Women’s rowing gets feet wet with fall training, prepares for 2016
Senior rower Alice White finds leading by example to be the best way of training newcomers to the team. (UCLA Athletics)
By Tanner Walters
Oct. 27, 2015 1:17 a.m.
Out of all the sports at UCLA, the women’s rowing team has one of the shortest competition seasons, with regattas spanning just two months.
That only makes the rest of the year that much more important.
For the six months prior to the opening race in March, you can find the Bruins at Marina del Rey, lined up on the creek before the sun rises, racing against who they consider their toughest competitor of all: themselves.
This fall, UCLA launched into its training with hopes of improving on last year’s sixth place finish at the Pac-12 championship. Despite being ranked No. 17, the team was not selected for the 22-school field at the NCAA championship.
In many respects, last season was a building year for the program. The Bruins were a young team, anchored by 10 seniors on a roster of 45, and this year isn’t shaping up to be much different.
“This is going to sound strange, but I think we’re almost going to have a younger team this year,” said coach Amy Fuller Kearney. “We have a really talented freshman class and then the sophomores who were freshmen last year. The bulk of our talent is in the freshman and sophomore class, but obviously we have some great upperclassmen leaders.”
The 2015-2016 squad includes only nine upperclassmen – four juniors and five seniors – but that disparity doesn’t concern one of the Bruins’ most experienced members.
“We hope that age doesn’t define leadership. That’s a big focus this year,” said senior coxswain Logan Warwick. “A freshman could be as equal of a leader as a senior. It’s just about who’s willing to step up and do the right thing – lead by example, lead vocally or whatever their means of leadership is.”
Starting in fall training, Fuller Kearney said, the coaching staff splits the team up by level in hopes that everybody can get comfortable. She takes the top 16, associate head coach Justin Price takes the next 16 and new assistant coach Previn Chandraratna focuses on the walk-ons.
With one of the largest rosters of any UCLA team, organizing the team’s training is no easy task, but Fuller Kearney has a clear strategy. The veteran coach is entering her 15th season with the Bruins.
“For us, we’re always maximizing water time. In the fall, we really have to get in the miles,” Fuller Kearney said. “It’s really about the aerobic energy system, making sure we’re getting in a lot of volume. Of course, with that is the technical stuff, but our skill and technique work is always incorporated into the mileage so that we don’t sacrifice one for the other.”
Miles of long rows and technical endurance are the physical basics, but senior rower Alice White stressed the importance of each individual really committing to make every day count.
“There’s a lot of intrinsic motivation with rowing,” White said. “You can’t persuade someone to do all the work that’s required. You can’t just give them little rewards, they have to really want to do it. Demonstrating how to do it, I’ve found, is the best way to go.”
The senior added that the team is already seeing players step up this fall, freshmen and returners alike, increasing the competition within the squad.
For nearly the next five months, that’s the only competition the Bruins will face. Other than a couple scrimmages in the fall and early spring, the team will continue to line up on the creek and battle it out among each other.
But even when the boats begin racing alongside other rival programs, Fuller Kearney said that it is never really about the opponents. Instead, it’s always a race against the clock – a gold medal time to be broken, a first place mark to achieve.
Can UCLA make that leap to national relevance in just a year? Fuller Kearney said she doesn’t know, but her plan remains unchanged: Commit to the team and stay the course.
“Everybody has really bought in – we’re at a good place mentally,” Fuller Kearney said. “I think that if you’re happy you’ll be successful. Sometimes people believe that success brings happiness, but we’re under the mentality that it’s really about creating a good environment and the results will follow.”
