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Personality Traits In An Eight
From the stern:
Cox:
It's pretty obvious what traits a cox must adopt and tries to
learn to do a good job in this most unique position in the
athletic world. I'll pass on the leadership stuff, napoleon
complex garbage, and point out a secondary characteristic or two
that coxes unintentionally inherit after riding in the box for a
while.
They can't drive a car anymore. They take 10 miles to change a
lane, oversteer, can't find the brakes, and yell to the car a lot.
This has nothing to do with the coxes' former driving ability.
Stick Richard Petty in a cox seat for a while, they'll take his
drivers license away. Coxes also begin to squint a lot, no loss in
vision, they just squint.
Stroke:
'It's a tough job but only I can do it.' The meekest, most frightened
non-rower in the world - when plugged reluctantly in the stroke seat,
stays meek up until the first few strokes. The first few paddle strokes, a
thought grows in the wimps' sniveling little mind that this job is
his/hers for life. Back on the shore, the real personality will percolate
back to the surface. 'I hope you guys could follow me ok'. In the boat
they're thinking: 'stop rushing, you weenies!" Strokes are born and made
to be the most competitive person in the boat by far, and if they stroke
long enough, become overly competitive in everything they pursue, or don't
pursue.. Don't expect to finish a game of Monopoly, Risk, or Golf with a
stroke. The only one that can beat him to the chow line is the three man
(more later) because the stroke was delayed trying to put more oars away
in the rack than anyone else.
Seven:
The seven seat is the Bitch Niche. I don't know if whining, overly bossy,
big mouthed complainers are born, and I can't believe that the cosmic
effect of this seat could possibly be so instantaneous, but you could
teach Mother Theresa to row in a tank, stick her in an eight at seven for
the first time, and as the stern four is rowing away from the dock, she'll
turn around and yell at the bow four to 'set up the f*cking boat'. The
longer one rows at seven, the more sophisticated and complex the bitching
becomes, changing from a crude verbal rowing suggestion to the six man in
the early stages to long winded level-voiced reasoned treatises after
every piece explaining why the crew is slower now than last week. Ever
wonder why when a coach drives up shell-side to ask how a piece went he
says: 'So how did that go, fellas? -Not you seven.' I was a team captain,
looked up to leader of my college crew, kept my mouth shut and did my job.
I raced one week at seven, my coach told me to 'shut up Sullivan' in a
post race meeting.
Six:
If you bred Arnold Swartzeneggar with a Golden Retriever, you get a six.
Six is also Seven's yin. The gentle giant, gorilla in the mist. Six
absorbs most of seven's bitching and keeps it from moving through to the
rest of the crew. Six nods and agrees a lot. It is a hard thing for a
normal person to row six. It seems like such a great seat, you're in the
stern, the boats more stable here, but you are done with a rowing career
at six, you find you been used. Sixes are characterized by great
competence in execution of rowing and life, but poor self confidence and a
propensity to self-flagellation. Take your 3 year stroke out of the stroke
seat and stick him/her at six for a week. This will be the first time you
ever hear him/her say: 'My fault, fellas', at the end of a poor piece.
Sixes meditate. Sixes marry, go to work for, and lend their power tools to
sevens. This support system keeps sevens with thriving businesses, mates
they can walk all over, and a garage full of power tools at their disposal
that they don't have to fix when they break.
Five:
God. Yahweh. Allah. Buddha. It's not that the five seat IS those things,
it's just that's how (s)he gets treated. Five's stool don't stink, the
catches don't hang. They're the older brother or sister that gets special
treatment, and has no idea. If a photo is taken of the crew, five will
look great, everyone else is caught with shirtaills out, and snot on the
lip. At heart and soul, five forgets to change oil, pay phone bills, and
turn in the forms to the IRS. Five is an example of what happens to a bum
that is treated like a king, they act like one. Five has the greatest
delta between image and reality. The fortunate thing is that the unearned
unabashed worship lasts only as long as the time on the water. Five's on
his own back at home. Five wears aviator glasses.
Four:
The Amnesia-seat. Take a genius with a photographic memory. Row said
genius at four. Listen to him ask for the third time in the same warmup.
'How many of these 500s are we doing?'. Four seat is not stupid, just has
immediate and catastrophic memory loss. At a start and 20, four settles at
21 because in the time the cox yelled 'settle in two', he forgot. In a
Novice boat where the seats have been removed and cleaned, it'll be four's
that went back in backwards. Four will forget to tell the boatman about
his(her) stripped rigger nut - usually from the time he is told by the
coach, until he arrives at the boatman's bench wondering what he's doing
there. On that first day on the water as the ice is breaking up, who is
rummaging around the back of the boathouse looking for a sweatshirt? Four
is why racing shirts are handed out on race day.
Three:
Late in the water. Late to practice. Late to class. Late to work. Late out
of the water. Late to his date. Late to the team bus. Late for everything
but chow line. There is no competitiveness involved here, just an uncanny
knack to have the first three rowers into the dining hall stopped by
friends for a brief discussion while three breezes on by to the tray
stack. Three generally gets assigned a sitter.
Two:
Lean to the Left, Lean to the right, stand up sit down fight fight fight.
Cheerleader. What is amazing, is to sit at four or five after a particular
piece - seven is whining about the balance, the spacing, no swing,
rushing: two is back there with pom poms saying: ALL RIGHT GUYS! LETS DO
THAT AGAIN!.... Two calls out names of power 10s. 'Awright guys - OAR
CLASH TEN!' If he says something funny, he repeated something the bowman
prompted him with.
Bow:
Comedian. The bow seat creates a strange fatalism. They know that in a
catastrophic collision, they'll be the only one to die or get paralysed.
Consequently there is a constant quiet stream of one-liners that two or
three could probably hear if two were not cheering loudly. If the bow is
joined by a cox in a front-loader, this trait completely disappears, since
someone is now likely to hear him joke about three being late, five not
pulling hard, or the coxn's course looking like a signature. (S)he can be
humorless and witless off the water, but on the water when there is breath
to spare, you're sure to catch a chuckle if you listen.
Conclusion:
There is no possible use for this info. You don't necessarily stick your
most competitive athlete at stroke. Stick anyone there and they'll get
competitive. It takes a long time for some of these seat traits to
manifest themselves in personality disorders, but you can usually catch
subtle differences the first day.
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