To anyone who spends their time pulling an oar, sitting still and talking seems very easy. In fact, it kind of seems like the kind of job any fool could do. That's easy to think in the last five minutes of a 20 minute power piece at a 40 when the cox mumbles, "Come on, let's see some power!" while ripping open a chocolate bar and smearing suntan lotion on their shoulders - but it's wrong.

Be assured, it takes a special kind of being to strap the mike to their head and squish into the back seat of the boat. Your coxies are tough individuals who put up with conditions no rower ever dreamed of.

This realization came to me - where else? - in Florida. Spring training in Florida was heaven on earth except for one very small thing - headband tans. There are a few hardships suffered only by us folk - the small, the loud, and the twitchy. The glaring white strip of forehead, cultivated by days and days of rowing into the sun, is only one of them - but to the casual observer, the most obvious. I already have sketches made for a tan-through headband for the summer. I'll start taking orders soon. And while it may suck for the rowers to go to Florida and get the undesirable unisuit tan, the moment they get back to Canada no one will be able to tell since they'll be back in parkas and jeans and sweaters and getting compliments on their perfectly bronzed faces. It's a lot harder to pull off the casual globe-trotter look when it's clear not all of your face had a good time in Florida. Try explaining to your Spanish class why you were wearing a scratchy elastic headband for the duration of your vacation. Does anyone know how to say "rowing shell" in Spanish?

As traumatic as the headband tan can be, however, it will fade away with the rowers' slide-bites by February. Some common coxie problems are less trivial.

One night back in Florida, watching the video replay of our pieces in the eight, our coach turned to me and said, "You must have a very sore back." I thought he was going to apologize for so vigorously and consistently knocking me down in the all-camp soccer game free-for-all of the day before, but no. He meant that the side-to-side rocking of the badly-set boat was impacting my back just as much as the rowers'. I'm sure you've all noticed that when you get out of the boat after a piece where the boat has been consistently on one side, that leg is stiff and cramped. And rowers think we don't know pain....

Rowers also don't realize that coxies get blisters just like they do. Not from hauling on oars and propelling the boat forward, but from consistently guiding the boat with gentle pulls on the rudder strings with wet mittens on. Yes, it's true, the tops of our index fingers often become toughened with the constant pressure on wet skin. It's just as embarrassing to be caught picking at that blister as it is the ones on your palm.

Another little-known coxswain complaint is riding bitch seat in the car. It's a well-documented phenomenon that we row boats with four or eight rowers (don't get me started on the coxed pair!) and it's also true that most cars seat five. That fifth seat, loathed by small bums the world over, is the middle of the back bench seat and directly overtop of the transmission hump. Not only do you have to squeeze your feet into whatever space is left by your neighbours, you have no window and are quite at the mercy of your captors as to where you can put your elbows. It's an unspoken global rule that anyone riding bitch has no voice as to temperature control, rest stops, or which CD goes in next. Whenever the team has to travel in cars, you can be sure the cox will be in the back, forlornly and unsuccessfully trying to assert some elbow room.

Still, you can rest assured that we'd rather put up with all this then get in that seat, lace up, and pull an oar.   :-)

Dyslexiacox

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