Here in Michigan, there has been a lot of recent press about whether the Michigan football team has been breaking NCAA rules by training more than 20 hours per week in season and 8 hours per week out of season. Apparently, it is very complicated to count to 20 because some training counts and other training does not. Like if one coach is in the weightroom for safety purposes, it does not count, but if two or more are there it does.
Anyway. does anyone know how college swim teams manage to train enough and not break these rules? Or how they are following the NCAA rules when it seems that just about everyone that swims for the Michigan swim teams also swims for Club Wolverine all spring and summer, and all the Michigan coaches are also coaches for Club Wolverine? Just mentioning Michigan because I live here, the same obviously applies to Texas/Longhorn Aquatics and lots of other major college programs.
The exact same we that we got around some of the rules that hampered our training for rowing, since it’s not allowable to have mandatory practice year-round for a spring sport. We had “optional” practices. These practices were “optional” in the same way that it was “optional” for a coach to choose you for a boat or for you to go race, etc. Happens in pretty much every sport - “Captain’s practices,” “unsupervised workouts,” etc. We never broke the 20hr rule for rowing, but we certainly flexed the rules on winter training in terms of it being “required” training, just as every other top program did. That was my understanding for the case with swimmers as well - a certain number of practices were “Captain’s practices” and those did not count towards the 20 hour rule. Generally, though, I think it was just as well. If, for example, the university had shut the boathouse down, then we all would have just gone to the gym or figured out some other option - totally without supervision - which would have been terrible. I would wager that every single Div1 program out there breaks at least one NCAA rule.
Is rowing considered a Spring-only sport? Doesn’t Princeton race in the Fall? Princeton Chase? Charles? And does NCAA have jurisdiction over Men’s Rowing? I know women’s rowing programs (some) are D1 programs, but seems that most men’s programs aren’t. In fact, I’m not sure if any Men’s Rowing programs are D1, I could be wrong on that one. Although, NCAA rules may still apply.
Sorry for sidetracking, just interesting. I know there is no way some of the crews out there are as fast as they are on < 20 hrs of work/week. That’s for sure.
Yes, rowing is considered a spring sport. There are fall races, but there are no provisions for fall racing being part of the official season. The NCAA does not have jurisdiction over men’s (lwt or hwt) or women’s lwt crew. BUT, the EARC/IRA adopts a modified version of NCAA rules for rowing (i.e., the 20 hour rule is still in effect) that also includes some rowing specific additions - Jan 20th (IIRC) as the first day of “on water” practice for example. So technically, the men only have to follow IRA (and/or EARC) rules.
Regardless, though, we could just as easily be talking about Women’s Varsity rowing which is NCAA, and which didn’t do anything differently than the three other programs in the boathouse which were not.
There are plenty of spring sports that have “exhibition” seasons in the fall. Lacrosse did as well. But it’s not an official part of the season. The Head Races are probably more official than anything else, but they don’t serve to influence IRA rankings, etc., since they are not technically part of the season. I do believe there are provisos for “off season” training, but again, it’s basically an adoption of the NCAA “voluntary” rules.
I don’t really remember. We had some vague discussions with our coach about it. As far as I was concerned, rowing was a 12-month sport, since I rowed almost all summer as well. And if someone on the team had decided to act on the fact that practices were voluntary in the winter, I would probably have been the first person on the team to disown knowing them. The only rule I ever remember really following hard and fast was when we could first be on the water. That was usually because we ALWAYS got on the water as soon as possible; I remember water freezing on my oar during the recovery during some of our first rows.
Ah, that’s true. I forgot about EARC and IRA. I knew (but apparently wasn’t thinking) that they had adopted rules that mimicked NCAA rules. And of course no competitive D1 program (in any sport) adheres to every NCAA rule, much less the ‘20 hour’ rule.
As far as water freezing on the oar . . . . . glad it was you and not me. Being from Louisiana, we got cranky when we had to row in 40-50 degree weather. Of course, our lakes never froze and we could row throughout the year. 
