Hartford Weather and Connecticut River Level Links added

I've added links to the Connecticut River levels measured at Hartford and to our weather system from Weather.com - they're also located in our links session down below on the right hand side. Hopefully this will make it easier to see what conditions we're anticipating every day.

I also want to recap the Joy of Sculling Conference as well as my coaching conference in Pennsylvania - lots to be learned. Can't wait to hear back from our accepted recruits! Best of luck to everyone who is in the midst of exams and feeling the crunch.

Coaching Conference

Just made it to a university in Pennsylvania for a very small coaching conference and had an easy drive through some very foggy weather. I'm looking forward to sharing some ideas and experiencing a little bit of a different university life.

I'll be heading to the Joy of Sculling Conference on Friday afternoon and that will run to Sunday - so I fully expect to be digesting a ton of new ideas and carefully evaluating if any of them can actually help our program.

Recruit Update & Sincere thanks...

I'm REALLY excited about our recruiting class for next year. We were lucky that the applicants we had in the ED1 round were accomplished academically and I think it bodes really well for next year. I especially want to thank our current team members who have been so giving of their time with hosting recruits. Now that our attention turns to ED2 and regular decision we're hoping to knock the ball out of the park and create a really phenomenal class for next year. I think it also reflects well on our development coach and recruiting coordinator Melissa Schomers who is doing an excellent job of staying in contact with our prospects and getting to know them well.

On another really heart-warming note, the team sent my family a really beautiful fruit basket from Edible Arrangements...My parents, rest of the family, and I were blown away by the thoughtfulness and generosity. I'll thank you when I get back to campus but it won't be really enough to match how much I appreciate what you did. The visitation was this evening and there must have been close to 175 people who came to lend their support and pay their respects. Tomorrow we'll have the funeral and I feel honored to be one of the pall bearers for Uncle Chris. Have a great night everyone...

250 Posts!

A quick thank you to all of you who are continuing to follow my sporadic blog posts...This thank you is the 251st posting and I'm happy to keep on firing thoughts into cyberspace. On another side note, I broke my toe yesterday and that may hinder my squash game and oly lifting regimen significantly. Ergometer, elliptical, and upper body lifting here I come!

A Few Seconds of Panic

Just blasted through a book by Stephan Fatsis entitled A Few Seconds of Panic that describes his time as a 43 year old writer turned NFL kicker for the Denver Broncos. I loved how he was able to weave the back stories of his teammates into the overall rhythm of training camp and the overall picture of the NFL as a business and as a way of life for the players, coaches, staff, and owners.

He turned to a number of different experts to try and learn how to kick a football including kick specialists, strength and conditioning experts, and sports psychologists. Of course, he also leaned heavily on the generosity of the other kickers and punters in camp and they were amazingly generous with their time.

I like to think that our team is improving on a daily basis because of that exact type of willingness to learn new skills, to take risks in training, and to be able to share our collective knowledge to achieve a greater result. No doubt we can be even better at it as time goes on and we reaffirm our common goals, get used to the idea of being willing to make and accept criticism, and really study the way successful boat movers approach the sport.

The other striking aspect of the book was how, unlike rowing at Trinity, players were absolutely at odds with management and felt very used and misled about their futures and their status and role on the team. Obviously the pressures on an NFL team are incredible but I really hope that our rowers have a good idea about what their strengths and weaknesses are, how to improve upon them, and ultimately know that their contribution to our team is critical from the novice level all the way to the our varsity eight.

Letter to Recruits and Thank You

First off, I wanted to thank the many recruits, friends, and current rowers who emailed with sympathy for my family...It's much appreciated and really startling to hear how many people have had a similar experience with cancer in their families.

Secondly, I was going through my desk at home in Toronto and came across a lot of the correspondence from my own recruiting experience in 1998 (dating myself exactly!) There were some really fun letters and some very generic ones...The best ones were obviously after I had been accepted and my freshman coach was trying to get the recruits connected with each other before we arrived on campus. So much of it sounds the same as we send to our recruits over the summer but I wanted to share some of it NOW because it's way too long before I'll get a chance to write one of these to our recruits. We'll be having an admissions meeting on Wednesday to support our ED1 recruits and are trying hard to schedule visits for those who we want to support in the ED2 round.

Here is some text from the letter...

To the Class of 2002,

Congratulations on a successful senior year both on and off the water. I know that your summer plans are starting to take shape and I hope that also means you'll stay in shape! I have enclosed a list of phone numbers and addresses for the incoming recruits in the Class of '02 and I wanted to give you a way to contact one another should you feel the urge to get to know each other a little more. I have sent a copy to our Varsity Captain Guillem who is also eager to get to know you before you set foot on Old Campus....It's most important that you arrive on campus fresh and ready to become a Yale oarsman but please don't get me wrong, this does not mean you should see how good a job you can do at becoming a couch potato - You will be spending time rowing with the Varsity during September and October and I don't want you wheezing in Guillem's ear when you row behind him and you've only just finished the warm-up.

I can't tell you how excited I was to receive this letter and reading it again now it's odd to think that facebook didn't exist and email was far less prevalent (so much less so that email addresses weren't included in the mailing!) Most incoming freshmen to competitive college programs do train on specific programs because they want to contribute immediately. The one thing that may not have changed though is that I was pretty darn intimidated by the thought of getting to know the varsity BEFORE I was even on campus and unsure of what to say to the other recruits if I was bold enough to call them. Could I really say "Hi, I'm going to be your teammate next year and I really want to win...I hope you're a good boat mover!"

***Note*** My freshman coach was Mike Irwin who went on to coach the Yale freshman heavyweights and varsity lightweights at U Penn and who is now the Program Director at Essex Rowing Club. By pure coincidence Mike was also a Trinity grad from the Class of 1991 who coached at Trinity after graduation.

Deepest Commitment

Drove back to Toronto early on Saturday morning as I found out that my uncle was facing his last moments in a battle with cancer. He slipped away into peace early this afternoon and I know that he is no longer in pain and can finally rest.

The way families and friends rally together in those moments is something that fully amazes and astounds me...and I'm convinced that true love and the deepest commitment are shown by those who stay with you to the very end - One of the most telling comments amongst his family who had gathered and were trying to make sense of what had just happened was that the loss of a loved one is so much harder when that loved one was so well-liked, respected, and trustworthy...even to the end he was still thinking of my aunt and how she would cope without him. It just means that we'll miss him even more.

So who is going to be with you when you're in your toughest spots? Who is going to be the rock when things are most challenging? Please tell those around you that you care about them now because every moment is precious.