157. Tom Terhaar
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
THE WORLD COMES FULL CIRCLE 157. Tom Terhaar 2001 to Athens and Beyond bacher needed help on the National Wom- en‟s Team. “Jen Dore,8093 my girlfriend and now my wife, had been invited down to selection camp and spent most of the year in Chatta- nooga. She was a very good rower, and Hartmut wanted to be sure he kept her, so he called me up and said, „I could always use another coach. Why don‟t you come on down?‟ “I got totally lucky. It was incredible. I was the assistant from „94 through 2000. I have been the national head coach since 2001. Author Tom Terhaar Kernschlag to Schubschlag U.S. National Women‟s Coach For the 2004 quadrennial, the majority of women who tried out for the National Parallel Evolution Team had arrived pounding the catch as ag- gressively as their male counterparts. For the American women, 2004 Terhaar: “The number one reason why represented a rebirth similar to that of the everyone in America attacks the catch is not American men, the Olympic Silver Medal a technical thing, it‟s a psychological thing. after two decades of disappointment, and as You‟re in an eight, you‟re going, you want with the men, a supportive young coach led to win, and logically your body is telling the American Renaissance. you that if you put more pressure on . That coach was Tom Terhaar: “But rowing‟s not a power sport, believe “I rowed at St. Joe‟s Collegiate in Buf- it or not. Everything is slow-twitch. falo for about two and a half years. Then I “Starting with college kids, it‟s pretty went to Northeastern University my fresh- simple. Right away they can jump on it with man year and rowed heavyweight, and then the legs, they can go very hard for that first transferred to Rutgers and rowed little bit of the stroke, no problem, but ac- lightweights there. tually getting them to do that with the legs “Right after I graduated, I started coach- and to accelerate is what takes a lot of time. ing the freshman lightweights at Rutgers. From there, I heard that Hartmut Busch- 8093 See Chapter 153. 2275 THE SPORT OF ROWING “The biggest problem for American less skill involved. You can get away with a coaches today is that they don‟t get to coach lot more. small boats. If they did, then they would see “I‟m not an expert, but I would say that the inefficiency of attacking the catch. before the big blades when there was less “It‟s the culture. If you could get the surface area with a less efficient blade, if culture of everyone just rowing in eights to you got on it quicker and harder, perhaps change, then there wouldn‟t be that issue. you were going to get a little bit more bounce out of the boat, maybe a little bit “As it has been with the men, rowing more speed. pairs has been the biggest educator for the “Maybe it made sense. It was ineffi- women athletes on the National Team, so cient, but you could definitely get away with basically it‟s been my job to get them com- hitting it without as many repercussions, fortable in the small boats first and foremost. whereas today when you‟ve got a lot of sur- I feel that if you let everyone row the pairs, face area and you hit it, there‟s a lot more you don‟t have to coach nearly as intensive- resistance initially, and then in the second ly because they‟re getting a tremendous half of the stroke there‟s nothing. amount of feedback themselves.”8094 Anna Mickelson, 2004 5-seat, did just More Sprack Back8097 dreadfully early on in the pair: “The stronger you are, the more likely it is that you will be Terhaar: “The Canadian men have terrible in a small boat as you get started. made a definite impression on me. For a while, my teammates did not want to “There are some things which make be paired with me, and my coaches won- boats win consistently. Obviously, first and dered if I would ever get it. foremost, you have to have the athletes. “My best pair rows were always with You have to have the right bodies and the amazing women who could row a pair with right heads. That‟s always a constant, but anyone and win. It was Lianne Nelson, 8095 watching the Canadians row, it‟s fantastic Megan Cooke and Portia McGee who because it‟s something new and different led me to win races in the small boats. and makes you think. It makes you eva- “Each member of the squad worked tire- luate, and watching them row, I saw some- lessly in the pairs and singles. [By 2008,] thing very specific, and a lot of it had to do we could field three pairs to be competitive with training. at the World Cup stops, and the other com- 8096 “There wasn‟t a lot of technical coach- binations were not far behind.” ing of the layback with the Canadian men. It was something that the athletes came up Big Blades with themselves. This is second hand, of course, but I‟ve heard they were just rowing Terhaar: “If you think about it, there‟s in small boats and trying to move the boat as been another innovation in rowing that has far as they could at a controlled stroke rate, dramatically changed the way that people and they found that if they just really hauled row, and that‟s the big blade. There is a lot off on it, they got a little bit more out of it. “I have a lot of respect for Mike Sprack- len because the guy has been winning for 8094 Terhaar, personal conversation, 2004 8095 years. The training is very hard, and they The latter two would make the U.S. women‟s were able to do something in a race that a lot eight in 2006. 8096 Qtd. by Liz Bernal, Summer Downsizing, Rowing News, August 2010, p. 36 8097 See Chapter 151. 2276 THE WORLD COMES FULL CIRCLE of people weren‟t, which was to absolutely instincts out, instead I could say, „Okay, fol- kill off the field in the first 700 meters. low Lianne, let yourselves use your bodies a “I saw that, and that told me that per- little bit more, and go to town!‟ haps this was something that could help us. “Lianne‟s example made my job much “If you analyze women‟s rowing over easier. It let her teammates evolve naturally the past twenty years, pretty much every and let them row the way that suited their Gold Medal winner was ahead at the 700 personality. I just encouraged them to use a meter mark. little bit more body, let them swing. “Technically, Athens was the first “Once the 2004 boat was selected, and Olympics where it didn‟t happen because we this was how Lianne rowed, so this was how were ahead there, even though we were bas- the rest of us were going to row, as soon as ically even.”8098 that happened, the boat clicked.”8101 The result was Silver in Athens, the first Lianne Nelson Olympic women‟s eights medal of any color for America in twenty years! As the Athens Olympics approached and Anna Mickelson rowed in the 5-seat in as Bryan Volpenhein was leading a revolu- Athens: tion in rowing technique on the men‟s “One of the first things that Tom needed team,8099 a similar revolution was occurring to do when he selected the boat was find a among the women. stroke. That was key. We had to build eve- Terhaar: “In 2004, it was a conscious rything around her, and Lianne’s rhythm and decision on my part to go from really trying the length of her stroke was the main differ- very hard to teach acceleration, something ence between 2004 and the earlier eights. that my athletes had never felt before, to “We always had these really strong allowing them to evolve themselves into women with hearts of steel who would go their own comfortable area.8100 I was having anywhere, but the stroke was short and everyone row in pairs, rowing with different choppy, partly because everyone learns to athletes, and we started to see combinations attack because that’s the way that we row in that worked. America. [my emphasis] “Lianne Nelson was the fastest pair, “Lianne made us longer. almost no matter what I did, and as the year “She also knows how to race. She progressed, it was clear that she was getting knows how to pace herself, how to move on tougher and tougher and fitter and fitter, and another crew, how to break a boat, all those the athletes could sense it, too, and that was things. Those are definite mental advantag- a big part of it. es. It‟s not that she‟s trying harder. She‟s “Lianne accelerates and swings with her just smarter. body. I knew that she had experience strok- “I think the biggest thing Lianne ing, and I made the decision to put her in brought to our team was experience. She‟d stroke, so instead of trying to teach these big been to the Games before. She knew what horses behind her how to do it perfectly, you she wanted, and she knew how to get there.