Rough Month

Dear fellow VIP-ers,

Hello, Matt and Emily here. Last time when Andrew talked to you he discussed the love-hate relationship that crew tends to involve for all of us. Never has this felt truer than in this past month. Several of the varsity rowers got so fed up with rowing that they decided to quit, including one of our VIP members.

What to say about that? The team is basically our family, so when someone leaves, it hurts. We understand their reasons, so we’re accepting them and moving on with what’s left of the team. However, we now have exactly eight varsity men and nine varsity women, with no coxswains. As coxswains steer the boats and tell us what to do, they’re kind of important. Fortunately, we have a plethora of awesome novice coxswains and rowers, who are all ready to step it up and lend a hand to our struggling varsity side. We're really grateful for all of them.

Essentially, what all the anger, frustration, and sadness boils down to is a new question for our research this year. On one side, we’d like to ask why people row. On the other…why do people stop rowing? This question will be included in our documentary, featuring the VIP member who is no longer a rower.

In better news, we’re looking to get some fantastic footage this Saturday, at 6 am (yikes), of our first race of the season. We’re having a scrimmage against the Auburn and Georgia teams. This will be the novice’s first ever competition, which is super exciting in and of itself. We’re also looking forward to it, because they just started rowing by all eights this week. It’s going to be a crazy day, and we hope to be telling you about our success next month. Until then, VIP-ers!