Teamwork in motion

Alex Coolman

“Let’s start with half-slide rowing, 20 strokes. Remember, your goal

is complete unison. We’re going to start with the bow four.”

Linda Moeller, coach of the Orange Coast College women’s crew team, is

calling out instructions to nine women in a long, slender boat.

She talks through a megaphone, peering critically at the girls’

attitude, at their posture--at everything.

“Ready? OK ... row,” she says.

Moeller’s charges spring into motion, easing forward to draw their

massive blades back, then driving the oars powerfully through the water.

The coach looks on, not overly pleased, not disappointed.

“You really want to concentrate on level hands,” she tells the girls.

There are about 55 young women on the college’s team. For them, this

attention to detail--combined with the fundamentally grueling nature of

crew racing--is what their time on the water is all about.

The coaches spent about 20 minutes on a recent afternoon demonstrating

a technique called “feathering” to the less-experienced team members.

The point of the motion, which involves quickly turning the blade so

that its flat surface is parallel to the plane of the water, is to make

sure the blades do not create much drag if they slap against the water,

Moeller said.

“You want to make sure that you have nice, supple, light hands” on the

blade, said assistant coach Liz Hubbard, who was seated in a rowing

apparatus to show off the procedure.

“It doesn’t take a lot of work. It’s not death grip. It’s not

cramping. It’s not bleeding hands.”

All this technical knowledge is great, but when it comes down to

racing, the girls know that sheer guts are as necessary as feathered

blades and level hands.

“In a 2,000 [meter race], there’s a black hole you fall into between

about 1,000 and 1,750,” said second-year rower Brooke Albiston, 19.

“For the first 1,000, adrenaline is pumping. At 1,000, it’s, ‘Oh my

God, I have 1,000 more to go.’ ”

Jenna DuBois, 19, who is a coxswain for one of the boats, knows about

black holes.

She is responsible, among other things, for motivating the crew to

push through the hard parts, to force them to stay strong and technically

excellent even when their arms are about to fall off.

Her method?

“I yell a lot,” she said.

The OCC women’s crew team is always looking for more members. For

information, call (949) 645-9412.