Most intramural sports tend to be fun, easygoing, and noncompetitive. The exception is Choate Fall Crew. The team has put in hard work and effort during the fall season to train for their spring season. This team is the most active intramural sport on campus, practicing everyday throughout the week. Three out of the five days, the hardest working intramural sport is out on the water primarily focusing on maintaining or increasing boat speed, endurance, and technique. The other two days, the team is on land, working on strength and conditioning.
Practices can last as long as three hours. Despite the twenty-five minute bus ride to the water the team can still spend up to two hours on the water. They normally spend the first minutes of practice getting the boats in the water and warming up. They quickly transition to working on the water and getting through a workout. These workouts can consist of maintaining steady paces, putting in meters/laps with rest in between, or sprints.
Land workouts vary between two things. The rowers usually either do a crossfit workout or an erg workout of higher difficulty. Since the fall season emphasizes long distance rowing and conditioning, the team rows a lot of “5k’s”. These practices work on each player’s individual fitness.
The main purpose of fall crew is for the rowers to get into better shape for the spring season. There are a number of benefits to essentially having a preseason the length of all fall term. In crew, rowers must be in excellent shape to compete, but boat chemistry can be the difference between a win and a loss. This extra season allows boats to build chemistry, which is such a great benefit because the program welcomes so many new rowers each year.
Many crew team members not only participate in this fall intramural program, but they also do winter erging. The sport truly is a year-round sport, or at least it is for those who take it seriously. Players practice the majority of the year so that their times don’t fluctuate. Endurance is a huge aspect of the sport and is needed when striving for improvement. Crew Captain Scott Herman ’19 said, “You can’t take any time off from the sport. If you’re not getting faster, you’re getting slower.”
The hope is that the fall crew program leads to a faster and more successful team in the spring. Herman ’19 said, “We know that Belmont hill and Deerfield are going to bring their A game. We have a lot of work to do if we want to match that boat speed.” He continued, “We have the right mindset and work ethic which will hopefully help us in the spring time match up with other teams.”
