Welcome to Spring '22!

[Dan Mahoney]

Hello Everyone!

I'm very excited that today is our first day back at the boathouse! This spring is shaping up to be the culmination of a lot of hard work put in by your athletes, as well as the first steps for our new members to the varsity squad.

I wanted to introduce myself, as well as to outline how we're going to be approaching the coming weeks. I've been the boy's varsity coach for 3 years now, having come from Amherst College where I worked as an assistant to both the Men's and Women's teams. 

Despite this three year tenure, this is my first "Championship" season with Wayland Weston. With the turn into sprint racing, the focus will be shifting from broad development to a much more competitive model. (A fun fact here, the creation of head racing, our fall competition format, in England was largely driven by local college teams looking to develop skills during competition in their off season.)

As we are looking to capture a series of 'peak' performances towards the end of the season, the year is going to follow three phases as we go through the weeks.

Early on, your athletes are going to be developing early season fitness, reacquainting themselves with liquid water and tippy boats, and most importantly skill development. 

As we shift out of this into a selection phase, this will probably be the most exciting and active point of the year. Assessment, competition, and the large amount of 'just rowing' make this period a lot of fun, but it can be important to remember that this is the point where the focus on the individual is ending.

Which makes the last phase the most difficult to shift into, where we'll be in mostly set lineups. It can be tough to not make it into the boat that you have your heart set on, but at this point the focus is on making your lineup as fast as it can be. As someone who spent some real time in the 2V, there's nothing sweeter than 'figuring it out' faster than the Varsity and forcing Coach into some serious introspection.

And then we're racing! So I'm very excited for the upcoming weeks and settling into a rhythm. 

The other notes I have are:

• We're still looking for new team members! If other athletes are finding their spring sport isn't what they'd imagined, or if they want to try becoming coxswains!
• Please make sure your athlete communicates in writing if they are going to miss a session, and to do so before noon the day of practice. 

And finally, don't hesitate to reach out! Now that we're back at the boathouse I stick around most nights - so feel free to say hello during pickup! I'll be wearing bright colors of some variety I'm sure

Let's have a great year!

--

Daniel Mahoney

Varsity Men's Coach

Wayland Weston Rowing Association

c: (774) 239-9359

e: mahon...@gmail.com