Zen and the art of rowing

WASILLA — Talking to participants and organizers working to get racing shells into the water, it was clear that a decade or more experience rowing was not an uncommon thing.

So what drives that devotion? Why does a person row for 15 years, many of them in a state that only has open water for three months a year?

“What I like about rowing is it’s very contemplative,” said Kern McGinley, head coach of the Anchorage Rowing Association. ARA is one of three organized rowing teams that came to Wasilla Lake Saturday to compete in the 12th annual Moose Nugget Regatta.

He said the sport isn’t as free-flowing or improvisational as, say, soccer or basketball. It’s a lot of repetitive motion and requires an emptying of the rower’s mind.

“You’ve got to free your mind,” McGinley said. “I always say it’s a Zen-like sport.”

McGinley should know. He’s been a rower since he was in high school in New Jersey. This is his last year as head coach of the ARA, but his 15th as a rowing coach, something he got into after studying philosophy in college.

Another longtime rower is Andi Day, who was serving this year as regatta director.

She was usually the coxswain, the only person in the boat facing forward who keeps the rowers in synch and the boat on course.

“It’s like driving a Greyhound (bus) from the backseat,” she said of the job as she explained all the different types of shells and what their various parts do.

Day has been a part of rowing in Alaska since its inception. That would be 1997, when the first competitive rowing came to the state.

“Alaska was the last state in the union to have competitive rowing,” Day said.

In a lot of ways, that’s strange. Alaska does, after all, have no shortage of water to row on and no shortage of people who enjoy the water.

But, Day pointed out, even a four-person boat — a relatively small one in a sport that often has eight people in a shell — is 42-feet long. That doesn’t fit in a standard trailer.

“That’s always been one of our big, big problems in bringing rowing programs to Alaska is getting equipment up here,” Day said.

Day lives in Washington state now, and was up for the regatta. All of the race organizers could have been the event director, she said, but they wanted to row this year, so brought her up. It was an opportunity she said was “wonderful.”

What she likes about rowing is the opportunity it gives to competitors in the junior divisions. Some kids that might perhaps get lost in the shuffle of big team sports can use rowing as another avenue for competition. It’s also a great way to get scholarships for college. Some of those junior competitors have gone on to be champions.

“We’ve really created some opportunities for kids,” Day said.

McGinley said he knows about opportunities. Rowing for him has been a “gift that keeps on giving.” It brought him to Alaska — he applied online for a job coaching at the Kenai Crewsers Rowing Club — and in Alaska he met his wife.

“I never thought when I was in high school rowing it would open up so many doors in my life,” he said.

Day said that rowing is also an easy sport to get into.

“Everyone gets a novice season where you are only competing with other people in your same age category who are also new rowers,” she said.

But for a lot of people, that initial involvement becomes a lifetime commitment.

“It’s like golfing,” she said. “Once you’re hooked, you spend your whole life pursuing that perfect stroke.”

Contact Andrew Wellner at 352-2270 or

andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com.