row2k Features
Coach Trick
Info-Added Lineup Sticks
March 13, 2013
row2k hackers

At this club, sculler's names are in black, with a dot that shows which side they can sweep on.

contributed by John FX Flynn

Lots of coaches use sticks or magnets to set lineups these days, but here is a hack that makes that classic tool even more useful: start putting extra information on the sticks besides just the name and which side each person rows. With some extra color-coding, you can make those sticks or magnets "data-rich" and way more useful when you need to make some quick lineup changes.

By adding information to the sticks--noting each athlete's erg score, ability to row the opposite side, or even "bow-ing prowess" if you are setting blind boat line-ups--you get a pretty simple way to see whether you are boating the right folks . . . and this is a big help, as anybody who has ever stood in front of a line-up board trying to guess which line-ups might work for a given outing could tell you.

This is a coach's trick that works whether you do your line ups with an old school stickboard or you've raided the local office supply store to upgrade to a slick, magnetized whiteboard. Sure, it is basically just an extension of writing each rowers name in red or green so you can remember which side they row, but it can really help when you need to make last minute substitutions. The erg score note is probably the most useful, especially when you have a heap of novices and want to give the next strongest candidate a shot when a spot opens up due to a late-comer or no-show.

Another handy notation we've see used in college rowing is a mark on each stick or magnet to show whether the athlete has been cleared to compete by the NCAA Clearinghouse. For folks who work with first-year rowers on the women's side, knowing who has been cleared to compete--which is a process that can take a while--lets you quickly boat lineups in the early fall that might actually be eligible to race intact at fall regattas. A club version of that could be a note on who has paid up their dues or even which folks are skillful enough to go out in a single for that practice.

Perhaps the high-water mark of data-enrichment were the magnets we saw in use at one summer program that had athletes from all over, training in all sizes of boats for Club Nationals. Those magnets had marks for folks who could row both sides, naturally, but also a blue mark if they could scull, a check-mark if they could bow and steer a quad or straight four, and a shorthand note for whether the rower was intermediate, senior, or elite in both sweeping and sculling. Sure, those magnets were a bit busy, but it was a whole lot easier to quickly adjust lineups that summer and still make sure that any given lineup boated each day actually had the potential to race the way it was practicing.

Have a trick that makes making line-ups a snap at your program? Share your tips--and hacks--in the comments below.

Have a great rowing hack to suggest for future inclusion here? Send it to us!

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Comments

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timjimlee
03/14/2013  11:49:19 AM
I'm a HS novice coach and I write names in two different colors. One for freshmen, another for upperclassmen. It makes putting together different boatclasses on the fly easier. Or you could go heavyweight/lightweight at the varsity level.

I also use green and red electrical tape to mark sides on people's sticks. Easy to see and easy to change (when I end up with the top 7 erg scores being ports).



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