A Powerful Argument from a "Graduating" Parent

Note: This anonymous post came to all current Crew parents via the crew eTree as the new season (fall 2009) ramped up. - Editor

Dear Crew Parents:

My name is *****. I'm a Crew Parent in recovery...

It has been nearly 3 1/2 years since my last CJ's or Crew carpool. I'm going to leave this group now, but wanted to share some thoughts about the madness of BHS Crew, and your part in enabling it to exist. Here goes:

I had two very different rowers (***** and *****,'06). My daughter is almost 6' tall & very stubborn - she would have made an excellent Viking in another age. My foster daughter was tiny - in 9th grade she was recruited by a novice friend who thought she'd be a great coxswain. Turns out she was a little indecisive...and very, very near-sighted. She switched to rowing within weeks. She stayed with it, despite medical issues and chronic lack of sleep because she just couldn't bear to quit the team. She couldn't let them down. They both rowed 4 years, they're both in college now and neither is now rowing. Was it worth it? Oh, yes.

Here are some things that may reassure you, as you totter on the precipice of another 10 month Crew season...

Rowing is great exercise. Its also a major commitment. That's a GOOD thing and I hope you will support any kid who is willing to make it, even though they've committed you as well. There's not much at BHS that compresses so much time and energy into herculean group effort, while still rewarding individual kids so richly.

Why Crew?

Because your kid will have friends s/he can count on, people watching out for her/him on Campus. Because they will have the opportunity to be in the best physical condition of their lives, at a time when almost everything else is out of their control. Because your daughter (or son) might worry about eating enough instead of eating too much. Because they can get hurt if they do it wrong - which is another way of learning to do it right. Because they will be too tired, and have too much at stake, to get in much trouble (except late in May). They might learn respect for team members with whom they've never been "friends". You'll know their friends, AND their friends' parents, and that's a good thing.

I wish my kids had been more disciplined, and in better shape at the beginning of each season, but I no longer wish they'd skipped morning practice on days they were too sick to go to school, or had spent more time studying and less working out. There are not words to explain the magic of commitment to something bigger than oneself, and to the discipline necessary to do what BHS rowers do.

My daughter was right when she figured Crew would be as important as GPA on her college apps. She was accepted at her UC's with a 3.0, including some for which she wouldn't have rowed. She went to Cal as a rower.

More important: **** was also accepted at her UC's with slightly more than a 3.0 -- because of her rowing, and continuing to row despite difficult circumstances, and her ability to express in application essays how important Crew was to her. She's at Cal. No, she doesn't row any more. Was it worth it? Yes.

****** never competed at Cal, due to an orthopedic injury followed by 6 months of mono. She's not even there anymore - she's at a small school in Iowa that she wouldn't have considered until she became (against her will) a former rower. Was it worth it? You bet.

Having a non-rower has put this in perspective for me. My son did fine at BHS, and later at Independent Studies --- but there was never a there there for him. No compelling reason to go, no group he claimed membership in. No tears on the beach at CJ's. He was happy, and found those things other places... but I was not sad to see him leave Berkeley High behind -- and I believe his experience wasn't all that unusual. He's finally getting some of that feeling in College.

Should I have made him row? Of course not - no more than I would have chosen any other passion for him, but if he'd chosen it I would have done the last three years of driving, waiting, feeding carpools and cleaning up after them, printing tee shirts, attending parent meetings and banquets and driving at all hours and cheering, baking, minding the parking lot, etc. with a certain secret satisfaction -

My girls got to win a race now and then, and to decide that finishing second to Oakland Strokes or Marin was a (moral) victory. They also got hailed by the USGS once as lost (during a race?) and there is that one story about being passed by a dragon boat.

Being in recovery from BHS Crew is sweet, especially when you feel like you earned it. I encourage you to hang in there -- to help more and complain less about things that other volunteers haven't perfected yet. For instance, the second Football bake sale will be smoother than the first, but even the first one made hundreds of dollars! That's an accomplishment!

The more you practice, the better you get. You're putting in a lot on behalf of Crew -- all I can promise you is that you might come to think of it as a bargain, later on.

Go Jackets!