So how do you go from a casual fan who watches the Boat Race and the occasional Olympic Event to being AU Player of the Month for the Boat Club? Well, judging by Callum Smith’s experiences, ambition, commitment and dedication seem good attributes to start with.
Callum joined the Boat Club with no experience after being persuaded in his second year, and has now represented the Men’s First Team in the BUCS semi-final last year, with big plans for a victory in 2010. When I spoke with him, Callum was eagerly anticipating the ‘Head of the River Race’, where 420 boats compete on the Thames, and where he will be coxing for the first time on the capital’s main waterway. Furthermore, he and the club will be participating in the Regatta season as the summer months beckons, and confidence is high. Callum commented that the club has one of its ‘best crews for a few years’.
However, it also becomes clear that this success doesn’t come without a punishing training schedule. According to Callum, land training takes place twice a week and they are on the water ‘almost every day’. As well as this, many rowers (coxes like Callum are advised not to) are a busy gym regime. Outside of the Regatta season, races are around every month or so.
That is not to say, as with every AU club, there isn’t a good social side to the Boat Club. Callum says all his friends are a ‘great laugh’ and always up for a good social on a Wednesday, but apparently getting up for training after these is a ‘huge struggle’!
In terms of work commitments, Callum actually finds the early starts beneficial. As ‘no one in their right mind gets up to write essays at six in the morning’, he can get his training done whilst the rest of us are in bed and begin work at a more ‘normal’ time.
Callum’s aims to continue rowing where ever he finds himself after his time at university, and his advice for anyone contemplating the Boat Club is just to ‘give it a go’ as many who are part of the club have never rowed before and actually take to it very well (like a duck to water, you might say…). He does, however, advises investment in a pair of good thermal socks as coxes feet will get very cold otherwise!
Matthew Bird
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