He is driving a coaching launch, trailing three double sculls up the Seneca River. A mile or so away his assistant is with four pairs heading out onto Onondaga Lake. It is late morning – the last morning of spring.
The sun is shining, it’s about 80 degrees with a light breeze, the water is flat and it’s been this way pretty much every day for the past week or so.
Justin Moore places his tongue firmly in his cheek and asks this question: “Why would anybody want to have a camp here?”
He’s got one – the 2011 United States Women’s National Team Pre-Elite Camp. The women are deemed not quite ready for the Under23 Camp going on in Princeton, but with enough talent and potential to be eventually make it there or to another national team
They represent Yale, Harvard (Radcliffe), Stanford, Virginia, Cornell, Columbia, Notre Dame, Washington State, George Washington, Wisconsin, Tennessee and Syracuse.
Moore, who built a Division III dynasty in women’s rowing at Williams College has just finished his first year of trying to bring Syracuse University’s Women’s team back to NCAA caliber. Having an event such as this here adds to credibility for the program and helps put a spotlight on the area as a rowing and training venue.
“The pre-elite camp’s goal is to take some of the best collegiate athletes we have in the country and help them to understand how to train as national team athletes,” Moore says. “It’s a month living the life of a national team athlete.”
Hard Work
The women who’ve come are ambitious."I hope that one day I am in the national camp and making my way to the Olympics,” says Molly Bruggeman of Notre Dame. “It’s always been a dream of mine.”
They’ve already banged heads on this morning launching at eight o’clock and racing in pairs and doubles along the buoy line out on the lake.
“Every single fight is a knockdown, drag-out fight and it’s fun every step of the way,” says Brandy Herald of the University of Virginia.
They’ll go out for a technical rowing session at about 11:15 and then go up on campus in the afternoon for erging, or running. Three sessions a day, six days a week. A month of training and instruction.
“I’d say there’s a fair amount of work going on,” understates Cornell’s Leigh Archer.
“It’s been really intensive,” says Syracuse’s Gina Biascochea. She’ll be a junior in the fall, having fought through injuries this year and rowed in the second varsity “(It’s) tough, but worth it,” she sighs.
Camaraderie and Competition
In between the morning rows, while Moore goes over video of the morning’s racing with two rowers in his office, most of the rest loll in the shade in front of the boathouse. Some read. Some just rest.
Syracuse’s Rachael Ogundiran and three others engage in a competitive game of Bananagram – a slightly offbeat version of scrabble. Ogundiran wins.
“Hah!” she exclaims. “My competitive nature has never left me,” she tells a reporter.
After three years in SU’s varsity boat, Ogundiran, the team captain, was slowed by fractured ribs in this, her senior year and wound up in the second varsity. Although she’ll be too old for U23 next year, coaches saw enough potential to bring her here and give her intensive sculling practice in hopes she can make a senior team.
“I want to go as far as I can possibly go,” she says. “I hope to go to a senior rowing center, continue with my training and see how far it will take me.”If not, with a degree in bioengineering and minors in electrical engineering and math, she’s looking at Medical School.
While Ogundiran is being interviewed -- Jim Herald takes her spot in the game of Bananagram. He’s a lawyer with the Army Corps of Engineers who’s come from Oregon to visit with his daughter, Brandy for a day or two.
“I’m here because I’m hoping to make U23 next year,” Brandy Herald says. “I’m learning a lot and having a blast doing it.”
As the rowers take it easy, Wisconsin coxswain Kendall Schmidt springs through a workout with TRX bands – suspension training the rowers use to loosen up when they come off the water after a hard workout. Sometimes, she goes for a run.
“I try to keep pushing myself so I know when you hit that point where you can’t go any further, and knowing that, when I’m in the boat I can tell them that they can,” she says.
“For the coxswains it’s just great to be able to understand more clearly what (the coaches) are looking for and what we need to be teaching on the water,” says Allison Todd, the other cox in camp. She followed her sister Kate as varsity cox for Syracuse and will be a senior in the fall.
Show and Tell
Before they go out, with the campers gathered around, Moore plants himself on an erg and demonstrates what he calls “Quarter Moores” – pause a quarter of the way short of the catch – to get the full effect of each stroke.
He bangs out several examples of doing it wrong and then doing it right – enough to get just a little out of breath. Later in the day Moore will run three-and-a-half miles at a 6:12 pace in the Chase Corporate Challenge. He claims to be taking it easy as he powers away at the erg.
“Watch my hips and knees,” he tells them. “Lehhhhhhh-verage!” They get it. They troop down the boathouse stairs to launch their boats and try it out for themselves.
Back on the Water
Later – in the launch – Schmidt, the Wisconsin cox takes notes as Moore explains what he is going for in his drills and his instructions to the scullers.
“Let’s make sure you use your hands well.” He speaks a language everybody involved understands. “Lightly on the feet. Roll to cover.” He is encouraging and enthusiastic.
“Yes!” he calls out. “Feel the difference?”
“Too many people over-drill,” he tells Schmidt. “The ultimate thing is can we do this at speed?”
Moore has coached some of these women before. Notre Dame’s Molly Bruggeman is one whom he coached in juniors. “He’s a great coach,” she says. “Syracuse is lucky to have him. I pretty much know how he coaches and it’s been helpful in my improvement.”
And those who’ve had only one coach in college, such as Cornell’s Leigh Archer, say fresh eyes can make a difference. “Someone who hasn’t seen you and can point out things that the other coach might have gotten used to seeing,” she says.
Twice a week the rowers get into an eight and the scullers into a quad.
They’ll compete that way at the USRowing Club National Championships in Indianapolis, July 13-17after stopping at Princeton for the U23 coaches to have a look at their progress.
But the main emphasis is on small boats – single and double sculls and pairs.
Hospitality and Making New Friends
Most of the athletes are staying with local families while they are here at no cost.
“In the local Liverpool and Syracuse community we’ve got a great outpouring of support and the women are really enjoying being in their homes,” Moore says.
People from Cazenovia hosted a “meet and greet” the opening week. Lizzy McDermott, who rows for Yale is from Cazenovia and says being part of this mix of athletes has been quite an experience.
“It’s been great to be surrounded by a bunch of very tall strong women all of whom are amazing rowers,” she says. “They’re so nice and they’re so competitive and it’s just been a great environment.”
“It’s awesome,” says Allison Todd, the Syracuse coxswain. “A lot of new friends are being made.”
And it will translate, she says, to the Syracuse crew.
“Just taking everything in from all the different rowers and what they’re bringing in and what they have to offer and then bringing that back to our respective teams is going to be great. It’s going to make everything a lot more exciting in the fall.”
Progress
Finished for now with the scullers, Moore heads out toward the lake to greet his assistant in this camp, Shawn Bagnall, who is the SU men’s team assistant coach. They swap off on working with the rowers and the scullers each day and they exchange notes.
“It’s going tremendously well,” Moore says. “We see the progress taking place already. We see that the women are learning and adapting to the stresses of the training. They’re also really responding well to the competitive environment.”
The women have already given Bagnall a nickname – Big Red. It must be the hair. They seem to like him too.
“They’re both great guys, “Virginia’s Brandy Herald says. “They’re really easy to get along with, easy to understand and they just make it a really good experience and they keep it really competitive.”
During this session Moore and his boats have encountered exactly one other boat, a big cabin cruiser that slowed considerably as it passed, earning Moore’s thanks through his bullhorn. Along the way he exchanged greetings with a couple on the dock behind their riverside home.
He has a single word to describe the conditions in these first ten days; “unbelievable.”
The sun sparkles on the water as the women dock and then put away the boats and oars.
“They are some of the best conditions. I think, rowing-wise,” says Notre Dame’s Molly Bruggeman. “Here it’s very flat all the time. It’s very nice.”Yeah, why WOULD anybody want to have a camp here? Justin Moore is hoping the answer will become very plain…and that this is just a beginning.
For video and interviews courtesy of suathletics.com click here.
Also in camp: Courtney Diekema - Harvard (Radcliffe), Anna Kaminski - George Washington University, Erika Lauderdale - Tennessee, Erin Radigan - Stanford, Samantha Warren - Columbia, Dara Dixon - Yale,
Maggie McCrudden - Syracuse, and Corinna Sharick - Washington State.
Liz Hartwig of Princeton was expected to join after competing with her team at Henley.
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