SARATOGA ROWING BRINGING THE SPORT TO THE CLASSROOM
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. >> With a world class rowing program in the area and March Madness ready to tip off the Saratoga Rowing Association teamed up with the Maple Avenue Middle School along with the Saratoga Springs physical education department and brought the rowing life to the students there last week.
“The (SRA) coaching staff has been thinking about doing this for a while, we wanted to find a way to integrate rowing into the phys. ed. programs knowing that the rowing machine in its simplest form is just another form of a fitness machine you would find in a gym, the way you would find a bench press,” Saratoga Rowing Middle School Coach Manny Valentin said. “Gyms have rowing machines and we want to be able to teach in phys. ed. class the way you would anyone else, how to use the rowing machine properly so you can get a workout in the way you would a treadmill.”
“We wanted kids to be excited about fitness the way that phys. ed. teachers are,” Valentin said. “We knew we had an opportunity that if we do this correctly people would be excited about rowing and using the rowing machine correctly.”
SRA Middle School assistant coach Savannah Davison also helped with the challenge of engaging the Maple Avenue students.
“With the sixth- and sev-
enth-graders we were able to play a lot of little games with them and get them excited about learning the stroke and doing it super well just to make us happy,” Savannah Davison said. “Then the eighthgraders they’re a little more motivated by racing and going fast and competing with one another. We set up this tournament and it went really, really well.”
With both SRA coaches familiar with the changes as a rower goes from developing proper skills and technique and then into racing mode, things change on and off the water.
“The rowing stroke when we are not racing is where it should be,” Valentin said. “We know that when we progress to racing a little faster than we would as part of the team we know we are going to trade off the quality of the rowing stroke for excitement.
“We know that when we get to racing it’s not as pretty as if we were in a formal learn-to-row setting, but we also know that we want them to be excited about it and kids get really amped when they get into that environment.”
Valentin wanted to set up a reward system for the top rowers in the week-long unit.
“Being March we decided to set up a bracket like March Madness with the goal to get to the gold erg at the top,” Valentin said. “That’s really captured a bunch of kids who may not have been engaged before that came in real excited to do well and to try to progress towards the gold erg.”
With the 25 rowing machines set up in groups or pods on the final day the students spent two minutes rowing at race speed and then had 40 seconds to move – winners moved forward within the bracket pods or backwards.
The ultimate goal was to be at the front of the class and on the newly created ‘Gold Erg.’
“(SRA freshman assistant) Coach Edwin (Cunningham) Made it, it used to be a little Franken-erg, a bunch of different parts from other rowing machines and then he painted it gold while we were at winter break so we came back and go to use it,” Davison said. “You have to make your way to the golden erg.”
The excitement was contagious and appreciated by the Maple Avenue School physical education staff.
“I knew we have a great rowing program in Saratoga, so this has been an eyeopener for me to see what goes into it and the coaches are fantastic,” Maple Avenue physical education teacher Craig Durant said. “They’re really upbeat and positive and I think the kids took to them and they’ve done a really good job. “They modified their curriculum with the eighth-grade because they say right away that what they did with the younger ones wasn’t going to work with the eighth-graders and they added more competition into the class to compete with each other and you could see they’re pretty intense.”
Outside of the unit, the feedback has been positive.
“You’re always going to have kids that are afraid to try something new and I think once they get in here they seem to enjoy it,” Durant said. “I think it’s a perfect time for it because now they know whether they like it or not and if they want to continue on they can go to the club and give it a try on the water.
We definitely have kids that are interested and it’s a lifetime activity too.”
One of the top performers last week was eighth-grader Meghan Fairley who edged out Jon DosAnjos Neto for the top spot in the final race of the day. Full disclosure, Fairley is an SRA rower, but put speed over form just this once.
“The basketball, softball players and sports that are already in the school have their unit and the rowers finally have their unit that they are the expert,” Valentin said. “It’s cool that the non-rowers kind of see what it’s going to look like and they’re excited about it and they see some of their classmates doing well and they kind of connect.”
Valentin is hoping to bring his group of ergs and coaches to more middle schools in the area.
“We’re willing to work with any school that would host us,” Valentin said. “The phys. ed. teachers have been incredible, they’ve welcomed us into their classrooms with open arms, they have brought us in and allowed us to take over their class and that’s been a huge help.”
Contact the Saratoga Rowing Association at info@ saratogarowing.com or 518587-6697 for more information.