How many rowers laughed when photos emerged a couple weeks ago of the bogus student “oarswomen” involved in the Operation Varsity Blues/college admissions scandal?
Critiques of the young ladies’ form aside (wrists aren’t flat, back is opening up too early on the drive), the one thing that would have doomed this would-be student athlete in the eyes of any college coach is the choice of rowing machine, or ergometer as they are known.
This young woman is on the ever-chic piece of rowing furniture known as a WaterRower, the stylish choice of rowing dilettantes everywhere. There is only one rowing machine in ubiquitous use by college programs, national/Olympic teams, and participants in the annual World Indoor Rowing Championship and that machine is the Concept II Ergometer.
Posing a person on a WaterRower in the hope that establishes their credibility as an experienced puller of oars is like a catching a counterfeiter trying to pass Monopoly money off on a bank teller. When a coach wants to know about the potential of a rowing recruit the one number they want is their 5,000 meter time. WaterRowers, while perfectly good rowing machines, don’t use the same monitor or the same mechanism as a Concept II, and are only used in trendy group rowing studios or by Frank Underwood, the ultimate political weasel in House of Cards (who winds up on his ass after the strap attaching the handle to the flywheel mechanism snaps).
There are many rowing machines, but only one Concept II. And there are only so many slots a college rowing coach has to fill with hardworking athletes who actually worked their asses off trying to get a seat on a college boat — giving one to an entitled, unqualified spawn of celebrities with more money than ethics is a crime against that poor rower who actually deserved to be admitted.
Next time try the real thing……
