Sometimes two activities don't seem to mesh. Then you take a closer look and see how indeed they complement each other. Such is the case with rowing and scouting. Steve Larson, who wants to make rowing as common a form of recreation as running or bicycling, had the vision to see the connection and the drive to do something about it.
Scouting and rowing hold similar virtues. Rowers are united by hard work, dedication, teamwork, and a love of the sport. Scouts strive to be loyal, brave and trustworthy. Just as rowers build identity with their club-"I row for Penn AC" or "I rowed JV for Yale"-so, too, do scouts identify with their pack or troop. Both groups also are goal oriented and identify themselves by their level of achievement, be it a merit badge or a regatta medal. The two groups also share similar problems. Some people have questioned the relevance of these activities to the modern world. Others question whether they can attract a diverse audience. Both programs have been occasionally criticized for elitism.
The virtues of rowing and scouting have worked to keep both around for so long (rowing started in the mid 1800s and scouting began in 1910). Today both are pushing ahead to meet new challenges. That future is common in part, thanks to a new merit badge program in "sliding seat rowing," which scouting has added to its familiar staples of camping and wood lore. The rowing merit badge has opened up both groups to new audiences and provided greater access to both worlds than either could achieve alone.
Scouting Today
The Boy Scouts have a saying: "The adults are there to build leaders. The kids are there to have fun." Developing leaders while having fun is a tough balancing act. To achieve their goal, the Boy Scouts of America have worked at keeping their programs modern and therefore relevant to today's young men.
The merit badge for rowing is an outgrowth of the aquatic program for the Boy Scouts. It formerly included rowing being taught in a rowboat, and it was aimed more at life-saving and camping than it was at exercise. In 1985, Steve Larson and his brother Bill were contacted by Greg Tucker, who was the director of aquatics for the Boy Scouts. The initial idea was to teach a number of scout leaders about the sport of rowing and to have them take this knowledge back to their communities to gauge the interest in adding it to the scouts' aquatics program. Eleven years later, only a few elements have survived from the original rowing program: requirements for launching and rowing with a passenger, swimming and general boat-handling skills. Thanks to the efforts of Steve Larson and Dan McGuire, the current director of aquatics, these skills are now augmented with sliding-seat rowing skills.
Steve and Bill Larson run Little River Marine, which they founded in 1977, and which manufactures shells. One focus of the business is to expand rowing beyond competitive rowing. Dan McGuire is a veteran of the Boy Scout program. He has been involved with the rowing merit badge since the 1985 Boy Scout jamboree where it was introduced. The jamborees are the quadrennial gathering of more than 30,000 scouts from around the country, where they get a chance to prove their skills, meet others and reinforce scouting's goals and ideals.
For their first effort, Steve and Dan had 20 shells lined up and a 45-minute introduction to rowing. Each boy was assigned an individual instructor to get basic "learn to row skills," and then they were sent off to demonstrate those skills on the adjacent lake. In all, Steve and Dan ran almost 3,000 boys through the program in one week's time. Both men say that the look on the scouts' faces as they rowed off was worth all the hard work it took to put the program together. This success has been repeated at each of the subsequent jamborees and will be a part of the 1997 event, now held permanently at Fort A.P. Hill in Fredericksburg, Virginia. The move to a permanent site will give the rowing program a chance to develop, as the logistics in setting up the jamborees are difficult enough without having to make sure docks and storage for the shells are available.
From scouting's perspective, earning the rowing merit badge is intended to teach the basic skills of rowing and to let the scouts have fun. In this way, the introduction of rowing in scouting closely mirrors the goals that Steve Larson set for his Gainesville, Florida, company. McGuire, a member of U.S. Rowing since 1985, had read about the sport through American Rowing magazine, and through the scouting program, he has met many rowers. McGuire sees differences between the goals of the U.S. rowing community and the scouting program. In U.S. Rowing, the emphasis is on competition and pursuit of the elusive "perfect stroke." The scouting program concentrates on teaching someone to complete 10 good strokes in a row and to have fun. The scouts are not worried about re-rigging the boat for each rower; they just want to introduce scouts to the sport and make the scouts comfortable on the water. The goals remain the same in scouting, whether the skill is rowing or rock climbing: to emphasize the growth of the scout and to pass along the scouting virtues. Rowing has become very successful; 30,000 scouts a year get their rowing merit badge.
The Future
The future of the sliding-seat rowing program is bright, but it still faces some of the same problems faced by the rowing community in general. Boats are not cheap, and currently this program is limited. It is used mainly in places like the scout camps in the southeast. The Boy Scouts of America, despite the name, are really a global operation, since they have groups associated with military families based around the world. The directors of the Boy Scouts would like to see the program grow so that scouts everywhere can experience rowing, not to mention earn a merit badge. Funding is a constant problem, as is finding a suitable place to row. The general rowing community could become more integrated into the scouting program to help it grow-to the benefit of both.
Scouts, as a result of their introduction to rowing, are a potential source of new rowers for the mainstream rowing community. Currently the big growth in rowing is coming at the master's and collegiate levels. Rowing clubs around the country find their sources of new members is often limited to former collegians looking to continue competitive careers or novice master rowers, who are mainly looking for exercise. For clubs to thrive, it is important that they constantly add new members, but trying to teach people about rowing through introductory clinics often strains the limited resources at a club. Clubs with scouting programs in their areas could use this opportunity to improve their relationships with the surrounding community and help introduce these new rowers to the competitive side of the sport. Rowing needs to continue to grow and to continue to reach out to the general population. The melding of the current scouting program into the rowing community could help this process. As a result, just as rowing has proved valuable to the scouting program, support of the scouting program could benefit the general rowing community. * * * * * * |
