USRowing’s Western Region Representative and her vision for coastal rowing’s inclusion in our sport
“One thing I love about rowing is there is no real hero in the boat.”
Like many athletes who come to our sport later in life, Sharon Weinbar started rowing as a 48-year-old master. According to Sharon, she had never been an athlete prior to rowing and had never trained for anything athletic before. Fast forward twelve years and she is now a flatwater and coastal rowing expert, and the Western Region Representative for USRowing’s Board of Directors. With a background in tech startups and board directing, Sharon knows how to handle organizational transitions and is well versed in rebuilding and implementing change. When USRowing began hosting governance meetings on zoom, soliciting feedback about their bylaws and organizational direction from community members, Sharon joined the calls. After providing her insight, she listened to USRowing’s board members and did some deliberation, arriving at a personal alignment with the organization’s envisioned direction. She now finds herself chairing the USRowing Board of Directors Finance Committee.
But Sharon isn’t new to USRowing and has been volunteering with the organization for a number of years, primarily in an effort to develop coastal rowing as a subsection of our sport.
“One of the potential opportunities for coastal rowing is that it has much less emphasis on extreme conformity.”
At the George Pocock Rowing Foundation, we’ve been talking a lot about our sport over the past few years and wondering how we might provide more opportunities, particularly for those who wouldn’t ordinarily find themselves presented with a chance to try rowing. What we’ve learned in this process to increase access is that we may be pigeonholing young athletes’ rowing paths. Our sport at present encourages a one-track program from learning to row to trying out for the Olympics. Starting in middle school, rowing clubs around the country offer after-school programs that take place six days per week, for a couple of hours each day, with expectations that all weekly practices will be attended. This programming continues through high school and then, if you’re lucky to make it to graduation without complete rowing burnout or overuse injuries, the collegiate program is even more intense, often asking for multiple workouts a day, while juggling the demands of school and possibly work. There is no off-season. This limits participants’ ability to try other sports or hobbies, leads to a lot of athletes leaving the sport after college, increases the chances of injuries, and can be a rather significant barrier to accessing the sport.
The path to the Olympics is still a noble pursuit and for many, this is the ultimate dream. However, our mission at the GPRF is to increase access and opportunity in our sport, so we are thinking outside the regular rowing box, and considering different avenues to introduce young people to the sport.
Masters athletes often experience a different rowing journey, one that we want to learn from and consider when thinking about youth programs. Many masters begin learning the sport as adults, often rowing in singles and rowing for mere pleasure, their connection to the environment, and the social ties developed through sipping coffee post-practice. It is not only acceptable to “putter around” in a boat and enjoy the sunrise, finding joy in being outdoors with the wind on your cheeks and the birds singing around you, it is celebrated.
The Pocock Foundation is deeply committed to innovation, so when we learned about Sharon’s passion for coastal rowing and her belief in the opportunity it presents to increase access to our sport for young people in a bigger, better, more well-rounded way, we wanted to know more. In Sharon’s opinion, if we want rowing to stay relevant, we need to try some new things.
Why coastal rowing?
In addition to the strict program regime outlined above, a preventative aspect of flatwater rowing is spelled out in the name – the need for flat water. Coastal rowing can be enjoyed in many environmental conditions, including crazy winds and water that many of us would balk at if asked to take a racing single on. Coastal rowing is about being one with the water, allowing yourself to be subsumed in the process, rolling with the conditions, going with the flow, and adapting to each moment. What great lessons can be learned in this venture!
Not only that, the number of people already engaging in water sports that require little to no experience is substantial. This means there is a diverse population waiting for us to provide another experience – coastal rowing – that doesn’t require six days a week commitment, year-round, 2k tests and seat racing, and flat water and, let’s be honest, ten plus years of technical experience to get street cred.
Lessons Learned in Rowing
This is not intended to be a bash on our sport. We LOVE our sport – we wouldn’t work towards our mission to invite more young people into it if we didn’t feel incredibly passionate about it. Sharon agrees that she didn’t have a real appreciation for teamwork until she started rowing – and this is someone who led teams for her job! Our sport offers so many wonderful benefits; learning how to manage yourself physically, emotionally, and logistically (remember the time commitment required!). Managing your physiological response to anticipating a 2k and the anxiety that can be evoked is part of the process of testing yourself, facing and overcoming fears, and learning from goal setting – all good lessons in building resiliency and self-management. And who can deny the pure grit and determination learned through racing. Many of our experiences in life are ambiguous. If you ever ask yourself, “did I handle this meeting well, this interaction effectively, this project correctly?” you are not alone. But rowing gives us concrete, solid, definable and measurable goals, results, and progress, and the Type-A’s among us love that! And it is a sport that can be learned and enjoyed at any age.
As Sharon reminds us “how enlivening it is to be sixty and training to do something new and hard.”
Young or not, rowing is fabulous. It is fabulous for people. It creates a social network that is immeasurable giving us opportunities for meeting people with different backgrounds, titles, and jobs, but on the water, that doesn’t matter. What matters is that we trust each other, we’re all in the same boat, and we have a shared interest. Coastal rowing aligns with these elements, so is it time to add it to our repertoire of program offerings and introduce more young people to this life-changing endeavor?
Sharon Wienbar
Western Region Representative
sharon.wienbar@usra-board.org
