flooding the stadiums and arenas. While the non-profit association is rolling in it, the athletes on the other hand are being denied extra help, money, and other benefits in the name of amateurism. Does it make much sense? Most athletes do not agree and feel robbed. I will add that recently, athletes have been helped through stipends. To get a better idea, we chose to ask a female soccer player about her experience. "I did not go to FSU to make money I went to play soccer and get a degree and that is all I expected out of my experience as a student athlete.” When asked to put herself in a situation where she was underprivileged and wanted to pay off the rest of her education that was not covered by her scholarship, we wanted to know if she would like to receive money for her participation in a media covered championship such as March Madness where the NCAA makes a lot of money and the players do not. Her response was, “I mean yes that would make sense. But I don't know because I wasn't in that situation. They do give us a small stipend such as for preseason to help pay for rent and thanksgiving break if we are still in the tournament.” When she mentions they, she means the university and not the NCAA. According to CBS sports, “The plaintiffs in the case [Jeffrey Kessler case] allege that the NCAA and its schools violate federal antitrust law by conspiring to impose a cap on the amount of money a school can provide a college athlete. Without the cap, the plaintiffs argue, schools would compete in recruiting players by offering more generous scholarships.” In other words, the NCAA prefers making huge amounts of cash and sharing it with the schools than redistributing it to the personnel who is responsible for that revenue. The NCAA tries to justify itself by adding that it is for the good of college sports and predicts higher wages to pay by FBS and Division I school, which will lead to less participating teams and a smaller number of scholarships. “The NCAA and its schools violate federal antitrust law…” With this much access to public records like revenue and such, there is no doubt that athletes, their families, and others will draw closer to trying to resolve this crisis. Whether it is lawyers who represent these athletes, or post-collegiate professional athletes like Richard Sherman, cornerback for the Seattle Seahawks, who are pushing for a possible change in the system, the NCAA is finding itself with its back to the wall. Only a reevaluation of the structure to find a compromise for both parties can end this vulgarized helping hand association.
United States antitrust law is
a collection of federal and state government laws that regulates the conduct
and organization of business corporations, generally to promote fair
competition for the benefit of consumers.
Rowing, a gentlemen’s sport overrun by women.
Rowing is the oldest sport in American collegiate history, which started in 1852 with the first intercollegiate event: the Harvard-Yale boat race. Since then, sports have emerged and as the decades have passed by, rowing has kept its prestigious status intact. In 1972, Title IX, now known as the Patsy Mink Equal Opportunity in Education Act gave equal opportunity to women, including sports. This meant that the number of athletes in each institution had to equal one another including the money used. Most American universities have American football teams that require large budgets, but also bring in large amount of money due to their media attention. There is no women’s football so the female sports that don’t necessarily need enormous amounts of money, end up benefiting from that huge budget. Women’s rowing is most of the time that beneficiary.
In 1997, it became part of the NCAA, but men’s rowing, an old timer, still has yet to be part of it. A former collegiate rower and coach answered the question, “To the best of my knowledge, the reason or at least one of the reasons that Men's Rowing never became an NCAA sport was again Title IX. The women administrators that pursued women's rowing to become an NCAA sport did so because of the numbers of opportunities that rowing could bring to the collegiate sport world to even out rather quickly the disparity between men's sport opportunities and women's at the times. Men's rowing was not considered because it would go counter to what Title IX was all about.” It is difficult in 2016 to empathize why one gender is and the other is not within the structure, but we can easily notice the discrepancy. For example, in 2010 at Jacksonville University, 7 full-ride scholarships were given to the rowing recruits and team members of a 20 girls squad, even if the results were unsatisfactory. A full-ride represents the whole payment of an undergraduate diploma, which at that time cost over $30,000 a year. On the other side of the boathouse, the men’s rowing team composed of +30 members had 3 full-ride scholarships to be shared. On top of this disproportion of budget, men’s rowing had to abide by the same NCAA and school rules as the women, but are not part of the association and do not receive any benefits from it.
No person in the United States
shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the
benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or
activity receiving federal financial assistance.
The biggest question is, does men’s rowing have a future with the NCAA? The interviewee says, “Certainly there are rumblings of bringing men's rowing into the fold of the NCAA. I believe the Ivy Leagues have made it known that they do not want this as it would take away their 'power' and water down their traditions. The rest of the men's collegiate rowing world doesn’t have the resources, the Rolodex of names to call upon for favors to attempt these changes until, I think, recently. Rowing has continued to grow substantially during the past 20 years and the sheer numbers of people now cover every age group from middle schoolers, juniors and high school, collegiate, clubs, masters and on. These demographics now outweigh the voices of the previous governing proletariat of rowing and their voices are now being heard. I think men's rowing will move to become an NCAA approved sport, as long as the NCAA keeps it nose clean, as all this involves lots of money!” “The reason or at least one of the reasons that Men's Rowing never became an NCAA sport was again Title IX.”
The Ivy League is a collegiate
athletic conference comprising sports teams from eight private institutions of
higher education in the Northeastern United States. The conference name is also
commonly used to refer to those eight schools as a group. The eight
institutions are Brown University, Columbia University, Cornell University,
Dartmouth College, Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania,
Princeton University, and Yale University. The term Ivy League has connotations
of academic excellence, selectivity in admissions, and social elitism.
If so, there will be major financial and restructuration consequences, but if not, do the sport and rowing communities care for such inequalities even though women’s equal rights have only but just started? With such a fast moving and growing entity such as sports in general, there seems to be an almost obligatory evolution as NCAA governors and the sport’s coaches have to decide soon where to go from here. There is an obvious unfairness presented here under the ruling eye of an association who prides itself with the following statement, “Values such as respect, caring, fairness, civility, honesty, integrity and responsibility are equally important on and off the field.”
