My son joined a highly competitive private club rowing team in 7th grade and has continued with that program instead of joining his public high school’s club team. He’s now a sophomore. The main reason he hasn’t joined the high school team is that the practice and race schedules conflict, and the private club runs year-round while the high school program does not.
Heading into this year, we’re starting to worry that only rowing for a private club—and not for his high school—might make him less “recruitable” to college programs. Is this actually a disadvantage, or are we overthinking it? There’s still time to switch since high school tryouts are coming up, but doing so would mean missing two seasons with his private team. He’s currently on the top boat at his club, and his erg times are excellent for a sophomore.
Not all (or even many) high schools have rowing teams. They are expensive and time consuming to run, and if there is a club the students can belong to, that often works out better for the rowers and schools. Four rowers (all women) from my daughters’ hs got D1 rowing scholarships, and I know at least one male went to the same D2 school my daughter did, where the AD was a rower so the crew teams were privileged and pampered.
This was from the next season:
When we lived in California, the kids all rowed for private clubs. The hs might have arranged some transportation to practices (they went to one private school and one public school) and they might have formed a ‘hs’ team, but they all practiced with the private clubs. This wasn’t unusual as the same happened for surfing teams or other specialty sports.
I think your son will be just fine being recruited through a club team.
I think you might be overthinking this, but maybe someone with recruiting experience for men can chime in here since that process is different.
We are in the San Francisco area so the high school teams are few and far between. Being in winning boats at national races helped with the recruiting process, but having fast 2k times and height seemed to matter more than anything for my daughter and other recruited rowers.
My guess is that the competitive private club could be better recruiting-wise than a HS team.
It may be worthwhile to chat with a coach on the private team – it is early but it never hurts to get an idea of how the recruiting process works, how the team supports its members, etc.
FWIW there are many examples of sports/areas where club teams are more competitive/elite compared to the HS team. This is not an unusual situation.
I assume the club team is stronger than the HS team? If the club has a history of athletes going on to compete in college, he won’t be less recruitable even if the HS is also strong in rowing and recruiting. He should compete where he fits best, gets better coaching, and/or can maximize his development.
This. Whichever program helps him develop his best time/technique is the best choice. Coaches prefer strong, experienced rowers regardless of whether their background is in high school or club rowing, and they keep an eye on those who perform well in a competition like the Crash B’s where it’s all about time, they don’t care how you got there.
TIP: They also prefer those over 6’3”, so he should choose the program that will best increase his height.
Do what works best for you. In many sports, coaches prefer kids from club/elite teams to school teams. If your kid is getting good coaching and developing as an athlete, great. If the practice and competition schedule of this team allow him better focus on academics, that’s a plus.
My daughter played on both a hs and a club team. Her hs coach was just hired to coach this sport (had a real job during the day/week) and was very young, so didn’t have a lot of contacts in colleges. She also couldn’t help with school records as she wasn’t at the school (they had an athletic department secretary).
The club coach was pretty good and her father had been a club coach in NY for years, so he also had connections. She was also the coach of the hs team (and a teacher there) at the rival high school. She was very helpful with recruiting. My daughter’s college coach liked my daughter so much she recruited another 5-6 players from the coach over the next 4 years.
Some sports are a pretty small world and the coaches from hs/clubs know most of the college coaches. I think crew is like that.
This is really important; most rowers are also scholars. Rowing tends to be concentrated at universities known for academic rigor — the Ivies, the service academies, and selective public and private schools (like Stanford, Duke, Cal), so the culture prizes intelligence, composure, and teamwork as much as physical power. Also, because rowing is one of the most time-intensive sports, coaches look for disciplined, organized recruits who demonstrate that they can juggle both the grueling crew schedule and the books.
Admission standards are high for rowers; coaches can advocate, but they can’t override academic requirements especially at elite schools. Even at large state universities, coaches want athletes who can successfully handle the heavy schedule of practices, travel, and coursework.
So, I concur with @gardenstategal’s point that being able to focus on academics is key if the student will be looking at elite college programs.
Thank you all for the wise words. I’ll have him refocus on staying on top of his academics. He’s a strong student, but over the past few weeks he’s been worrying about whether he made the right choice by not rowing for his high school team. The high school team is decent—we’re in Northern Virginia, where public school rowing programs are generally solid—but he really likes his coach and the private club, especially now that he’s built a history and strong connections there.
I also have a daughter in the same private club. She’s a coxswain, currently in 8th grade, and probably loves the sport even more than my son (which is saying something!). She’s also proving to be a very strong coxswain—she’s on track to be in top boats this competitive season, already edging out some senior coxes with several more years of experience. We had been considering whether she should shift to the high school team next year, but based on everyone’s feedback, we’ll table that decision.
I’m a day late on this one - take one day off CC and look what happens! - but a few things to add.
For your son: if he’s happy with this teammates, if you think his coaches are supporting him and he’s learning, if the club has experience in the college recruiting process, and if the team is as competitive or more competitive than the HS, then 100% he should stay with the club. There is zero advantage in the recruiting process to coming from a HS team, and given the relationship he already has with the coach and the success he’s having at the club, there is no reason to switch. (And yes, academics matter a ton, though there is a fairly wide range of expectations depending on the school, including many of the best rowing programs in the country.)
For your daughter: if being competitive post-high school remains a goal (she’s in eighth grade, lots of time), I’d even more strongly suggest that she optimizes for the most competitive program (assuming support, coaching, internal team mentorship, all those things). Coxswain recruiting is more heavily influenced by race results, and on the kinds of recordings that come from competitive races with top-tier crews, than rower recruiting. Assuming the club is the more competitive option, there is also a ton to learn as a coxswain, and you have many more opportunities to learn, become a student of the sport, etc. in a full-year program.
Thank you so much! The private club has been great, and both kids are happy there. Interestingly, I feel my son is getting more structured preparation than my daughter. Coxswain training seems uneven; she’s had to figure out a lot of “how to be a great cox” through her own intuition and research rather than consistent coaching. She LOVES the program, the coaches, and the team, but it does seem like rowers get clearer support and requirements.
She’s doing amazingly well—much of it is self-driven—but I worry about when her learning might plateau and how she’ll build more advanced call-making skills. For now, she’s focused on getting into the top boats, and the rowers want her there, so she’s using them as a learning resource for calls, etc. Her steering is solid for someone only a year into the sport. She’s being picked for major regattas, and I’m hopeful it will continue to work out. I’m just not sure what else I can do as a parent.
It’s great that you are giving your kids these opportunities! That along with your support and encouragement is all you can do.
You can’t control how hard they work, if they get injured, if they decide the sport isn’t for them at any point, and/or if they decide they don’t want to continue their sport in college. Enjoy where they are today and each day going forward
