March 12, 2009
WASHINGTON, D.C. - Men's Crew senior captain's Jack Carlson and Grant Morrow sat down recently to talk about training during the winter months, the upcoming spring season and the what they've experienced during their first three-and-a-half years of rowing at Georgetown. Men's Crew begins its spring season on March 21 at the Jesuit Invitational in Camden, N.J.
On the progress of winter/spring workouts... Jack Carlson: We're excited about now because we're getting back on the water. It's a pretty exciting time, the morale of everyone on the team is high. Just getting off the months of indoor training and hitting the water is exciting.
On the fast approaching season... Grant Morrow: The way it works out is when they put the docks in we realize we have a week or two and then spring break and that's a big chunk of time to get back into the swing of things. After that we have another week and then our first race and races every weekend through April.
On beginning their final season of competition at Georgetown... Jack Carlson: You realize how precious each one of those racing opportunities is. I'm not sure the exact number of dual races we have left, but that's it. In our sport anyway the amount of minutes you spend training for every minute you spend competing is already a huge ratio, these are six minute races. Going into your senior season you really realize how precious these races are and there is that much extra motivation to make the most of them.
Grant Morrow: I felt the same way, this is the last spring season I'll be a part of at Georgetown and being captains we've tried to impress upon the rest of the guys that these races are really precious and it's important to really go after them and be aggressive.
On embracing leadership roles as captains... Jack Carlson: One of the things I've tried to take on this year is incorporating the freshmen into the team atmosphere and letting them know early on what is really expected and what this is about. Especially with crew, a lot of our freshmen athletes have never participated in the sport before coming to Georgetown, so I think it's really important to get them on the same page with what we're trying to do and what the sport is all about. The freshmen seem like a really good group and I'm excited to see not only what they can do this season, but what they can do in the future when they move up to the varsity.
On the men's crew lineups from fall to spring ... Jack Carlson: Part of the nature of the sport is you have the fall season where you have a lot of long distant races to build your aerobic base. The length of those races fits into our training program and then there is the indoor training period...Everything can change over that winter period, as far as who is going to be in our boats or where are boats are going to be in relation to everybody else. There is a saying that shirts that are raced for in April and May are won and lost in January and February.
Grant Morrow: The winter season has been very good and I think a lot of guys have stepped up into positions on the ergometer improving their fitness. So I think you'll see some changes in what lineups were in the fall with guys stepping up and trying to improve themselves individually and of course that will help everyone go faster.
On men's crew members who have shown improvement... Jack Carlson: Particularly toward the end of the indoor season we had a lot of guys make some progress that even they didn't think they'd be able to do before the winter season. We also had two guys, Joe Ledvina and Spencer Almy, go up to the U.S. under 23 I.D. camp, which is really good for our program and really good for those guys to get exposure. In addition to that Chuck Hartwig at the Crash B Indoor Rowing Championships finished fifth out of college heavyweights.
On the expectations for the season... Grant Morrow: At this point it's hard to say. One of the things we talked about at our recent captain's meeting was we don't have a goal for placing in "x" or "y" position at our Eastern Sprints Championships. We're not going to say we can or can't win this race or we expect to win this many races, because I think we're going to go after each race as a discreet race an individual thing and attack it the best we can. I really think we have an opportunity to beat any of the schools on our schedule.
Jack Carlson: We definitely want to do better than last year. Traditionally our team has finished the season ranked somewhere in the teens nationally, so we'd like to do better than that. Also, we want to go to the IRA National Championship Regatta (in Sacramento, Calif.), which has been restructured this year, which means finishing in the top nine at sprints.
On some of the impressive performers from the fall and winter season ... Grant Morrow: One guy in particular is Andrew Federer, who is a junior on our squad and who stroked the second boat last year. He spent some time in the stroke seat on the first boat in the fall. He's just a great person on and off the water, but particularly in terms of training he's made a lot of breakthroughs.
Jack Carlson: Spencer Almy, who's a senior, who we've rowed with for the last three-and-a-half years, he's always been a great rower, but he's really made a breakthrough this season. I think he feels a lot of what we feel in making a statement in our senior season...I see him as a leader on this team. Another person is Patrick Opdyke, a sophomore. He came into the season as just another face in the crowd, but during the winter season he's really made a number of big statements in our competitive workouts and really identified himself as someone who is going to be key component this season.
Memorable Moments... Jack Carlson: My sophomore year I was coxing our second varsity eight and our schedule got a little bit switched around that year, because Eastern Sprints was moved a week earlier. We went into sprints not knowing where we were in relation to our competition and were seeded 11th. We were in a heat with Harvard, Navy and Holy Cross and were seeded behind all but one of them. We talked a little before the race, decided we wanted to lay it all on the line and we ended up making the Grand Finals, which was unexpected to ourselves and everybody else. That was just an awesome experience.
Grant Morrow: My freshman year we had a great nucleus of eight guys who pretty much knew that was going to be the boat that the freshmen were going to race. Our coach then was Marc Mandel, who really trained us up. We exceeded our expectations in many respects and made the petite finals at IRA's, which was a tremendous sense of accomplishment for all of us, with most of the guys having never rowed before.
