The Alabama rowing team will look to build off its hot start when it travels to Cambridge, Mass., this weekend to compete in the 48th annual Head of the Charles Regatta. The Crimson Tide crew team will participate in the Women’s Club Eight race that will begin Saturday, Oct. 20, at 1:35 p.m. EST.
The Tide started the 2012-13 season with a bang as its “A” boat won the Championship 8+ race at the Chattanooga Head Race for the first time and defeated SEC rival Tennessee.
Head coach Larry Davis said the season-opening win will be beneficial to his team moving forward, but it can’t get complacent over the victory.
“I think it will give them a lot of confidence to show that we can go up against a very good team like Tennessee and perform well against them,” he said. “I would hope it doesn’t give us overconfidence because we’re just sort of starting things, and there’s still a lot of stuff we can do to get faster and be a stronger team.”
Davis said one way to combat overconfidence is always to take things one step at a time. He brought up Nick Saban’s famous method, the process, and how teams can’t look ahead or overlook an opponent.
“There’s always that next step,” Davis said. “If you get complacent, if you think you’ve got it made, that’s when somebody comes up and surprises you.”
The main points of focus for the Tide at the prestigious New England regatta are to keep gaining speed and avoid collisions and traffic.
“Ultimately, that’s what’s going to determine things,” Davis said. “It’s not whether you win a medal or not, but we need to make the boat go faster. If we do that, the results are going to come.”
Teams from all across the country and the world will be competing in the venerable race, which will congest the course and make it difficult to n avigate.
Davis compared the traffic jams to NASCAR, saying that a driver can have a fast car, but if he or she gets caught up in an accident, the driver won’t receive the results that he or she was expecting. But the Tide is expecting great results this weekend.
“It’s a great opportunity to go out and say, ‘Hey, we’re from Alabama, and we know what we’re doing,’” Davis said. “It’s a chance to represent the school, and that’s something for motivation.”
The Women’s Club Eight race is offered for teams that haven’t won a gold medal in prior years. The Tide will be competing against teams like Yale and Tennessee to claim its first championship at the international regatta.
“I don’t like to say this, but I expect us to medal,” Davis said. “We don’t know the competition, we don’t know what’s going to go on, but if we’re able to do what I’ve seen us do at this point in time, and we avoid those collisions or traffic jams that you’re going to see on the Head of the Charles, I think we obviously have a good chance of medaling, and if we really, really, really nail it down, I think we have a chance of going for gold.”
