Bryans Addresses the Media
May 13, 2008 | Women's Rowing
Head women's rowing coach Bebe Bryans appeared at Wisconsin's Monday news conference, held in the media room at Camp Randall Stadium. The women's openweight rowers compete on Saturday and Sunday at the NCAA Central/South Regional in Oak Ridge, Tenn.
Bryans answered questions about if the team is peaking, how she puts together her boats and racing during finals week, among other topics. A full transcript follows.
To view the archived video footage of the news conference, click on the audio/video link on the left task bar.
BEBE BRYANS: Well, we're really excited to get to another warm weather spot to race. It's been a really pretty race packed year for us. Our racing schedule is very aggressive this year. We had a much better racing schedule than in the past, partly because we responded to the lack of moving water here. So we scoured the country to find places that we could row and race and train at the same time.
So it's been pretty, it's a been a really challenging spring for us, and as Coach Clark said, it's sort of amazing to think that really only four weeks ago, we were still off the water. It just seems like we've been going for a long time now, and the team is really coming together. It's a young team, especially in our top boats. So the more opportunities they have to race, the better. And I think we 're finding our speed. We've got really good speed. It's just a matter of bringing it together on race day, and that's what we're looking forward to doing this weekend.
We're going to be ready to go, and we're racing some of the top teams in the country and looking forward to earning our spot at the national championships. And I think that's what's a little bit different for the open weight women 's team versus the lightweight women's team and the men's team is that we have to earn a spot at the national championships. There's only 12 teams that are invited, and so that's a really challenging thing to do, and we really feel strongly that we're going to be able to rise to that challenge.
QUESTION #1: Do you know where you might fit in in this whole scheme of things '
BRYANS: We will on Sunday. I mean, basically, right now, our team is unranked. We 're not in the top 20, although, and that's fine. I don't, that doesn't bother me at all. We're definitely the underdogs coming into this weekend. We had a great performance at Big Tens last weekend. Even though the varsity didn 't make the final, we were, we made up a ton of ground on Ohio State. We had raced them two weeks before and got beat up pretty bad, but we were real close. And our second varsity was able to win a Big Ten championship. That's a first for us here.
So I think we don't mind being underdogs, and we are more ready now than we were at Big Tens, so the only ranking that really matters is the last one. So we have, you know, we're just going to go in and sort of keep our heads down and get the work done and be ready to race on Saturday. So we'll know, we'll know a lot more on Sunday afternoon.
QUESTION #2: It might seem obvious, but are you peaking right now' Do you feel you're rowing your best that you have right now'
BRYANS: Absolutely. No question about it. I think we figured some stuff out last week right before Big Tens. We're still doing boat selection. You know, and I think the hardest part of being a cold weather school is figuring, we have a very compressed time to figure out who should be in the boats. The training is all done. The technical work is all done. That we can do indoors. That we can do through the course of the year.
But figuring out who sits where, and even if you have the right people, figuring out what seat they're going to sit in in each boat, that takes time. And so we 're still looking. We brought freshmen into the mix this week. We're going to have a couple of freshmen in our top three boats. So all of that is changing. Every day we are getting faster, which is, it's exciting. It's a little bit unnerving, as a coach, to not know for sure exactly what's going to happen, but that is our reality, and that's what we live for is to take it day by day.
We are peaking, but it's a challenge because we have three championships in six weeks. We have Big Tens, we have Centrals, and we have the NCAAs. No matter how fast you are at Big Tens, you still have to be faster at Centrals, because Centrals is the last time to qualify for the NCAAs. For example, Michigan won, Michigan varsity eight won the Big Tens last year, did not do well at Centrals, and did not get an invitation to NCAAs.
So we are the only league that has to be fast three times. So it is an interesting challenge, and we have to be at our best for Centrals and yet know that we can maintain that and get a little bit faster for NCAAs.
QUESTION #3: Could you give us an explanation of some of the thought process of what you 're looking for as you try to align your athletes the way you want them to in each boat'
BRYANS: Well, we have two eight and a four that qualify for the national championships. Eights and fours, although they seem pretty much the same, are different boats, and there 's a difference in the way they move. There's a difference in the pickup. There's a difference in the load and all that stuff. So someone may be better in a four than they are in an eight. We need three fast boats.
So for instance, if I've got somebody in the second eight, which technically speaking is higher level boat, you normally go varsity eight, second varsity, four. But if I've got somebody in the second varsity that I think can move the four really well, and somebody in the four that can move the second varsity as fast as that person, I may switch so that I've got the four going as fast as it can go and the eight staying that speed. And that takes a lot of trust and a lot of toughness from these athletes to know that they're in this for the team.
They're in it for themselves because they want to be competitive and they want to win, but they also want the team to do well, and they're going to take it for the team. You know, it's technically being moved down, but it's not because we're all one team with the goal of going to the national championships and being extremely competitive there.
QUESTION #4: Would you liken it to a baseball lineup, who's going to hit, who hits better third . . .
BRYANS: Absolutely.
QUESTION #4: . . . who hits better fifth . . .
BRYANS: Absolutely. And there's each seat within the boat. You need everybody to be fast, everybody to be tough, everybody to be strong, but there are nuances to each seat that it's important to get the right person in there. Even though it 's eight people in a row, or four people in a row, what the stern pair does, they set the rhythm. It's not the coxen going stroke, stroke, stroke. The coxen doesn 't say that. They say a lot of other things, but they don't say that.
So the two people in the stern end of the boat are the ones that set the rhythm, so they 've got to be really incredibly tough competitors and have a good sense of rhythm for what the boat speed needs. The middle four, the boat's the most stable there, so those people just can haul on it.
And then the bow pair, they're the furthest away. They've got the whole momentum of the boat coming at them. The boat is moving around a lot back there. So they've got to be, number one, pitbulls, really viciously tough, and they 've got to have really good technique so that they can work with the movement of the boat and set the, they do a lot to set the boat up.
So all of those things matter, but if you're not strong, it doesn't really matter. So when you get up to the top level, strength first, toughness, those two pretty much go together, and then the individual technical demands of each seat.
QUESTION #5: Chris was talking about academics at this time of year, and you guys are kind of struggling just with finals and everything. Could you tell how that has affected your team training and heading into regionals'
BRYANS: You know, I think it was probably tougher last week, heading into Big Tens, with the last week of school coming up. Finals, they do such a good job all year long of balancing things, and so, in some regards, this week is almost easier because we only practice once a day. Once we know sort of who's in each group, we can set our practice schedule around their finals schedule. So I think, on one hand, when you look at it, it just seems like, oh, my gosh, what more can you add to this mix to make it more difficult. Finals' Give me a break.
But on the other hand, they're going to be so relieved when we leave here, because we only have, their professors have been wonderful, for the most part, in changing things around for them to make sure they can take their finals. We only have one on the road this year, so we only have one kid that's got to take a final on Friday down at the hotel that we proctor for them. Other than that, the professors have been great in changing things around. So it's just one more thing.
I don't think, I think they do such a good job all year of figuring out how to make this work that they take a lot of pride in that and they're going to be incredibly relieved and satisfied on Thursday. I have to say though, we've got some really dedicated kids, academically dedicated kids on this team. It's so inspiring to all of us to have as many women as we have, and I know the men have been really successful academically as well, in doing both so well, we expect them to be excellent in the classroom and on the water. And that being said, we try to support them equally in both venues. That doesn't necessarily mean that they'll step up, and they absolutely have.
We also won the community service award for the women's team in the athletic department, and the Champs Cup, so we're pretty proud of them. It's a pretty great group. Thanks for your question.
