The Life of a Division I Rower

If you’re coming to the USA to row at a Division I school, you have to love rowing truly. I’m sure you’re scratching your head saying, “Well, of course, I love rowing, why else would I be looking to row in college?” And I’m saying you really have to love rowing. You have to want to choose it above all other things, except your schoolwork.

That might sound easy but rowing at the Division I level in the USA is a world-class affair. The top talent worldwide has caught wind of the excellent education and rowing opportunities in the USA. You will have an absolute blast rowing in the United States if you genuinely love the sport. Remember, however: the breadth of talent and successes that came easy to you in your 6th form may not come as easily to you in college. Additionally, you put that together with the USA college system’s social scene, and it easy to be lead astray. Pile too much on your plate too soon, and you’ll sink. 

So, what to expect and how to manage it? The NCAA and the IRA, which govern men’s and women’s rowing allow athletes to row up to 20 hours a week as part of an organized training program. Programs are required to train no more than 20 hours a week, but some programs do find ways around this – “voluntary workouts.” Let’s break down 20 hours a week and see what that looks like. First, 20 hours divided by six days a week (as you are required to have one full 24 hours period off a week) = 3.5 hours a day of just training time a day. Typically, you can expect one practice to be 90′ and the other one to be 2 hours. With eating meals and showering added on the end of each session, you can expect the morning to be 2.5 hours and the afternoon time slot to stretch out to 3 hours once you’ve included showering and eating. Most teams only do one practice on Saturday, so you can expect Saturday to be a long one. Not all teams have enough training space to do all their workouts together as a team, so you may not train with the team, but you’ll still have to find the time in your day to hit the training expectations. Athletes typically have half a day on Saturday and all day Sunday to recover, get your laundry done, etc. on a non-travel weekend. So if we add up those practice hours, eating time around practice and showering, it’s easy for that time to stack up to 33.

Now let’s add in classes – most student-athletes take four classes a semester or quarter. If you’re going with the rule of thumb, it’s two hours of studying time for each hour of class. Most classes are 3 hours a week, so you can expect to spend 6 hours per class. Again, the average load is four classes, which brings us to 24 hours a week. Some students do take five classes, putting their total would be 30 hours a week. 

As we start to tally up the hours, it’s easy to see that being a student-athlete takes a good chunk of time out of your week – roughly 30 to 33 hours a week for practices and activities around training (eating/showering) and then 24 to 30 hours a week with classes and studying. As an athlete who is serious about athletics and academics, you’re looking at a solid 55 hours a week related to these two things. 

First-year rowers get off track when they try to add too many other things into the mix their first semester such as clubs, fraternities, sororities, bands, etc. All these can be great experiences in college but can be overwhelming when you don’t have a handle on the balance between rowing, studying and, of course, sleeping! 

Studying and rowing in the United States is a fantastic experience and required a great deal of time. However, the entire college experience is focused around rowing. This leads us back to the number rule if you’re coming to the USA to row – you have to LOVE rowing. You have to be doing this for you and only for you. Carving out more time is always possible, but understanding where you’ll be able to pull your extra time from is critical when you decide.

Note: Some teams row early & the afternoon is their non-water workout, some row in the afternoon & do their non-water workout in the morning.   

This article was written by Laura Simon, currently the lead recruiter at Yale University for the Women’s Team. To find out more about her work and story, head over to our content partners page, or read more of her work here.

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Photos by Fergus Mainland and Laura Simon

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Laura Simon

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