Monkey wrench turned into teaching tool
The Niagara Falls Rowing Club let athletes take ergs home after training centre closed
“By having done the Zoom workouts over the winter, we were able to get on the water in the summer and, for lack of a better term, hit the ground running.” WERNHER VERBRAEKEN NIAGARA FALLS ROWING CLUB COACH
When COVID-19 threw a monkey wrench into the Niagara Falls Rowing Club’s plans for off-season training, Wernher Verbraeken didn’t shrug his shoulders.
He didn’t walk away, resigned that yet another provincewide lockdown would keep the allvolunteer club’s young athletes on the sidelines with nothing to do, with no coach to oversee their training and boost sagging spirits with words of encouragement. Instead of giving up, Verbraeken, a coach and cofounder of the club launched in 2012, picked up that monkey wrench and used it to retool the approach to off-the-water training. Before the club’s indoor training facility at the former Saint Michael Catholic High School on Valley Way closed, rowers were invited to take the rowing machines home with them.
Training sessions in Zoom calls, some lasting up to two hours, then started, with the athletes safe and socially distanced in their garages and basements and Verbraeken at home in front of his computer.
It was an example of opportunity triumphing over adversity at a time when there was little, if anything, to celebrate in sports in Niagara Falls and across the region.
In 2020-21, the Niagara Icedogs weren’t playing, nor were the Niagara Falls Canucks or any of the junior B teams in the Greater Ontario Junior Hockey League.
And, unless you count battling siblings and parents studying and working from home for limited bandwidth as competition, there were no sports at the high school or post-secondary level.
The rowing club’s possibility, when little was thought possible before vaccines were rolled out earlier this year, is the reason Verbraeken was at Club Italia on Tuesday night accepting the Doug Austin Memorial Award as Niagara Falls sportsperson of the year for 2021.
Honouring the memory of a journalist who served as Niagara Falls Review sports editor for more than 30 years, the award recognizes a volunteer for dedicated service and accomplishments in sports.
The 53-year-old retired manufacturing engineer was surprised to become the second Niagara Falls Rowing Club volunteer to receive the award. Tony Arcuri, who co-founded the club along with Verbraeken, won it in 2018.
“You don’t really think about it. You just do what you got to do for the kids and for the athletes,” Verbraeken said. “You’re always grateful to be recognized, but you never really expect it.”
In his acceptance speech at the 41st annual Niagara Falls Volunteer Recognition Awards Night, Verbraeken said volunteers — coaches, especially — are the most comfortable helping others behind the scenes, not in the limelight.
“This is not the reason we do the volunteering, and it’s not the position we like to be in,” the Netherlands native said of being in the spotlight. “I’m much happier being behind the athletes, supporting them, getting them into competitions, getting them into training and helping them reach their goals.”
Connecting rowers with coaches when even in-person erg training was prohibited under pandemic restrictions did a lot more than keep the young athletes engaged in the off-season. Benefits from the workout sessions were seen almost immediately when they got into boats for the first time this year.
“By having done the Zoom workouts over the winter, we were able to get on the water in the summer and, for lack of a better term, hit the ground running,” he said in an interview. “We were really able to just step right into training and train hard.
“Had we not done the Zooms, it would have been a very slow start to the training season once we got on the water.”
The club participated in some head races in crew boats after on-the-water training was limited to singles.
“It was pretty exciting. We had 25, 26 junior kids racing with us this fall,” he said. “It’s nice for the kids to get back and train with other people in the same boats instead of always in singles and always on Zoom.
“It’s really nice for the kids to be able to test themselves on all the training that they have done and get out and compete,” he added.
“It’s nice for us as a club, it’s really nice for me as a coach to get back into crew boats.
Zoom training sessions can’t compare with person-to-person coaching, but Verbraeken gives the athletes credit for making it work.
“I think there is always something that gets lost (in the translation), but not much,” he said. “It’s surprising how effective you can really make a Zoom workout when the kids are actively and willingly participating in it.
“They got the camera set up, they’ve got earbuds in so they hear what you’re saying to them.”
Unlike the young athletes in his club, Verbraeken, who came to Canada at age three in 1972 and grew up in St. Catharines where he rowed at the former Lakeport Secondary School, doubts he would have been able to develop as a rower over Zoom.
“No, I don’t think I was that type of athlete. I really needed a team environment,” he said with a laugh.
“Everyone wants to do better than the other guys on your team, that natural competitive spirit,” he added.
“I don’t think I could have done it when I was in high school.”
Verbraeken got back into rowing in the early 1990s after stepping away from the sport for a few years.
“I happened to find myself down at the St. Catharines Rowing Club one day,” he recalled. “If it wasn’t for Tony Arcuri from Saint Paul having a little ad up on a bulletin board, ‘Coaches wanted,’ I probably would have ended up coaching for a school in St. Catharines.”
He began coaching at Saint Paul in 1992. Arcuri and Verbraeken still coach Saint Paul rowers, as well as athletes from Saint Michael, A.N. Myer, Westlane and Greater Fort Erie.
The Niagara Falls Rowing Club started in 2012 in his backyard on Lyons Creek. It was launched with two boats and “about 10 kids.”
Current membership is 100 athletes ranging in age from eight to close to 80.
“It’s really a sport for all ages,” Verbraeken said in his acceptance speech.
And, for Wernher Verbraeken and wife Josephine, a sport for the whole family. Their son Jacob recently became the club’s vice-present and daughter Katarina, who is attending Nova Southeastern University on a rowing scholarship, will be running Zoom workouts from her dorm room in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.