Owen Cardwell
Dr. Rafaella Meriwether

WRT 105

28 October 2015

Rowing As a Discourse Community

After 4 years on the Bethesda-Chevy Chase high school crew team, it's hard to remember a time when I had never heard of crew, sweep, head races, sculling, stroke seat, seat races, eights, splits, regattas, or "way nuff.” Crew is a team sport that involves rowing a lightweight boat, or shell, as fast as you can. Bethesda-Chevy Chase Crew has about 100 members, including both men and women. There are 8 coaches, 2 each for the novice (or first-year) men and women, and 2 each for the varsity men and women. The team is connected by the personal bonds that form from the relationships. It is stated on the B-CC Crew website that “All athletes, coaches and parents support each other. We treat each other fairly and cultivate an environment of mutual respect.” But it is also connected by the specialized terminology that everyone has to learn and use every day.
Specialized language is used to describe the boats that are used, the seat positions of the rowers in the boats, the rowing techniques, the races, and the commands that given to the rowers on and off the water. I will provide some examples of each. The boats are called shells, and they are fitted with riggers and oar locks. There are two types of rowing. Sculling is the type of rowing where each rower uses two oars. Sweep is the type of rowing where each rower uses one oar, and there is usually also a coxswain who steers the boat and issues commands to the rowers. Sweep boats can have either 4 or 8 rowers, and these are referred to was "fours" and "eights". The first position in the boat is called the "stroke" because it sets the pace and the last position in the boat is called the "bow" because it is in the bow of the boat. Each rower is also identified by a seat number from 1 through 8. The rowing technique consists of the catch, the drive, the finish and the recovery. The races are called regattas, which can have head races, where the boats race one at a time against the clock, or side-by-side races to the finish. The coxswain uses specialized language to issue commands to the rowers for both safety and speed. Examples are "way nuff" to stop, “starboard press” and “port press” to steer right and left, “starboard back” and “port back” to turn the boat on it’s axis, and more. Because of the extensive specialized vocabulary used in the sport of rowing, teams often create a glossary for people to refer to. B-CC Crew includes a glossary on their web site, and it is called The ABC’s of B-CC Crew.

The glossary is a long list, containing terms for every letter in the alphabet. The terms are highlighted in bold and followed by an explanation of the term. Some of the terms are explained as how they relate to B-CC crew in specific. For example, attendance is the second term on the list and is followed by “Team members are expected to attend all practices and regattas. Missing a practice or a race is unfair to other members of a boat and can weaken the team performance. Team members are expected to contact their coach in advance if you will miss a practice for any reason. Team members who miss practice can expect their parents to be notified” (“ABC’s of B-CC Crew”). The glossary also has terms very specific to rowing, such as “ergometer”, “recovery”, and “skeg.” The source is targeting the B-CC rowing community, specifically novice rowers. Varsity athletes would have very little cause for this list as they already know all the terms.
Beyond the individual team, there is also a connection to the sport of rowing as a whole. High school teams are members of the Scholastic Rowing Association of America. In addition, all rowers must be members of the U.S. Rowing Association, and sign liability waivers, in order to participate in competitions. Teams compete against others in a region, and the top teams compete at a national level. Individual athletes compete to get recruited to a college team, and some go on to compete on the Olympic rowing team. Regatta results are maintained and publicized on national web sites as well as the team's own local website.
The most distinctive thing that makes rowing a discourse community is the specialized language such as what I have described above. However, it also displays the other 5 characteristics of a discourse community.
Common public goals. The purpose of BCC Rowing is to have a competitive team of rowers that can compete in local, regional, and national regattas. For competition, the goals are to develop skill as a rower, develop good teamwork, and become successful competitors. For the team spirit, the goals are to develop trust, friendships, leadership, and team bonds. For the sport as a whole, the goals are to increase participation and awareness and interest in the sport.
Mechanisms of intercommunication among members. Email and Facebook pages are used to communicate about practice times, drills, general schedules, and plans for upcoming races. During practice and races, communication among members is controlled by the coxswain, who uses specialized oral commands through an intercom system on the boat to tell the rowers how fast to row, how hard to pull, how to correct a rowing technique, which rowers should stop rowing, and when to stop. On land, when the boat is being carried to or from the water, the coxswain also gives oral commands, using specialized language, to tell the rowers how to carry the boat, which direction to walk, which obstacles to avoid, when to stop, and when to set the boat into the water. Each team has one or more captains. The captains are responsible for communicating with the team members to keep them motivated, to make sure everyone knows where they are supposed to be, to address problems that come up among team members, and to organize informal practice or workout sessions. The captains use group text messages or the Facebook page for this type of communication.
Participatory mechanisms to provide information and feedback. The coach maintains a team practice schedule and rowers use that schedule to let the coach know if they will miss a practice. It is important to provide this information in advance so that the coach can organize the boats. Since each boat must have 9 rowers, it is important to know ahead of time who will be at a practice.
The coach also maintains a list of rowing speeds and practice results that he uses to decide which rowers with be in "first boat", "second boat" or "Third boat". Practice on land is done on rowing machines called "ergs", which is short for "ergometer.” The erg speeds are used to rate rowing skill. Rowers report their erg speeds to the coach so that he can record them. There is trust in the community that the scores will be reported honestly.
Central websites are used to record scores for regattas, and many of these are published nationally to provide information to the wider rowing community as well. College coaches use this information to identify high school teams they should watch carefully and to identify individual rowers they may want to recruit.
Uses one or more genres to communicate in order to further its aims. B-CC crew uses many different genres to communicate and further it’s goals. One example is the team web site, used to provide a description of the team and its history, to communicate the schedule and other calendar events, to manage administrative things such as registration for the team, to coordinate fundraising activities, to post results of regattas, to photographs, to order team uniforms and spirit wear, to coordinate parent volunteer activities, and other related activities. Another example is fundraising letters to the community. Letters to the community accompany fundraising activities such as selling wreaths and candles. The letters describe the team, the nature of its funding needs, and solicit community support. The letters and fundraising campaigns heighten awareness and interest in the team, and they also help to maintain loyalty to the team. One last genre B-CC crew uses is spirit wear, specifically varsity jackets. Clothing with the team logo is used to communicate membership in the team and support for the team. Varsity jackets, as pictured below, are performance rain jackets that have the B-CC crew logo and the athletes last name engraved on it. The jacket is only available to varsity members of the group, excluding the novice and often freshman rowers. The jacket serves as rowing attire for cold or rainy days. For many, it was an object of pride worn to school or going out. The gold customized lining serves as advertisement for B-CC crew, potentially drawing more interest and recruits from the school.

Has a threshold level of members with suitable degree of content and discourse expertise. Each year the team has about 100 members and 8 coaches. This is a sufficient number of members to create a community with expertise. Each year, the new rowers, called novices, are taught the specialized language in the first few weeks of their training. There is also a loyal following of past rowers and their family members, which creates an even larger B-CC rowing community.
Conclusion. As a discourse community, the feature that stands out the most is the very highly specialized and unusual language. People who have never been exposed to crew would have no idea what most of the words or phrases mean, and couldn’t even guess. In the boat, rowers rely on the language in order to cooperate in a team sport that requires precise teamwork. The language that they use is reflected in the textual artifacts. The textual artifacts are used to communicate among the rowers and to people who watch them compete. They help people to learn the lingo, they help people understand the regattas, they help people to recognize members of the group, they help to generate support for the group, and they provide news about the sport.

Works Cited
"ABC’s of B-CC Crew." B-CC Crew. B-CC Crew Boosters, Inc., n.d. Web. 28 Oct.
2015.
"Bethesda ‐ Chevy Chase High School Crew Team." B-CC Crew. B-CC Crew
Boosters, Inc., n.d. Web. 28 Oct. 2015.
Rapp, Barbara. B-CC Crew Varsity Jacket. 2015. Chevy Chase, MD.

Analysis of Discourse Artifacts

Rapp, Barbara. B-CC Crew Varsity Jacket. 2015. Chevy Chase, MD. B-CC crew uses is spirit wear, specifically varsity jackets. Clothing with the team logo is used to communicate membership in the team and support for the team. Varsity jackets, as pictured below, are performance rain jackets that have the B-CC crew logo and the athletes last name engraved on it. The jacket is only available to varsity members of the group, excluding the novice and often freshman rowers. The jacket serves as rowing attire for cold or rainy days. For many, it was an object of pride worn to school or going out. The gold customized lining serves as advertisement for B-CC crew, potentially drawing more interest and recruits from the school.

"ABC’s of B-CC Crew." B-CC Crew. B-CC Crew Boosters, Inc., n.d. Web. 28 Oct. 2015. "ABC’s of B-CC Crew." B-CC Crew. B-CC Crew Boosters, Inc., n.d. Web. 28 Oct. 2015. The glossary is a long list, containing terms for every letter in the alphabet. The terms are highlighted in bold and followed by an explanation of the term. Some of the terms are explained as how they relate to B-CC crew in specific. For example, attendance is the second term on the list and is followed by “Team members are expected to attend all practices and regattas. Missing a practice or a race is unfair to other members of a boat and can weaken the team performance. Team members are expected to contact their coach in advance if you will miss a practice for any reason. Team members who miss practice can expect their parents to be notified” (“ABC’s of B-CC Crew”). The glossary also has terms very specific to rowing, such as “ergometer”, “recovery”, and “skeg.” The source is targeting the B-CC rowing community, specifically novice rowers. Varsity athletes would have very little cause for this list as they already know all the terms.

Cardwell, Owen. "B-CC Crew." Letter to Neighbor. Nov. 2014. MS. Chevy Chase, MD.

Each year, B-CC crew has seasonal fundraisers. In this letter to the community, delivered to door steps by athletes, Christmas and Hanukkah decorations are advertised. It begins with a short explanation that B-CC crew receives no federal support from the school or county, putting the crew team at a disadvantage compared to other sports. It invokes a sense of obligation by stating that all equipment and coaching salaries are not covered by the county. It proceeds to advertise holiday decorations and lists prices. At the bottom, the name of the athlete delivering the advertisements is printed. The fundraising letter targets the majority of people in the Bethesda Chevy-Chase suburbs. By appealing to both Jewish and Christian families, the crew team has a very wide target range of people, allowing the most purchases possible.

2014 Maryland State Championship Oar Chart. Digital image. B-CC Rowing Twitter. B-CC
Crew Boosters, Inc., n.d. Web. 28 Oct. 2015.

Pictured above is an oar sheet, a guide used to identify crews as they row by. The sheet clearly presents colors and decorations on each team’s oar, making it as easy as possible to tell who’s who. Often, the only way to differentiate one crew from another is by their oar colors. Racing shells are generally all the same shape and color. The oar sheet is targeting rowing parents, coaches, fans and athletes. It provides the people involved with rowing the information they need to know who’s rowing.

Rapp, Barbara. 2014 Stotesbury Cup Regatta T Shirt. 2015. Chevy Chase, MD.

T-shirts specific to a particular regatta are very common and they are a way to communicate that a rower participated in that regatta. Typically, the t shirts include a list of all the teams that were in the regatta, whether it be only 6 teams, or 100 teams. Rowers often collect shirts as a form of pride in rowing at that regatta. Rowers from different states, countries, and even continents share a sense of community through these shirts.