How are you trying to connect with your team during the coronavirus?
Adin McAuliffe ’20: A couple of things we’ve been doing are having online challenges and workouts where we repost results on an Excel spreadsheet and we can tally up points and have a friendly competition by those means. We’re doing some team Zoom sessions just to catch up with everyone and see what they’re up to, and those don’t necessarily have to be crew related. They’re just to hang out and share some stories, athletic or otherwise, and at least recall some fond memories. We also create a lot of group chats on Snapchat or GroupMe and then we send some messages trying to pick up anyone who’s feeling down at this time.
Sebastian Frankel ’20: I think that’s hard because rowing is largely a team sport. Frankly, I’m really disappointed that we don’t get the season and for me the goal is to be winning always, or at least getting as close as we can to winning. And that opportunity is gone. I’m not sure how we can connect the team and I’m not sure the team knows how to connect right now, but I think the best thing that I can do is talk to a few kids that I know will be succeeding me in leadership and filling them in on what I think, but frankly I think they’ll be fine.
How did being on the Andover Crew team change you as a rower and a person?
Frankel: It developed me as a team player. It taught me that a sport is something that you can’t do alone. It’s not like other sports, where you can have one guy carry the team. It’s not like basketball, where some kid can come in, if you have one good guy it doesn’t make a fundamental difference. I think it’s important to recognize that you need to bring people up with you as you go.
McAuliffe: Andover Crew changed me as a rower because the sport itself is very team oriented. Andover crew goes beyond that and really makes it about family, and you need to have a lot of trust in your teammates on the boat. Also, with Andover Crew. you have that same trust off the water—in the boathouse, in the classroom, in [Paresky] Commons, [or] when we have team meals after practice. There’s a lot of camaraderie that goes along with being a part of that team. As a person, it definitely made me more disciplined and have a much better work ethic than I otherwise would have. It really just made me a better team player.
If you could say something to your coaches and teammates right now what would that be?
Frankel: Train hard through the summer and win next year, because we couldn’t win this year.
McAuliffe: A lot of us have had three great years so we should be thankful for that and look upon that in a good way and obviously [don’t] let this ruin that. Don’t forget the lessons that we all learned throughout those three years, and take those into our respective colleges or whatever we’re doing in the future.