Over the past few months while many of you have been suffering through a rather rough winter, the USRowing athletes have been out in Chula Vista at the Olympic Training Center.  Now you may think it is all just fun in the sun — beaches, surfing, volleyball and the occasional row, this is not the case.  I mean fun is had on the rare afternoon of free time, but with both the men and women doing three sessions a day more often than not, the real focus is preparing for the 2015 World Championships and qualifying for the Rio Olympics.

We do get to spend a great deal of time together in the dining hall commiserating over rough training sessions or celebrating the good ones. The dining hall is especially fun because athletes have the opportunity to get to know one another. Leading up to next month’s NSR, we will be interviewing two athletes each week and sharing their stories with you.

This week I am proud to introduce you to Austin Hack and Kerry Simmonds, two talented rowers and very interesting people.

 

Austin Hack

Austin was gracious enough to provide us with an outstanding photo of himself growing up along with a photo of him in South Korea learning about the local customs.

The basics – Where are you from? Where/When did you learn to row? What University did you attend?

I’m from Old Lyme, CT, a small coastal town about halfway between New York and Boston. I started rowing at the learn-to-row program in my town when I was 12, and then rowed for my local club (Blood Street Sculls) and my high school (Lyme-Old Lyme). I graduated from Stanford University last June, with a major in Political Science and a minor in Modern Languages (German/Arabic).

What other sports did you play growing up? Do you think any of these affected you positively in your transition to rowing?

From a young age, I participated in sports year round. Until the end of middle school, I sailed in the summer, played soccer in the fall, basketball in the winter, and baseball in the spring. I didn’t start to focus on rowing until high school, when I dropped everything except for rowing and basketball. As a skinny, lanky, and not particularly athletic kid, learning the coordination required by different sports definitely helped me to gain better control of my body, so I’d say playing other sports was hugely beneficial. Gaining that athleticism and bodily awareness continues to help me today.

What is your fondest memory of rowing to this point?

I think winning the World Cup in Lucerne in 2013 is my favorite memory to date. It was my first race at the senior team level, and our success coupled with the beautiful scenery of Switzerland makes it a cherished memory.

What is your most embarrassing rowing memory, flipping, ejection crab and the like?

I used to flip in the single periodically when I was at Stanford. We rowed at the Port of Redwood City which was an inlet from the San Francisco Bay, and there were sometimes weird tides and eddies that could be pretty startling. There was also this tide control system (AKA “the waterfall”) in the tidal wetlands near the boathouse that caused huge currents to rush through when the tide was changing, and I flipped going through that after all of my teammates had already made it. I think I completely ruined at least two backstays from such capsizes.

You made the Senior team while still in school, how has the transition been from student athlete to full time athlete?

It’s definitely been a big change. Making the team in the summers after being in school for nine months was somewhat less stressful, because there wasn’t the daily pressure to perform like there is when you’re a full time athlete. Previously I could just show up in June, rip off a couple race pieces and hope I won my seat races; as a full time athlete, you’re judged by the body of results you build over the whole year. Though it’s certainly more stressful, I can see that I’ve made a lot of improvements since transitioning to full-time, so that’s been rewarding.

When you think about your future in rowing, do you think just about Worlds this year, or do you think long term also, the Rio Olympics and beyond?

I think everyone on the team has Rio in the back of their minds at all times, but personally I like to focus my energy on the shorter term. Obviously this year’s Worlds will be extremely important in terms of actually qualifying for the Olympics, but I don’t even think that far ahead- I prefer to get through every day one by one, and build those days into weeks and then months. Thinking about all the training we still have remaining before Rio can seem pretty daunting, so that’s mainly why I set shorter-term checkpoints.

For other young guys still in school or just finishing and hoping to join the team what advice would you give?

Speaking of my own experience, the two most significant changes I’ve had to make since college were my strength in the weight room, and my day-to-day mentality. While I did lift in college, I’ve had to play catch-up a little bit since joining the team, and I’ve slowly been seeing the benefits of that. Regarding my mentality, I had to improve my ability to perform at my potential throughout the daily grind, regardless of mental or physical fatigue. If national team hopefuls worked on those two pieces, I think that would make their transition to life on the team a bit more fluid.

Lastly, what is one interesting fact about yourself that not many people know?

I am extremely passionate about donuts.

 

Kerry Simmonds

Kerry provided us with this great photo of her (right) and her sister at the beach in her hometown of San Diego.

The basics – Where are you from? Where/when did you learn to row? What University did you attend?

I am from San Diego, California. And I learned to row at the University of Washington in Seattle.

What other sports did you play growing up? Do you think any of these affected you positively or negatively in your transition to rowing?

I was always into sports growing up, beginning with soccer, running, basketball and of course I LOVED partaking in all the games at school (e.g. teatherball, kickball, four square, handball, capture the flag, etc). In high school I varsity lettered in cross country, basketball and track & field. Basketball taught me about body awareness and how to communicate with my teammates on the court. Cross country gave me a good endurance base and the mental toughness. Both sports most definitely helped with my transition to rowing in college.

What is your fondest memory of rowing to this point?

I suppose I might have to say last year’s NSR in the women’s pair is my fondest rowing memory to date because it was so surreal. My pair partner, Megan Kalmoe and I went in with no expectations but a mindset to do our best and hope that would qualify us for the A final. We were able to work together well and improve over the three day regatta. In the end, although the field was very tight, we came out on top. It was amazing to feel like on that final day our best was good enough.

What is your most embarrassing rowing memory, flipping, ejection crab or the like?

At the 2014 World Championships this past summer in Amsterdam. Kalmoe and I accidentally held the American flag backwards on the medals podium. And there are pictures to prove it. Not our most patriotic moment.

You have had some great success during your brief period on the senior team so far, in both big and small boats, which do you prefer and why?

I think I would have to say it’s still too early in my career on the senior team for me to cultivate any preferences, so really I am still just happy to make a boat on the team. I do enjoy the intimacy and greater responsibility that comes with racing in the pair. But I also enjoy the raw power of the eight and the feeling of flying of the water that can come when you are all working in unison.

When you think about your future in rowing, do you think just about worlds this year or do you think long term also, the Rio Olympics and beyond?

If I learned anything from being on the team thus far, is to be in the present. Take one day at a time because injuries, illness, personal crises usually happen at the most inconvenient of times. So when I think about my future in rowing I think more short term and try to achieve goals throughout the year that I set for myself.

Lastly, what is one interesting fact about yourself that not many people know?

My younger brother, Eric, recently competed on “Jeopardy!”. April 6th, 2014 air date. That is the most interesting fact about me right now 🙂

To train full time on the senior team for more than one Olympic cycle is a daunting task. There are many things to be taken into consideration when making this decision. As it is already halfway through the quadrennial most of us have already grappled with these thoughts, but with just over 8 months until the Olympic Qualifier and 18 months until the Rio 2016 Olympics it is worth going over them again.

The first and most basic question when considering whether to keep training is can your body hold up under the rigors of training at such a high level. If you have made it through years of rowing before joining the senior team and you have been to an Olympics the likely hood that you have made it through unscathed is very unlikely. Whether it was ribs, back, or some other malady; we have all been laid up by something. Getting over the thought of potential injury is easier for some than others, but we all seem to get over it.

Having the mental stamina to get over injuries shows that we are all strong people, but dealing with grind everyday can be a different beast all together. We all love racing on the water, that’s why we do this, however it takes a lot to get to the racing. Hours of erging through the winter, the stress of seat racing, and all of the testing can wear even the most mentally tough person down. It is also hard to stay excited about these things. If you are able to stay excited about training on a day-to-day basis you are in about as good a position as you can hope for.

Now we come to more practical matters. With several training sessions a day it makes it very difficult to hold a normal job. While most of us do something to help support ourselves it is often not enough. That is where the National Rowing Foundation comes in. They help raise a large portion of the money that is used to pay the stipend that USRowing can give us.

Now the next and most obvious problem that arises is equipment. Rowing is not known for being a cheap sport to take part in. To make sure we have all the competitive advantages we can we get to use the best boats in the world. Since these boast cost between $12,000 and $40,000 depending on the boat class paying for all of these is obviously a huge burden on USRowing, but again the National Rowing Foundation raises all the money needed to keep us in our beautiful fleet of boats.

Now the last, but far from the least important thing that we as high performance athletes have to worry about is travel. It is expensive to travel to Europe and stay for weeks at a time. We also need more than bare minimum accommodations. To pay for all of this we again rely on the National Rowing Foundation to make it possible for us to travel in a way that allows us to be at our best when we see that green light flash.

The next many months are going to be full of excitement, injury, frustration, joy, and lots of hard work. To get through all of this we must rely on ourselves. But for everything else we have the National Rowing Foundation and they will help us qualify for the Olympics and succeed at the Olympics.

From the time we’re born, we enter and exit different groups, communities, neighborhoods and teams. I, for one, hardly remember my friends and various teammates from middle school, let alone keep in touch with them. Even my high school friends are few and far between. Life moves on, you relocate, you get busy, your interests change, you change. It’s only the rarest of communities that once joined, remain in our lives for years and years to come. For me, and surely for countless others, rowing is that rare gem.

Rowers are obsessive; once you catch the rowing bug, you’re doomed. Whether you start as a junior, collegiate student-athlete or masters rower, there’s always another race to train for, another damn erg test and another Head of the Charles to look forward to. Whatever the level of competition or commitment, rowers are indeed a rare breed. And the rarest of the breed? National team rowers. You have to be a special kind of crazy to spend years of your life killing yourself on the water and on the erg only to increase the likelihood that you might maybe make a team. Oh, and all well-below the poverty line.

As many National Team rowers will say, “you gotta want it.” That 5:30 am alarm at the end of the week when you can barely get out of bed and have to somehow muster up the strength to eek out a 2 x 6k on the erg…as your second morning practice. You gotta want it. That moment in a 2k when you’re not sure you’re going to make it, you can either give in to the pain, the lack of oxygen and the tricks your mind plays on you or you can do whatever it takes to win. You gotta want it. That time of the year when everything matters, you can make no mistakes, it’s you against your teammates, the very people you see everyday and share jokes with in the locker room who you now will do anything to beat. You gotta want it.

It’s brutal, but so is life. For national team rowers however, this is their life, day in and day out, with only the next Olympic Games as the end point. These men and women are some of the hardest-working, most humble human beings you will ever meet. They do what it takes, without the luxury of million-dollar contracts and with the knowledge that no one, except perhaps their hometowns, will remember their name when it’s all said and done. I know I will always remember the years I spent rowing fondly. There’s no question that rowing changed my life and set me on a new and unexpected path.

The National Rowing Foundation is integral to the national rowing team livelihood. Without the NRF and its supporters, there would be no fleet of rowing shells, no facilities for the USA’s best to train at, no overseas trips to compete against the globe, and ultimately no chance at Olympic glory amongst many, many other items. USRowing can’t solely support the national team, the USOC can’t solely support the national team. It’s the NRF’s contributions that bring home medals. Support your country and support USA rowing by donating to the NRF.

 

This coming weekend marks one of the best of the entire year for any rower. The annual Head of the Charles Regatta draws rowers from all over the world to compete and reunite. Whether you’re racing in an alumni boat looking to relive the good old college days with your buddies, racing in a master’s event to test your mettle against rowers your age or racing any of the highly competitive championship events, this regatta is for you. It’s definitely a favorite for all of us at the National Rowing Foundation – we so look forward to gathering all national team rowers current and past for a fun reunion event every year.

This year marks the 50^th Head of the Charles Regatta, so you can expect the regatta to be bigger and better than ever. There’s a lot of hype for this year’s event, here is a list of what you can expect, what the past 50 years have been like and what to check out while in Boston.

• The 50^th event is such a big deal that there’s even a GALA! Oh, and Sir Matthew Pinsent will be speaking. https://www.hocr.org/the-regatta/spectators/50th-celebration-galaticket/ 

• There are A LOT of people coming to Boston for the two-day racing event. There are 11,000 rowers, 32 countries represented and 61 events. Check out more stats here: https://www.bostonglobe.com/magazine/2014/10/11/head-charles-regatta-numbers/5coi4Q1tlR1ypUZqyFvCvI/story.html

• There’s some pretty awesome and ultra high level rowers competing in the Championship events this year. Check out the “Great Eight” lineups as well as the rowers competing for USA here:

Championship Men’s 8+ : https://www.regattacentral.com/regatta/entries/competitors.jsp?job_id=3644&event_id=54

Championship Women’s 8+ : https://www.regattacentral.com/regatta/entries/competitors.jsp?job_id=3644&event_id=54

• National Geographic considers the Head of the Charles one of five must-see events during the month of October in all the world. https://intelligenttravel.nationalgeographic.com/2014/09/24/event-o-rama-5-must-dos-in-october/#.VCRnK2-cJFk.twitter

• Steering the course can be really, really tough. Brush up your Charles’ turns in just 60 seconds: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsKj9aXKnlg

• The Boston mascots went out for a row last week and it was super cute. HOCR Executive Director Fred Schoch doesn’t quite fit in…

• The NRF is hosting a few events and you should come! You can register for either event here: https://interland3.donorperfect.net/weblink/weblink.aspx?name=natrowing&id=43

Friday, October 17th ~ 5:30 – 8:30 pm

Reception to kickoff the 50th Head Of The Charles Regatta. Come meet and greet the many U.S. and international team athletes who will be racing.

Location ~ The Director’s Tent at Cambridge Boat Club

Cost ~ $50 Open Bar and Hors d’oeuvres

Saturday, October 18th ~ THE NRF ENCLOSURE

10:00 am – 4:00 pm 

Watch the racing and enjoy a light breakfast, lunch and drinks.

Location ~ Hospitality Row just upstream from the Eliot Bridge

Cost ~ $75

For all other info on the 50^th Annual Head of the Charles check out their website at www.hocr.org

Hope to see you there!