Ian Terrell is our Manhattan Middle School Coordinator. Ian coaches our Manhattan middle school team and plans programming to ensure a fun and safe environment for our youngest athletes to excel on and off the water. Ian started as a middle school coxswain and moved on to high school and college coxing.
Before college, Ian competed with the Old Dominion Boat Club in the fall and with T.C. Williams High School in the spring during the 2005-09 seasons. He was a 2008 state champion and placed 10th at the 2007 Head of the Charles regatta. Ian rowed at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, from 2009-13. He was a 2010 and 2013 winner at the New England Rowing Championships, and the 2010 champion at the ECAC National Invitational. Ian also competed at the 2013 Henley Royal Regatta in England. He shares with us his experiences as a coxswain to celebrate Coxswain Appreciation Week.
How and when did you start coxing?
I started coxing the summer of 7th grade. My high school’s team had a 5-week learn to row summer camp. My best friend’s dad rowed in high school so my friend and I joined the team together. Both of us ended up rowing through high school and got recruited to row in college.
What is your favorite part about coxing?
I think that coxing is one of the most unique positions in sports. I’ve always compared being a coxswain in a race to being a kicker in a football game. You can watch a lot of football games where the kicker doesn’t matter, where the better team will score a lot more touchdowns and win the game. However, there are a lot of close games where winning can come down to the kicker who can make that extra point. I’ve always liked that a coxswain can make or break a close race.
What’s the most challenging part?
I think the most challenging part is that a lot of coxswains don’t get much coaching, either because their coaches were rowers and don’t know much about coxing or because the coach wants to spend more time developing the rowers. A lot of times to get better as a coxswain you have to take it upon yourself to learn from your own mistakes and that can be tough when you are just starting out.
What is one particularly memorable racing experience? What did you learn?
My most memorable race was the New England Championships my senior year in college. For the past 5 years, Trinity (my team) had come in second to Williams at the New England Champs, the perpetual bridesmaids. We ended up beating Williams by .9 seconds to win our first New England Championship since 2008. From the congratulations we got from Alumni of the program, I learned how small and supportive the rowing community truly is.
What do you wish rowers knew about coxing?
I would love to have every rower steer a boat on a river with a strong current and wind so that they can learn that it isn’t that easy to go straight in those conditions.
What is one piece of advice you would give young coxswains?
As I said above a lot of coaches don’t coach coxswains so you have to go out of your way to get better. I was lucky that my high school’s varsity coxswain went out of his way to help me when I was a freshman. You can learn a lot from just asking older coxswains who have learned from their experiences.
This Coxswain Appreciation Week, we must recognize our coxswains for their essential roles. Coxswains lead, support, motivate and make us faster. They juggle several responsibilities at the same time and keep our boats safe (and fast). Appreciate your coxswains this week and every other week of the year!
Did we mention coxswains make boats go fast?
