Coaching

Extract from Chapter VIII of A History of St Catherine's Rowing 1875-1999

To adapt Shakespeare: `Some are born coaches; some achieve coaching; some have coaching thrust upon them' - as I did. Thus:

When I returned to Oxford to teach Theology I found I could not easily stay away from the river and all its excitements. So I wandered down to St Catherine's barge and asked to take out some freshers for tubbing. This was followed by coaching for a `Baker Four'; by some help with the Torpid Eight; and that in turn to some coaching of the Second, and later to the coaching of First Eight. Then came some invitations to coach other boats - Wadham, University, Jesus and some more.

All I knew about coaching was from being coached; and if I attained some reputation for success, it was wholly due to the kind of coaching I had known in the St Catherine's boat. I learned, not as quickly as I would have liked, the different but interrelated coaching of individual oarsmen and of crews as a whole. I was asked to do some coaching for the Oxford Women's Boat Club, which was just beginning its interesting career as part of University life.

Photo: A `Baker Pot', awarded to the winning crew in the 1928 Baker Fours [an annual competition within the Boat Club, named after Censor Baker - see photo in extract from Chapter II]. The inscription lists the crew as S. Haynes (bow), W. L. Owen, J. S. Willard, J. Marsh (str), M. L. Harvey (cox). Photo courtesy of the widow of J. S. Willard.