One of the Greatest Sports Out There

Have you ever competed in a sport that pushes you to your limits? Do you enjoy working? Have you felt constant, excruciating pain throughout your body while doing a sport? Rowing encompasses all of this, due to its simple, yet mind-numbing athletic activity with teammates.

Rowing originated as a human work activity since before recorded history. It was a brutal way of life that provided the transportation of goods from point A to point B and the means of battling on the high seas. When the power of engine or wind failed, rowing was the fallback to propel the boat forward. As the activity of rowing evolved from a casual outing to celebratory events and then to racing, the classic “rowing motion” maintained its simplicity. Slowly, the task of rowing was molded into America’s oldest intercollegiate sport, and one that is ironically least understood by people. The sport of rowing takes mental toughness and personal sacrifice to the next level.

The difference between rowing and other sports is that rowing is not centered on the concept of a game, but rather it is an unparalleled team sport that is not intended to provide entertainment through a medium of a game being played. For example, in the game of football, there are many exciting moments when balls are caught during big plays and then there is a period of down time between plays or long time-outs when no significant action is done. In rowing, there are no breaks in a race, or major exciting moments, because there is simply no time for that. During a race, all minds are focused on getting across the finish line first. The rowers don’t have time to think about technique or how much pain they are in or where the other boats are around them. They just have to put their heads down and go. Any lose of concentration in the boat and the whole crew suffers and it could cost them the win.

Rowing demands the most from one’s body and mind unlike any other team sport. From experience, the effort that is put into the activity during a race becomes numbing to the point that your mind takes over and plays games inside your head. It continues to tell you to stop and end this painful infliction to your body. You become so immersed into the rowing in a race that you are not pulling for yourself anymore, but for your friends and teammates around you. Your body might want to fail and give out during the race, but your mind won’t let you do that because you cannot let down your crew. I have never done any other activity that transforms one’s self into such an animal of athleticism as rowing does.

Whenever I talk to my friends at school or people I meet about crew, they always ask me “Don’t you get bored just rowing a boat all the time?” or my favorite one, “I don’t do rowing because it is so easy that I would get bored.” My response to both of these is, go and try rowing for yourself. Like I said before, rowing is not a game, but rather a form of work that is incomparable to any other activity. This is why people have more things in common with rowing compared to the other conventional sporting games such as football, baseball, soccer, swimming…etc.

The varieties of sports that exist in the world are immense and they all are built upon a providing entertainment to an audience. If a sport did not create a form of enjoyment for people to watch, then the sport would have not been popular enough to continue existing and thus deteriorate. A rowing regatta clearly does not have the same audience as an NFL football game, but yet the sport of rowing still maintains its prestige at the Olympic level. How? I believe that rowing takes on a form of different entertainment that keeps it “playing” with the big name sports. A team aspect that is central to a winning crew creates the entertainment. No one can say that watching eight completely different humans, working in unison and maintaining professionalism with every stroke, is not interesting to watch.

Popularity of a sport is not essential in making a sport the hardest in the world. People don’t have to agree with what I am saying, but I want to make it clear that a crew race is not like any other competition. The amount of mental determination and human energy exertion that is needed from the beginning till the end of the race is incredible. That being said, other sports are difficult to perform in with their own respects to exerting the human body, but rowing simply requires more of the both the body and mind.

Another point I want to make before opening the floor for discussion is the fact that there is not other sport out there that takes a group of athletes and makes them perform as one unit. Rowing is the ultimate test of a team working together, as everyone feels it in the boat if one person is not trying their hardest. Crew puts the definition in teamwork because if its work environment that eliminates all fear of failing as an individual on a field during a game play, and instills a fierce mentality of thinking together as one entire group. If one person does not connect with the water at the same time, power, speed, and fluidity will be lost throughout the boat. The key to a fast crew on the water is mastering finesse of working together with little effort. This is what makes rowing the greatest sport in the world.