I am a Junior and have been a coxswain with my school team since Freshman year. I am starting to form my list of schools I am interested in academically and noticed most of them only have a club crew team. However, some of the club crew teams have a recruiting button for High Schoolers to reach out to the coaches. Is the recruiting process for making it on the club teams the same as for the DI/DII/DIII schools?
This is because men’s crew is not an official NCAA sport. Many schools have the same recruiting process for crew as other sports. Contact coaches with an email sharing your interest in the team and school, video, your erg time/other competitive info, gpa, and test score…you should start this ASAP as you are a bit on the late side to get recruiting going. Good luck.
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Some “club” teams are, as noted above, actually varsity teams and have the same recruiting process as other varsity teams. Some are actually club teams. As a first step, look at the school’s athletic website to see if rowing shows up. If it does, it is a varsity sport.
And yes, if there’s a link for recruiting, use it!
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I agree it’s ok to use the recruiting links/forms, but only in addition to sending emails to the coaches. Many coaches literally have no idea where those online recruiting forms go, even at ‘top’ schools.
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I’m coming to this late, but I hope you see it, plus for posterity:
—If it’s truly a club team, then the recruiting link is just to inform the coaches/team leaders that you would be interested in joining them if you end up at the school. They don’t have any impact on admissions.
–-If it’s a DI/II/III (Varsity) team, then the recruiting process looks mostly like the traditional NCAA recruiting process, even though Men’s Rowing isn’t an NCAA sport: teams have some influence with the admissions process, varying quite significantly depending on team/division. Coxswain recruiting spots are quite limited - imagine there are about 25 nationally each year.
If you’re unclear if it’s a club or a varsity team, and searching the athletic website isn’t making it clear, look to see which national competition they’re aiming for. If it’s ACRAs, it’s Club; if it’s IRAs, it’s Varsity.
You are on the late side to start on Men’s Rowing, but not that late. For the most part, coxswain recruiting is late Spring/early Fall of senior year. You need to fill in the questionnaires, but for Varsity teams, the questionnaires are mostly just going into a compliance database: you want to be emailing the recruiting coach (usually the first assistant, it’ll be on the website) with your basics (club/school, current boat, race highlights, HS/GPA/test scores, why you’re interested in the team/school).
Feel free to DM me with more questions, I feel badly since I’ve been away from this place for a while.
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would also add your height and weight to this excellent summary.
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I am not sure where you are located and if you have any interest in a summer coxswain program - Mary Whipple (former US Olympian coxswain) run a week long camp out of the University of Washington for coxswains. Students come from all the U.S. and I have only heard very positive feedback from campers and it could be a great add to your crew resume.
Also, if your team (and you) qualify and attend Youth Nationals this year, that is another opportunity to connect with coaches and teams.
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