Deficiency in either one of these desiderata is often fatal to a captain’s chances of success in his office. If he is a bad oar, and lacking in practical knowledge compared with those under him, it will little avail him to be a person of senior standing in the crews and of social position. He will fail to carry with him that prestige and confidence which should be the attribute of all commanders who expect to lead men to victory. If, on the other hand, he is a good oar, even the best of his club, and yet is a fledgling in age, he will find it difficult to maintain his command over sundry jealous seniors, and will, more than all, require the third requisite of tact, which is less liable to be found in a mere lad than in a man of the world who has well passed his majority.
A captain should be self-reliant without being obstinate; he should be good-tempered but not facile; he should be firm but not tyrannical, energetic but not a busybody. A captain has usually a host of counsellors, and he too well realises the fallacy of the adage that in a multitude of counsels there is wisdom. If he were to pay attention to all the advice offered to him he would never be able to have a mind of his own. And yet he will do well not to run to the opposite extreme, nor to decline to listen to anyone who ventures to offer him a suggestion. If he is captain of a University crew he will find his bed anything but one of roses. The eyes of the sporting world are upon him from the commencement of Lent term. Daily he will receive letters from individuals of whom he has never before heard, offering him advice and criticising his line of action. Many of his correspondents will be anonymous, and too many of them splenetic. He must not be surprised to see himself anonymously attacked in print for the selections which he is making for a crew to represent his club. He will be accused of partiality if he selects some man of his own college in preference to an out-college man. He will find himself abused if he decides to take an important oar in his own hands, such as stroke or No. 7. He will be inundated with speculative appeals from vendors of commodities who hope for gratuitous advertisement of their wares. One of them will send him a nondescript garment, and will assure him that if he will allow his crew to row in dress of that build he and they shall be robed gratis in it, and be assured of victory. Quack medicines will be proffered him, and photographers will pester him and his crew daily with requests to stand for an hour in a nor’-easter for their portraits.
Within the circle of his own club matters will not always run smoothly. Sometimes he finds himself in the unpleasant position of having, after due consideration and counsel, to dispense with the services of some old brother blue who has fallen off from his quondam form, or who, though good enough among an inferior crew of a preceding year, is not up to par compared with new oarsmen of merit who have come to the fore since the last spring.
Nevertheless, with all these drawbacks to office, a University president or captain of a college has perhaps an easier task in managing his crew than a captain of an elective club on the Thames that is preparing for Henley or some similar contest. In college life the brevity of career gives a special standing and prestige to seniority, and the president of a U.B.C. is not likely to be a very junior man. Esprit de corps does much to keep College and University crews together, and there is less likelihood of mutiny in such clubs than in those which are purely elective, and which compete with each other for securing the best oarsmen of the day. A malcontent college oar cannot throw himself, even if he will, into the arms of another college; still less can a dissatisfied candidate for one shade of blue ‘rat’ and desert to the enemy. But in tideway and other clubs on the Thames there is such a brisk competition for good oarsmen that a man who finds he is likely to lose his chance of selection in one club has opportunities for obtaining distinction under some rival flag, and very possibly he already belongs to more than one such club, and can put his services up to auction as it were. If he finds that he will be relegated to some comparatively unimportant seat in the club which has claims of longest standing upon him, he may, if he is unpatriotic and cantankerous, look out in some other club for a berth of greater distinction. Such men are not uncommon, and are thorns in the side of any captain. They tax his sixth sense of tact more than anything: if he gives way to them, he risks spoiling the arrangement of his crew; if he stands firm, he may send a valuable man over to the enemy. On the other hand, it must be said that many rival captains would decline to accept the services of a deserter of this sort, and would feel that if such an one would not be true to one flag, he could not be safely trusted for long to row under another.
Beside this sort of malcontent, whose ambition is to be aut Cæsar aut nullus, the captain has to contend with obstructives of other classes. There is the habitual grumbler, who is never happy unless he has a grievance. To-day he cannot row properly because the boat is always down on his oar. Yesterday he was complaining that his rowlock was too high, and he had leave to lower it accordingly. He may not be really bad-tempered, nor mutinous; even his growls have a triste bonhomie about them; in one sense he is a sort of acquisition to the social element of the crew, for his grumblings make him a butt for jokes and rallies. But when this system of grumbling goes beyond a certain point it sorely tries a captain’s patience.
Another sort of incubus is the old hand, who has never risen beyond mediocrity, who has plenty of faults, but who can be relied upon for a certain amount of honest work, and who fills a place better than some very backward oarsman. The old stager is case-hardened in his crimes; they are second nature to him, and, in spite of coaching, still he maunders on in the same old style, with the same set faults. He has a time-honoured screw, a dog’s-eared elbow, and yet he possesses what many of the better-finished oarsmen do not—watermanship—and can keep on at work in a rolling boat when many neater oarsmen are all abroad if the ship gets off her even keel. Not to coach his too obvious faults may make visitors fancy that the old screw is a pattern fugleman to be copied for style; and yet to spend objurgation on one so stiff-necked is disheartening waste of wind.
PROSE.
Discipline is all-important in a crew, and it usually requires tact to maintain it. If the captain is a triton among minnows, he can better afford to hector; but, as a rule, he runs the risk of mutiny, or at least of producing sulkiness, if he treats his crew as if they were galley-slaves. If he is in the boat, working with them, sharing their toils and privations, his task becomes easier on this score; for the crew realise that, however irksome the orders for the day may be, they are felt just as much by the commander as by the rank and file. If a member of the crew openly defies a captain, the bad example is too dangerous to be tolerated. To expel a mutineer may ruin the chance of victory for an impending race, but it will be best for the club in the long run, and will be likely to save many a defeat.