A president of a U.B.C. has not the responsibility of looking after recruits for his club. He has only to see that he does not overlook the merits of those who are in it, among the hundreds of young oarsmen who come out each season in the torpids, lower divisions, and college eights. The ‘trial eights’ of the winter term have to be made up by him. Each captain of a college crew is requested to send in the names of ten or more candidates for these trials; but it is not safe for a president to rely entirely upon the lists so furnished to him. He is morally bound to give a fair trial to all the candidates who are thus officially submitted to his notice; but he ought also on his own account to have taken stock during the summer races of the promising men of each college crew. The opinions of college captains as to who are likely to make the best candidates for University rowing must not always be relied upon. It has often happened that better men have been omitted than those whose names have been sent in to be tried.
We have known a watchful president ask of a college captain to this effect:
‘What has become of the man who rowed No. 6 in your torpid?’
‘He played cricket all the summer, and did not row in the summer eights.’
‘You have not sent in his name?’
‘No, I thought him too backward; he has never been in a light boat in his life, and he only began to row last October when he came up as a freshman.’
‘Can I see him to-morrow and try him?’ says the president; and eventually this cricketer of the torpids is hammered into shape, and subsequently wears a double blue.
The above is no exaggerated picture of what has been known to result from careful supervision by a president of the college rowing which comes under his notice. In 1862 Messrs. Jacobson and Wynne rowed in the Oxford crew; the writer believes, from the best of his recollection, that neither of these gentlemen was named in the two primary picked choices which had been sent in to represent Christ Church in the trial eights. But the then president, Mr. George Morrison, had observed them when they were rowing for their college earlier in the season, and took note of them as two strong men, who might be converted by coaching into University oars; and he proved to be correct.
A captain of a large club usually has his hands so full of duties connected with representative or picked crews that he can hardly be expected to find much time for systematically coaching juniors. This preliminary work he is obliged to depute to subordinates. In a London club there is usually a sort of subaltern, or sometimes an ex-captain, who undertakes to instruct junior crews or those who are competing for the Thames Cup at Henley. In a college club it is a common practice to elect a ‘captain of torpid,’ who is usually some one who has rowed in the college eight, but who has not the physique to compete for a seat in the University crew. At Cambridge a large college club puts on so many crews for the bumping races that it is necessary to find separate coaches for nearly each boat. Even when this occurs, a really energetic captain will endeavour to spare a day now and then to supervise the efforts of his subalterns. At Oxford it is, or used to be, customary for the five committee men of the O.U.B.C. to make a point of coaching in turn, when asked, those college eights which had no ‘blue,’ nor old oarsmen of experience, to instruct them. All these arrangements tend to raise the standard of rowing in various colleges, and so in the U.B.C. generally.
The time comes when a captain retires from office, but it is quite possible that he may find time to row again for his flag after he has laid down his bâton. In his new rôle he can do, in another line, quite as much to preserve discipline as when he held the office in his own person. He should be the foremost to set an example of subordination and of strict observance of regulations and of training. Nothing does more to strengthen the hands of a new captain than the spectacle of his late chief serving loyally under him; and, on the other hand, nothing does more to weaken the new ruler’s authority than the example of an ex-captain self-sufficient and too proud to acknowledge the sway of his successor. The ex-captain does not lose caste by strict subordination; unless his successor is a man devoid of tact, he will freely take his predecessor into his counsels; and, on the other hand, the predecessor should be careful not to support anarchy by interfering until he is asked to advise. We have known the entire morale of a college crew upset because the ex-captain, a University oar, has taken French leave and ordered an extra half-glass of beer for himself (beyond the statutory allowance), without observing the formal etiquette of first asking the leave of his successor, whose standing was only that of college-eight oarsmanship. Such a proceeding at once made it more difficult than ever for the new captain to preserve discipline and strict attention to training orders among the thirsty souls with whom he had to deal. In some college boat clubs there is a rule that the captain must be resident in college. The object of this is to prevent the archives and trophies of the boat club, which are in custody of the captain, from passing outside the college gates, and so possibly getting astray in lodgings. Such a rule as this naturally prevents many a senior oarsman from holding the office (for after a certain standing undergraduates migrate from college walls to lodgings). In such cases those members of the college club who belong to the University eight constantly find themselves under the formal authority of one who does not pretend to equal their skill or knowledge of aquatics. As a rule these retired generals work harmoniously with their inferior but commanding in-college oarsman; but cases do occur where want of tact on the part of one or both parties has a very mischievous effect, and causes the club to take a lower place on the race-charts than it might have attained had all parties co-operated loyally for the support of the flag.