Facing the challenges of bad weather and roster changes, the men's and women's crew teams have a lot of work cut out for them this season. Both teams will be using this Sunday's race against WPI and Tulane as a good indicator of the results of off-season training and the work that still needs to be done.
The men's crew team has big shoes to fill, as the last spring season was a successful one. The team came in sixth at the New England Championships and 12th at the National Championships, finishing the season with a 26-17 overall record.
"Last season was one of the best seasons that Tufts has had in the last ten years," coach Ben Foster said.
However, this year's team has almost an entirely face on it, right down to the coach. Foster took over the job of head coach from Ted Benford this past fall. Foster has six years of coaching experience under his belt, three as the head coach at Mercyhurst College in Pennsylvania from 1997-99. Last year, he coached the freshman team for Tufts.
The coach is not the only change that will affect the team this season. The varsity is almost a completely new group of rowers. Only three of the varsity eight has returned, including senior Michael Friedberg, junior Shane Black-Macken, and senior coxswain Jeff Lindy. Some losses are a result of graduation, and three juniors (Chris Mitchell, Ben Wilkinson, and Nathaniel Swinburne) are abroad for the year. After a long winter, the team will use these early races to gain experience in order to be ready for the championships in May.
"We should have good success this season," Foster said, "...and by the time Championships comes around, we'll do well. There is a lot of youth on the team, and we need to get some races under our belt."
The team has over a month to work on getting itself ready and doing what needs to be done to be successful later in the season.
"We need to work on maturity," Lindy said. "A race is 2,000 meters and around six minutes. That is a lot of time to face the pain and a lot of time to doubt yourself. We need to work on the confidence and swagger that you see in more experienced boats and try to instill that in [the team]."
The women's team, however, is not beginning its season with many changes. Last season's young team (four freshman in the varsity eight) has matured and looks to be a strong one, with four returning varsity rowers, and one returning varsity rower for the lightweight team. Adding to this group of veterans will be sophomores from a very successful novice team from last season. The team also has a lot of depth, with enough members for a varsity open eight, a lightweight eight, a varsity open four, and almost three full novice boats.
"Last year, we were a really young team," coach Gary Caldwell said. "This team is more mature and we are coming off a successful fall season. We also will have a last year's novice squad that made it to finals rowing in the varsity program. We also have a lot of high quality, experienced rowers at the freshman level."
What will be an obstacle for the team is the weather. With the cold, combined with winds or precipitation, the team has not gotten a lot of water time, something that could have an affect on the first part of the season.
"The Northeast weather has really cut into our practice time on the water," Caldwell said. "However this affects many teams in the North and therefore the early season results will be affected."
The teams will open their season against WPI and Tulane this weekend. "WPI just turned varsity last year," Caldwell said. "We beat them last season, but they did really well towards the end of the season. We are going to have to race really well to beat them."
Both teams will be using this race as an indicator as to where they stand as a result of training in the off-season.
"We always go into the races planning on a victory," Foster said. "However, this race will be a building block. We will be able to see where we are going."
Caldwell agrees. "We are still trying to figure out who is going where," he said. "This will be a good measuring stick to see where we are and how far we have to go."
Though it is the opening race of the season, it is not always an indication of where the team will be come championship time.
"It is really difficult to predict the season," Lindy said. "It all depends on the chemistry, how the team gels. We did really well last year and I wouldn't have predicted that until three weeks before the end of the season."
