Episode Transcript
[00:00:09] Speaker A: In one of the early episodes of the show, the one and only, although unfortunately fictional character Ted Lasso said, for me, success is not about the wins and losses. It's about helping these young fellas be the best version of themselves on and off the field.
[00:00:22] Speaker B: Now, obviously I can't do his voice and that accent any kind of justice.
[00:00:26] Speaker A: But what I can do is tell you how perfectly that quote captures the coaching career of today's guest, Russell Topp.
If you haven't heard of him, here's a quick rundown.
Russell is head coach of Wakefield crew. In 2025, he was named Washington Post All Met Coach of the Year. Under his leadership, the Wakefield women's varsity eight has won five consecutive state titles, something no team has done in more than 40 years.
They also earned top five finishes at both Stoats, Barry and the Scholastic National Championships.
The Wakefield men's team has had its share of scholastic national appearances and state medals as well. And thanks to his connections to one Arlington rowing athletes without limits, Oakton D.C. strokes and the Wakefield Boosters Learn to Row programs, an impressive percentage of kids of any gender from any school who have won Virginia state medals in the last five years were coached at some point by Russell Topp. So yes, winning is something he's become very familiar with.
But what's most magical about Russell is.
[00:01:26] Speaker B: Who he is day in and day.
[00:01:27] Speaker A: Out to the kids, the parents, the other coaches and the entire rowing community.
[00:01:35] Speaker B: Welcome back. I'm Alicia Cushman and this is the gather. We're super excited to bring you a special guest today, Russell Tapp. Russell, thank you so much for being here. Like so many others, your world didn't start with rowing. Can can you get us started and tell us a little bit about your background? How did you find rowing and why did you decide to become a rowing coach?
[00:01:56] Speaker C: So my mom actually wanted me to become a coxswain when I was like a toddler because I was incredibly small for my age and very very loud. I did not have an indoor voice and then cut forward to high school. I was 110 pounds and still very loud and the the crew team started had like a recruiting day at a activities fair and I said no and then came back a year later my sophomore year of high school and started join the team and there was one other small kid on the team who was maybe going to cox and then his but his dad wrote in high school and said I am not paying for somebody to sit in a seat and not row. So that left me as the coxswain.
[00:02:39] Speaker D: He hasn't listened to our coxswain episode.
[00:02:41] Speaker C: Yeah. And so, yeah, that was. The rest was kind of history. I coxed through the rest of high school. I was not particularly good at it in high school and then went on to continue to cox in college and got much better at it. And then pretty early on in college, our practice time ended at 4, and high school practices started at 4, and I needed money, and so I started coaching when I was 20, and my commute was, I think, 15ft from one boathouse bay to the other. And that was pretty convenient. And then I've been doing that ever since.
[00:03:14] Speaker E: How did your mom even know about coxing and rowing?
[00:03:17] Speaker C: That is a good question for her.
I have no idea.
[00:03:23] Speaker E: Well, it's just neat because it's not, you know, an everyday sport that every suburban family would know about.
[00:03:28] Speaker C: Yeah, she grew up in the Boston area, so. Oh, I see.
[00:03:30] Speaker F: Okay. Got you.
[00:03:31] Speaker C: It's not.
[00:03:33] Speaker B: That'll do it.
[00:03:34] Speaker F: It's interesting. You say you weren't a good coxswain in high school, but you got better in college. Why do you say that? Why? What was not good about your coxswain in high versus college?
[00:03:42] Speaker C: The biggest difference was the coaching that I got in college was. Was excellent, and high school was a little bit less. And also it was just kind of a focus and maturity issue kind of reflecting back on it. I was just not particularly into the sport, but, like, kind of no one on the team was that into the sport in high school. It was just sort of. It was a pretty casual team at the time. Now it's pretty good. The big difference maker was. Was definitely just sort of the attention and effort that I put into it went up exponentially as I got. As I got into my later years in college.
[00:04:15] Speaker F: What makes a good coxswain?
[00:04:16] Speaker C: I think the thing that it really takes is a lot of it takes an ability to multitask and an ability to stay calm under pressure.
So you need to be able to, like, prioritize the things that really matter right now and just completely put out of your brain the things that are, like, you notice but don't matter and don't need your imminent attention.
And then as you get better, you get to sort of start planning further and further ahead. But learning to cox on the Occoquan is pretty. It's a pretty narrow river for how. How many boats are on there. And so there was a. It's kind of just like driving in traffic constantly. And it always felt like I was getting assaulted by.
By just from every Direction with faster boats. And my novice year was pretty.
I'm trying to think of a charitable word here.
[00:05:05] Speaker B: It's okay. It's a safe place.
[00:05:06] Speaker C: Yeah, we can edit this out, I suppose, but it was pretty. My novice year was a very slow ramp up towards.
Towards speed.
[00:05:18] Speaker E: So you got some good coaching and then you started coaching yourself pretty young. I mean, were you coached on how to be a coach or how did you learn how to be a good coach with that?
[00:05:27] Speaker C: Allegedly, my friends who allegedly, like the varsity coaches were going to help out with teaching their assistant coaches how to coach, but that disappeared the instant that we got back onto the water and it was very much a. Okay, well, figure it out. See ya. And that trial by fire was overwhelming for a while. And I definitely had a lot of, like, rough practices in the beginning. But I think that that is certainly not the best way to teach somebody. But it is not a terrible way either because it does mean that you have to solve your own problems. If your launch won't start, well, figure it out. Or figure out what to do on land or, you know, you, like, start coming up with contingency plans because you got to get that motor engine, like running or you've got to figure out what else you're doing with it not running. So, yeah, I had not a ton of clue about what I was doing, but I also realized that I did not know what I was doing very quickly. And I was able to ask some questions and figure it out. But I remember for my second, third, fourth and fifth year of coaching, I remember thinking, wow, if I knew as much as I know now, last year my kids would have done so much better. Like, everything would. Like, I would have been able to perform so much better. But that's just not how learning goes.
[00:06:43] Speaker B: So I'm really curious because I cox for master's programs, but I've never been a cox in high school.
I'm really curious, what was the moment where you were like, this is a sport I'm going to stick with for, you know, this long, Right? Like, when did you, like, realize, hey, I really like this.
[00:07:02] Speaker C: I like to joke that I have never made an affirmative decision in my life.
So, like, I sort of.
I remember thinking, okay, I like this, I'm going to stick with this in college. But I don't really remember in high school. It was just kind of like all of my friends were on the crew team or especially for like the early in high school. And so there was never really a choice. It was just like, well, obviously I'm gonna continue hang out with Morgan and Mark and Tom and Rick and whatever. Yeah, I don't really remember specifically ever thinking that in high school, but I do absolutely. In college, I kind of learned to really love the sport and appreciate sort of the finer points of coxing and the.
It's not quite athleticism, but the skill involved in coxing.
[00:07:50] Speaker F: One of the things that you talked to just mentioned was about the Occoquan and how there are so many boats, narrow river. There's obviously then a lot of stress. I mean, you've got very expensive boats, you've got probably some inexperienced rowers and you're a coxswain. You know, as a young person, high school, even early college, there's a lot of responsibility on you as a coxswain. How, how did you handle that? And then how do you kind of teach your coxswains and how do you instill that? Like, you need to be calm, you need to be focused in kind of a very stressful situation that has a lot of people relying on you to make sure that they're safe and they're, they're going down the river.
[00:08:29] Speaker C: I mean, now that I'm 15 years into coaching and I've coached three learn to rows a year at a minimum for, you know, I coached more than that. Yeah, I've probably coached in the pretty close to 100, like, individual learn to row sessions. It just like, I am much more able to predict, like, before you even get in a boat, just kind of watching somebody walk, are they going to be able to see this just based on like, how do your shoulders move in relation to your hips? Like, do you actually have any coordination here? Or are we like, are we falling over? And so like. Or just watching somebody step into the boat, like, do they push the boat away from the dock as they're stepping in? Because they don't realize that they're weight is going to make the boat sink down. So you can kind of immediately identify, okay, you're gonna be, you're gonna need a little bit more attention and you just sort of move athletically and you're not going to. It's not going to take you that long to understand what I mean when I say hold your hands out straight, hold your arms out straight. And so like.
And it's also much easier to just. I've had so many more years of repeating the same phrases and kind of honing. Exactly, exactly. That you want to say, okay, like, put the blade into the water and not lift the handle because, like, the blade is it's just more intuitive that way. So just like.
And I've cut out all of the jargon. Like, I don't say port and starboard on the first day. I just say yellow or like, orange hand, green hand, because you've got a handle and it's got colors and you can recognize those colors. And I don't need to confuse you with like, hey, left and right are backwards now.
So.
[00:10:10] Speaker E: So you want them to come back. Yeah.
[00:10:12] Speaker C: And so, like, you know, just getting on, get onto the water and get moving quickly. And then like having the ability. The boats steer better as they are moving faster. And so just having the ability to move the boat, even if it is just for one stroke at a time and then into a pause and then do it again and do it again and do it again, and I'm able to get people up and moving much quicker. And then once the boat is moving, that really takes away all of the stress of like, are you going to hit a bridge? Are you going to hit a marina? Are you gonna hit a log? Are you gonna hit tree or sandbar or anything, anything else you can find on the water?
So that has, I mean, the beginning, like, it's tough to begin. It's tough to start out, but you.
You've got to it, like, everybody's got to have a day one.
And I think that the, the asset that the Anacostia boathouse has is a barge.
Those things make it so easy because they turn on a dime and they can't possibly flip. So that makes it really easy. But like.
[00:11:13] Speaker F: Well, pause there, Russell, just for a second. Tell us, tell us what a barge is.
[00:11:17] Speaker C: A barge is a boat that is twice as or three times as wide as a normal boat.
And it's training barge. So it's designed for people who are in their first or second or third day, something like that, maybe first three weeks. But they are. It's.
It's a learn to row tool as opposed to a racing shell.
But even without a. Without a barge, you can still just through. I mean, just through the experience that I've had kind of taking people onto into a boat and tell it like giving them the important point points and nothing else, like, nothing extra.
I think that it is pretty.
The first, like 20 minutes are always kind of painful, but once, like after that, I don't feel any stress anymore.
[00:12:01] Speaker E: You know, you taught my daughter how to row, and I remember the first time she did a week of learn to row with you. She was in the barge for maybe just the first or second day. And it was amazing that by the middle, or at least the Thursday of the week, she was in an 8, you know, because your ability to sort of diagnose what people could do and get them from that training barge into an actual, you know, racing shell was pretty fast. I think that's because you do cut out the extraneous stuff and you kind of teach the mechanics and the essentials and. And then that was very gratifying for her and I'm sure for a lot of other kids, because they get to see that immediate gratification. Oh, I'm not just in this barge, you know, for five or five days or 10 days, if they're doing two weeks or whatever, you know.
[00:12:45] Speaker B: So I'm actually going to build on that because I was thinking as you were talking, I really wanted to ask about this. One of the really unique things you were part of bringing to Wakefield is this connection to, like, sculling and sweeping. Right. So, like Wakefield, kids have had the benefit of learning how to skull and learning how to row in a single. And that, I believe, makes them way better in an eight.
[00:13:07] Speaker F: Right.
[00:13:07] Speaker B: Um, and so in Kellen's example, I remember her, like, she rode very fast in a single. Like, she went from barge like a single almost immediately.
And so I'm curious if you could talk a little bit about that, about why you think it's so important to have that sort of diversity of experience in boats and especially in small boats.
[00:13:25] Speaker C: Yeah. So small boats give you a lot more feedback about what is happening because you can feel what you, as an individual are doing to the boat. So in an eight, it's kind of like trying to. Trying to, like, tell the shape of an object with gloves on, because you don't really know what your impact to the boat is versus the other eight people in the boat or the other seven rowers, because hopefully the coxswain is not doing too much to impact things.
But there are nine people.
But in a small boat you just get sort of an. You get a much more connection to the water and then you can feel that whether there's a pickup there or not, and you can feel whether there's a.
Whether there's any sort of negative forces that you are putting into the boat and becomes a lot more obvious if you're the only person in the. In the shell. And I think it's tremendously important to put.
To put especially young and young people into boats.
My experience from teaching masters has taught me that if you are. If you haven't done a sport by the time that you're like 25, it's just kind of your, your sense of balance starts to disappear really, really quickly.
[00:14:39] Speaker E: And like, so that explains my entire rowing career.
[00:14:43] Speaker B: Kim, you're better than you give yourself credit for.
[00:14:47] Speaker C: Yeah, I would, I would teach while I was teaching 15 year olds. I would also be teaching people who are between 35 and 65 and the 13 year olds, the 15 year olds, the teenagers can do in a week what the, the adults would take it like a month to complete. And it's just from the sense of balance and it's the coordination and the, the young and flexible bodies and brains. And so like getting young people into small boats early just turns them into a lifelong very smooth rower. And it's, it's just like riding a bike. You don't really forget it. You can go off to college and not row for four years and then come back and get back into a single and you'll be just fine after half an hour.
And it does.
It's a lifelong skill that is a great thing to have. I mean, so I started rowing single in college and was purely recreational and enjoyed it and kind of flopped around and had a good time with it. But I can still get into a boat 15 years later and start rowing and have no problem with it.
[00:15:52] Speaker B: I really want to hear your first experience in a single because I know what Derek's was and I know what mine was.
[00:15:56] Speaker E: I know what Mira's was.
[00:15:59] Speaker C: So I was one of two people who were learning to row that day. I was a coxswain who had had probably by that point 15 days or so of rowing in a sweet boat under my belt. And I was learning alongside a guy who had been rowing for two or three years and he kept on flipping. And so my coach said, hey, I gotta handle this guy.
Go and row up to Jesse, who was the fastest guy on the team at that time, and he'll show you the ropes. And so I turned and looked behind me and Jesse was probably 1500 meters off and okay, well, I guess from, I was probably, I was probably 150 meters from the dock. And so I was like, well, I guess I'm gonna go and see if I can row 10 times further than I have so far. And I could. And so then I caught up to Jesse and by the time that I was out there, I kind of felt like I had my, my legs underneath me and I was not great. And I was steering towards the middle of the river, which is a very common, common problem in first Day scholars.
[00:17:03] Speaker E: Can you explain that more? What do you mean? It's a common problem because your left.
[00:17:07] Speaker C: Hand goes over your right hand. Your.
Like that your left hand blade goes deeper into the water than your right hand blade typically. So it's a lot easier, it's a lot more intuitive to get a bigger bite on your left hand than your right hand. And you have to really focus on it in order to keep the pressure even. And I did not know that for, oh, probably nine months.
[00:17:31] Speaker B: I have so many questions. And it's a rabbit hole.
[00:17:33] Speaker F: We can't go.
[00:17:34] Speaker C: Yeah, I know.
[00:17:34] Speaker D: I think I never thought of that.
[00:17:37] Speaker B: Like, how do you fix that?
[00:17:38] Speaker C: Like.
[00:17:39] Speaker D: But it's those little things that, you know, Will always said that, you know, five minutes of Russell watching us, he could say, you know, just a few simple things, and it would suddenly fix everything. Like, there were so many things they didn't even know that they were doing wrong. But I just, I think that's an incredible gift that you have of being able to diagnose even, you know, from a bit of a distance, but you can watch what's happening.
And I'm kind of wondering what, what you think are those, what are the things you most commonly are diagnosing or what, what are some of the things that you notice the most that are going wrong on a, on a shell?
[00:18:18] Speaker C: So my first year coaching, a good friend of mine said that there's two things in rowing. There's connection and there's.
And that makes up about 90% of the stroke and everything else is just busy work. And so the first things that I look for are just connection and timing.
[00:18:35] Speaker D: And what's connection?
[00:18:36] Speaker C: Connection is.
So in running, you generate power on your legs, it gets transferred through your feet into the road, and that moves you forward. In skating, you generate power on your legs, it goes into your feet and then over into the ice, and that moves you forward. In bicycling, you generate power in your legs. It goes into your feet, through the, through the pedals, into the gears, and then onto the tires, and then that moves the bike forward. In rowing, you generate power in your legs. It goes like through your torso, through your arms, through your hands, and then out into the water.
So you're starting. Your connection is still through your feet. Your connection to the boat is through the feet, but then. And through the. But your connection to the water is through the blade. And your force has to get transmitted and efficiently through your. Through the like, entire chain that is your body. And you can only pull as hard as the Weakest part of that chain.
So if you. If you bend your arms, then your biceps will become the weakest part of your. Of that chain. And you can only pull as hard as your biceps are strong, which I have coached people. Like my first year at Wakefield, there was a Moroccan wrestler who joined the team and he was. He was 18 and probably like 240 pounds of just pure muscle. And he's the only person who's ever been able to pull me over using just his arms.
[00:19:55] Speaker F: I hear that story another time.
[00:19:57] Speaker B: That sounds like a story too.
[00:19:59] Speaker C: Yeah. Because I do a drill with middle schoolers, usually learn to rowers where I kind of hang off of the handle and tell them to pull me over, trying to use their arms to do it, and they can't do it. But then I say, okay, now use your legs. And then that kind of automatically teaches you what good connection feels like, because you should have a relaxed back and sort of engage from the hips and the core in order to squeeze the seat backwards. And then because I'm standing up and I've got only my shoes keeping me on the ground and they're sitting on a. On a seat pulling exactly horizontally, they have a pretty easy time. So I've never had any. Any boy be unable to pull me over. You if they're using their legs sometimes. I've coached a couple of girls who were under 60 pounds and they couldn't quite get me, but.
[00:20:40] Speaker F: But this wrestler got you just with his.
[00:20:42] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, he was a big kid. Yeah.
[00:20:48] Speaker D: So connection and then.
So you're able to see who in the boat is effectively kind of transmitting their energy and whether all of them are doing that or what. What they need to do to fix that.
[00:21:00] Speaker C: Good rowing should look simple. Like, good rowing should look easy. And it's. It's more beneficial to take an unnecessary thing away than it is to add a bunch of complexity into the stroke.
It's not that complicated of a sport. You put the blade in, you pull hard, you take the blade out, and eventually someone tells you to stop.
[00:21:18] Speaker E: Like, hopefully it's like deceptively simple.
[00:21:24] Speaker C: Yeah. And so like to be able to.
[00:21:26] Speaker E: Do that exactly at the same second that somebody else.
[00:21:28] Speaker C: The hard part of the stroke. The hard part of the stroke is putting the blade in and taking the blade out.
Like, that's the technically hard part. And then there's a lot of physicality in between and there's a lot of mental toughness that goes into it. And then there's the social aspect of making a. Making a large boat. Work, or even if you're on a team full of scholars, making a team full of single scholars able to compete against each other or compete with each other is still a skill that rowing will impart to you. That, I think is one of the more important parts for youngsters.
[00:22:01] Speaker D: And then it's timing. Sometimes I think of timing like the game of telephone. Like it. You have to translate that first stroke all the way to the very back of the boat. Is that what you mean by timing? Sort of seeing like the two ends of the boats and whether they are in sync or.
[00:22:16] Speaker C: Yeah. There's eight blades in an eight or a quad or. And you're hopefully looking to see that all of them are disappearing into the water and then coming out of the water at the same time. And secondarily to that, you want to see that they are getting loaded up with pressure at the same time. Because it's possible to put a blade into the water but not be pulling on it.
And if you are. If you're inefficiently using your core, then you will begin to move the blade through the water without actually having any load on the blade.
So you're kind of looking for that instantaneous.
Instantaneous change between the blade is out of the water and now it is in the water. And there's. There's load on the blade and the oars, the oar shaft is bent. And if that matchup happens correctly and happens perfectly, then the boat really can start to take off.
[00:23:10] Speaker D: Wow.
[00:23:11] Speaker E: So cool.
[00:23:12] Speaker D: Well, you're making the case that this isn't as simple as what it just. This is really complicated. Yeah.
[00:23:18] Speaker A: On the surface, it's very simple.
[00:23:20] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:23:20] Speaker B: And it looks beautiful and simple.
Making it happen, though.
[00:23:24] Speaker F: Yeah.
[00:23:24] Speaker B: Is the reason why we need coaches like Russell.
[00:23:26] Speaker E: That's right.
[00:23:27] Speaker B: So I'm really curious. One of the things we talk about a lot on this podcast is life, not just rowing.
[00:23:35] Speaker C: Sure.
[00:23:36] Speaker B: And our stance is really that rowing is very much a metaphor for life. Right. There's a lot about rowing that translates to day to day life, and rowing can be incorporated in your day to day life. So I'm really curious about what you hope some of your rowers that you have taught, whether they be masters or, you know, the se. The new seventh graders that are in your. In your cadre of athletes now. What do you hope they take away when they're not on the water?
[00:24:03] Speaker C: I talk a lot about discipline, not in the sense of like a nun beating you with a ruler, but in the sense of like, being able to get out of bed on time and like, like take what you are doing currently seriously and sort of like the discipline to focus and to, to complete and like a goal of yours in a timely manner is something that I think rowing on a team imparts on you. And I also think that being part of being a good teammate and the benefit of the social aspect of the sport is that it really, really forces you to become reliable as a, as a person. You have to show up when, when you need to show up or 10 minutes beforehand. Often in order to start getting equipment set up, you have to be able to work in a group with other people, which just makes you, I think, really a much more pleasant person to be around. And so I really strongly think that especially for younger people, team boats are a good part of, or a good way to impart these lessons.
[00:25:02] Speaker F: Building on what you just said, Alicia, we've talked about how rowing has changed lives and it's changed, you know, some of our lives and it's changed some of our kids lives. Do you have rowers that you think about in the past who came in as one person and then, you know, through your coaching and through their experience rowing, you've watched them grow where you didn't think maybe they wouldn't make it and they just became that because of rowing and how rowing changed them. Do you have any?
[00:25:26] Speaker C: Yeah, I've definitely. Well, I think I am a pretty good example of that. But I also think that I have, I mean necessarily over the course of a high school career, you're gonna watch somebody age four years and I think that a lot of, a lot of that growth comes from just maturing as a, as a, going from an early teenager to a 18 year old makes a big difference.
[00:25:47] Speaker F: But we've talked about how there's that uniqueness like you were just talking about with rowing and that team and that dedication and that getting up in the morning. And you know, there are kids who mature from, you know, 14 to 18, but they don't, they don't have to get up at 5 o' clock in the morning to go out on a cold water. So you know, it's, I guess I'm wondering your perspective on, you know, those kids who really needed rowing to kind of help them with that maturity. And have you seen, have you seen that particular, those particular instances where.
Yeah, that really made a difference?
[00:26:19] Speaker C: Yeah, I really see that change usually happens between sophomore and junior year where there's a, there's a bunch of big steps up in the physicality that is required to succeed. So as a freshman you just don't need to be that fast in the grand scheme of like athleticism in order to succeed.
And as a sophomore that kind of carries on a little bit, but it starts to get a little, it's a ramp up by just a little bit. But then as a junior you're basically looking to be in a 1V or 2V and you're competing against people who are taking the sport seriously. So that step up really comes. And there definitely have been people who have made the 1V or 2V that I always would not have guessed from their, from their freshman year or sophomore year performances. Part of running a successful crew team is just having an environment where absolutely anybody can show up and feel like they are welcome to try and succeed and that the environment is there for them to succeed or to fail in it. Like in a comfortable place. Like failure is just preparation for success. And in rowing, so you have to.
[00:27:23] Speaker D: Seems like that's one of the big advantages of rowing in a lot of. It's not a sport that there aren't little league versions of it or you're not taking your five year old. Well, maybe, I mean, people probably are taking their five year olds out on boats, but. But it seems to me like, you know, for a lot of people getting into this sport happens in junior high or high school and so it gives you an opportunity really to have a whole group of people who are just coming to it for the first time and. Or coming off of another sport or something like that.
[00:27:54] Speaker C: Yeah, I can definitely tell the kids for whom this is their first activity versus the ones who did something else. And there are some ridiculously strong middle schoolers in the world that just.
They were part of basketball camp when they were five and then they started doing football camp when they were eight and suddenly they're just kind of monstrously strong. But generally speaking, everybody comes in on a pretty even playing field like eighth or ninth grade in the U.S.
that's definitely different in other countries, but that's.
[00:28:25] Speaker E: Like the blessing and the curse. And we kind of talked about that. It's great to have kids come in, you know, be able to come into a sport that's new to them and seventh, eighth or ninth grade. But the downside of that is that we often have to fight against, you know, perceptions about rowing. People who don't understand what rowing is because they haven't been able to play it since they were in pre K or whatever. And I know that that was a challenge for us when we were on the Board of Wakefield Crew boosters was how to make sure that we could do outreach, you know, to kids to reach all those kids that may have never heard of rowing for, you know, any number of reasons, whether financial, cultural, you know, access and all those things. And I know it's something that you dealt with a lot as head coach of Wakefield Crew and just wondering if you had any thoughts about breaking down those barriers to the sport and what more can be done.
[00:29:11] Speaker C: Yeah, I think that it seems to me like sports in general are just getting more and more popular these days. I think that like being a kid who is in a sport is more common now than it was 20 or 30 or 40 years ago. And so that does kind of force rowing to need to compete more in order to get, to get athletic kids who are interested in doing the sport. And there is definitely a little bit of explaining to do. Like when I first show up into a middle school it's like, hello, I'm, I'm Russell and I'm a rowing coach. And this is what rowing is like where. Which is the sort of justification that basketball coach does not need to give. Like people know what hockey is, whether or not they've ever played a game of hockey, they have at least seen it. And so I think it's a tough nut to crack. Like it is a. I think in Arlington county it is a less of a problem now than it was 10 years ago just because I think that there have been a couple of high profile things in a row. So they had the boys in the boat book and then movie and the success of Wayfield Crew that mean that certainly the people in like Arlington county have had way more press releases to read than they used to.
[00:30:27] Speaker F: Thanks. Thanks in part to you, Russell.
[00:30:31] Speaker C: Yeah, I think that it is, it is a problem. I mean it's a difficult thing to sort of to change an entire culture and make people more interested in rowing. And it's the first thing you have to do is justify it. And I think that it is a justify why they should care about rowing. And I think that is a perfectly valid question that has good answers. But also rowing is not for everybody. And that's part of being a rowing coach is just kind of accepting that like, yep, there are people that are going to say yeah, I tried it and I don't like it or I don't want to try it, I'm not interested. And that's just, that's fine.
[00:31:02] Speaker B: So I think for me hearing you talk, we talk about access kids have to the sport but A big part of that access to the sport is you, the coaches, right?
And you talk about the culture that you, you know, have. You take almost a little, I'm going to say take a little bit for granted. But it's the culture that you built and that's the culture of it's okay to fail your way to success, right? That's not actually something you see all the time. And I think one of the things we've really been blessed in this area is to have you as a coach in this area. And the amount of kids that you've brought through and taught how to row is really shocking if you pause and look back through it, right? The amount of kids who have state medals because at some point in their rowing career you taught them to row or you taught them one technique or another. It's actually kind of crazy if you think about it. But what that makes me think about is how important it is to have coaches who are genuinely that passionate about the sport and genuinely that passionate about making rowers successful humans, not just successful rowers. And we've talked on a previous episode about the financial barriers and I know for a fact that one of the barriers to really good coaches in the sport sport is the ability of programs to actually pay their coaches, right? So like nobody is able to really make a living independently as a rowing coach or it's very challenging to be an independent financially rowing coach. So I'm curious what your thoughts are about how to maybe, I don't know if it's recruit or try and retain coaches who really have that passion for the sport when we know there's this major financial barrier to rowing coaches, right. You're in a very fortunate situation that you could stay at Wakefield and you been super committed to the program and super committed to the culture. But that's not always the case, right? It's, you know, coaches get recruited all the time because of financial barriers. And so I'm curious what you think about, like, what could, what could we do as a rowing community to really get more of those coaches who are going to like put that seed in those kids at a young age to make it that lifelong sport.
[00:33:02] Speaker C: The issue with finding coaches for in D.C. is a very different problem than finding coaches in Virginia. So like if we're at the Occoquan, the pop, like the housing density around the Occoquan is just not high enough that to have a supply of young people who are interested in coaching in that area. So you have like a constant need for assistant coaches or head Coach who will then grow into being head coaches at programs down that way. Whereas in D.C. you have plenty of supply of coaches. But like it takes a pretty specific life situation to be able to take 20 hours a week to spend running a program and being paid way less than what you're worth for it. And so I think one of the problems in rowing is that there's just not enough money in the, in the sport like running has.
And I don't super know what I'm talking about here, so I'm not actually sure that I can really answer this question particularly well. But like there are an order of magnitude more people, several orders of magnitude more people who are runners than there are rowers. And that means that there's a way more people who can enter races. It can like buy running shoes. It just means that there is more technology being put into gear for runners than there is for rowers.
And all of that money that is going into the sport or like into basketball just means that there, combined with the lower barrier to entry, just means that you can much more easily find a bunch of basketball coaches.
So with rowing you end up with a situation where it's inherently a kind of dangerous sport. I mean, if you have a coach who doesn't know what they're doing, they can, there's a risk of drowning involved.
So you need like, you need a higher, you have kind of higher duty of care to make sure that everything is happening safely as well as a pretty niche sport with an expensive equipment. And I just think that like, at the end of the day, despite the fact that rowing is already very expensive, the problem with run rowing is that there's just not enough, like there's not enough money coming into the sport. And eventually, like, if the sport is not going to just be a thing that rich kids do, then it eventually needs to be like, you need to find different sources of revenue. Um, there's just not a way around it.
[00:35:29] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Cause it's not just about having a coach, it's also about having a good coach. Right. So like we didn't come from a rowing family who knew about PBC or, you know, and we just happened to stumble into Wakefield where we had you and the other coaches at Wakefield. And so when, when Derek was at Worlds, I was listening to the other parents talk about how their kids got here and how to get more kids to this place where they're rowing at Worlds, right.
And I was just sort of taken aback by how it matters who your coach is. It's not about Having a coach, it matters who your coach is. And that was one of the lessons that I learned that I didn't know, I didn't know until I got there. And it was that we were really lucky. Right. Derek didn't have to go through Potomac Boat Club, which is a boat club in the D.C. area that has the historically high performance and high performing coaches and phenomenal coaches. Right. Derek intentionally didn't go there because it was expensive and he was worried about my ability to afford it as a single mom working in a nonprofit. Right. And so I didn't know that we were setting him up for, for not having that. Thankfully he had you and he had what you guys did with athletes without limits. And then one Arlington where he got really phenomenal coaching fortunately and was able to sort of move through the program and get to LaSalle with Ivo there and what Ivo did with him. But that wasn't a traditional path in the rowing world. Right. They're the really sort of high performing, sort of high school athletes go through the really high performance programs that tend to be wealthy, that tend to recruit the better coaches because they are the coaches that get success and then they get paid more. They go to the high performing programs, then they go to the high performing schools and it's the sort of high sort of cycle of financial commitment.
[00:37:10] Speaker A: Right.
[00:37:11] Speaker B: I didn't know that, I didn't know that path existed and I didn't know how important that path was in rowing. And part of that importance is the quality of the coaches that you find in that path because it makes a difference. Your ability to get that connection, to put the power in when you have that connection and really progress as a really fast rower depends on a coach's ability like yours to actually communicate that to someone and to get them excited about it and keep them in the sport. And so I think, I actually think the financial barrier isn't just about family's abilities to pay, but like we're talking about the, the ability to actually keep the really good quality coaches in the system and expand those coaches beyond just the really expensive high performing programs. No, I completely agree. I mean you, you got really lucky with Mira going like knowing about PBC and going there. Your experience has been very different.
[00:38:05] Speaker F: Yeah, we did. But of course, you know, she did get her start with Russell in 8th grade and Russell did teach mirror to row, but she, she did go to pbc. And I don't, I don't even know how we came upon it. But again, I, I wasn't working at an I Am a single mom, but I wasn't working at a nonprofit and. But it, it was a financial commitment that we made for Mira to go to pvc.
But honestly the foundation was at Wakefield with Russell and you know, I think Mira will attribute it to Russell too in, you know, really getting the basics down and learning to row and, and she did Athletes without limits before she did pbc. So to your point, she, she did take a different path and she has had different coaches. But I think your point is incredibly strong in that, you know, to be, to have a good rowing program, it really relies on a really good quality coach to keep those kids engaged and to give them those tools necessary to keep going on that platform.
[00:39:03] Speaker E: And I just want to add that good coaching like Russell gets our kids engaged, keeps them engaged. That's inspiring. They do well, then all these parents get excited. We had the benefit with Wakefield crew of having such a committed group of parents who wanted to be involved. And that also starts with a good team and a good coach, you know, so there's such a ripple effect. Like if we were sort of, you know, feeling a little bit disheartened about the coaching, maybe the parents wouldn't be as involved. Maybe they wouldn't be as excited to show up at regatta's or to donate money or anything like that. So I feel like the ripple effects of having a good coach that then creates a great team and then creates a great parent community, it goes on and on. So it's very important to invest in that.
[00:39:46] Speaker F: Well, I'm bringing this full circle back to what Russell said in the beginning. If you can teach them the, what is it, orange and yellow instead of.
[00:39:54] Speaker B: Starboard and port and get that boat.
[00:39:56] Speaker F: Moving in those that first week, you're going to get a kid who's more excited than a kid who it takes three weeks to go, you know, 100 meters down the river. You know, if they can see that result in your teaching in that those first five days. Wow, this is pretty cool. Like this boat's moving. This is fun. I like these people.
Rather than, you know, the grind of like trying to figure out how to set the boat and what is starboard. Wait, that's left. That's right.
[00:40:24] Speaker B: Or so I think to your point.
[00:40:26] Speaker F: In the very beginning, if you can get them hooked and you can teach them that basics and get that boat moving faster, earlier and sooner, you're more likely to have success.
[00:40:35] Speaker C: Yeah, I don't think that. I think that kids can tell that there are, that they are learning to row, especially in America. They are learning how to row in an eight.
And there are eight rowers in the boat and they can kind of tell that having four or six people rowing in the boat is not doing the actual thing. And so I try pretty hard.
It's not. It's not productive. It's not like what you would do if you were trying to, like, make gains long term. But during a learn to row session, I definitely try to make sure that they can row by all eights for at least 10, 15, 20, 30 strokes, just to say that they did and just to kind of feel what it feels like when you've got the boat at maximum power and it's not long term a productive thing to do, but it is a fun thing to do. And it does mean that you get to feel like you're doing the thing right away in your first week. And then, okay, now let's take three more weeks to work back up to getting there actually properly.
[00:41:29] Speaker F: Right.
[00:41:30] Speaker B: It's so funny when you say that because we talked a little bit in an early episode about the trust that the team members have to have with each other and the vulnerability and forgiveness when they make mistakes. And I mean, that's really what you're talking about right there is like, hey, we're going to go by all eight and you guys are like three days in and it's going to suck. But then you're going to, like, go back and you're going to learn and you're going to, like, all get better every time. So I think that's a really good reflection.
So we are not the only people who have recognized how awesome of a coach you are.
So I really, I know that you are about to head out for a new adventure overseas. Do you want to tell us a little bit about kind of what's coming next for you?
[00:42:07] Speaker C: Yes. I am moving to Scotland in as we record this 16 days, which, yeah, it's a little bit stressful.
So I have found myself a job out there. I'm going to be coaching the Glasgow Scholars, which is, I think, kind of a new old team.
And I think it is a new incarnation of an older program. And so it will be getting started from the ground up.
[00:42:33] Speaker E: At what age are we talking about?
[00:42:35] Speaker C: I believe it is mostly going to be sort of a pre Olympic or pre national team program. So it's going to be sort of 13 to 22 focused. But I suspect that there will also be masters rowing in there as a revenue generator and kind of everything in between.
[00:42:51] Speaker B: I'm jealous. I want you to Be my master's coach.
[00:42:54] Speaker E: Same here.
[00:42:55] Speaker B: I love my master's coaches at acr, by the way. Alexandria Community Rowing. My master's coaches are amazing, don't get me wrong, but I'm jealous.
[00:43:03] Speaker F: That's it. Super exciting.
[00:43:04] Speaker D: That's a great opportunity.
They're lucky to have you.
[00:43:07] Speaker E: Huge loss for Wakefield crew and for the D.C. rowing community, but it's really amazing and so exciting for you and you've certainly earned the opportunity to go on to bigger and better things.
[00:43:18] Speaker C: Yeah, I'm. I'm excited for the move. I can't wait. Mostly because I want to be done moving.
[00:43:25] Speaker F: Is there anything that you want to leave as a kind of message or direction for Wakefield Rowing, particularly given that we were all on the board and have watched you grow in your position as a coach and have watched what you've done with our team?
[00:43:39] Speaker E: Maybe D.C. rowing in general.
[00:43:41] Speaker F: Yeah. Or D.C. rowing.
[00:43:42] Speaker C: Yeah. I mean, the fundamentals of the sport are just sort of. That you have to. You have to enjoy putting in the effort because it is a lot of effort, but, like, the effort is the sport. So one thing that I really disapprove of when I see it happening with other coaches around me is kind of. Is like, coaches kind of like pleading with people that like. Or like, incentivizing, like, okay, if we finish up this workout, we can have like a. We can have cookies afterwards. And it's like, I just don't think that you should need to bribe people into doing the sport that they signed up for. And I don't want. You shouldn't try to create a culture where people are kind of expecting an external reward from the work that you're giving them, because the work is. Is its own reward. And so, like, you have to enjoy putting in the work and putting in the effort. Like, that is the sport. Everyone kind of pays attention to races because that's sort of like the end point of the season. But you spend. You go to a race lasts, call it five minutes to make the math easy. And there's seven of them a day or a year in the spring. So you're probably doing about 35 minutes of racing after having done two hours of practice a day for nine months. So, like, you know, the sport is not really about racing. The sport is about the work that you put in all of the other days of the year. As long as there's a person out there that is like. That is putting in that effort consistently day after day, they will find success in the sport, even if it is not even if they are not on a successful team or in a successful boat, but if you get a bunch of them together, that's how you actually build some real speed.
[00:45:12] Speaker E: I love that. That's awesome.
[00:45:13] Speaker A: Amen.
[00:45:15] Speaker B: So we always do a fun segment.
We all got so enthralled by what Russell was saying.
[00:45:24] Speaker D: All right, so I looked up famous coaches, and this is the top 30 list of famous coaches of all time.
[00:45:31] Speaker F: In rowing or in rowing?
[00:45:32] Speaker D: Well, in rowing, yes.
So this is.
This is. This may be a little challenging here. Let's see what happens.
[00:45:42] Speaker C: Because I have paid very little attention to any rowing that is not out front of my face. So I.
One of my goals for my 30s was to. To increase by an order of magnitude the number of coaches that I have met. And I have been doing a decent job of it, but I have not bothered to learn their names. A lot of names. Yeah.
[00:46:00] Speaker F: Okay.
[00:46:01] Speaker D: So I was reading through them all, and so there's a lot to choose from. But in the top 30, there is one coach that I can determine from this area that is in the top 30. And these are coaches in the world. Right. So this is all over the place.
And I recognize the name only because there's. There's a regatta here named after this coach.
[00:46:23] Speaker F: So you want the name of the coach?
[00:46:24] Speaker D: Yeah, the name.
[00:46:25] Speaker F: Who's in the top 30. Who's in.
[00:46:27] Speaker D: The top 30 coaches in the world of all time from this area currently has a regatta named after him.
[00:46:34] Speaker C: That would probably have to be Charlie Butt.
[00:46:36] Speaker D: It is Charlie Butt.
[00:46:37] Speaker F: Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.
[00:46:40] Speaker D: All right. That was very successful.
[00:46:41] Speaker C: Good.
[00:46:42] Speaker E: That was good.
[00:46:42] Speaker F: And the Charlie but regatta is on the Potomac, right?
[00:46:45] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:46:46] Speaker F: Yes.
[00:46:47] Speaker B: So, Russell, thank you so much for joining. I know it's like a chaotic moment as you're trying to move, but we really appreciate it. Very enlightening and very helpful. And I know this isn't goodbye for forever.
[00:46:58] Speaker A: I know you'll.
[00:46:58] Speaker B: I know you'll be back, so thank you so much.
[00:47:01] Speaker C: Thanks for having me. I really enjoyed being here and hanging out with y', all. And I'll be around to. To say goodbye for, you know, 16 more days, and then it'll be a little harder to catch.
[00:47:10] Speaker E: I think we're going to have to send the Gather podcast over to SC1 next year.
[00:47:14] Speaker D: That's right. That's right.
[00:47:16] Speaker F: Thank you for all your effort at Wakefield crew. Absolutely.
[00:47:20] Speaker E: We all benefited from it.
[00:47:21] Speaker D: Absolutely.
[00:47:22] Speaker C: Thank you.
[00:47:23] Speaker B: And thank you, everyone, for listening. I hope this was a fun episode. And don't hit pause. We'll See you after the splash.
[00:47:29] Speaker D: See you after the splash.
