 The UVM crew team was founded in 1986. The team practices during the UVM's fall and spring semesters and travels on weekends to races against other crew teams in the northeast. We joined the team for a bright and early 5.30 a.m. practice one beautiful spring morning at their boathouse on the LaMoyal River. I like to wake up as late as possible. I lay out my clothes the night before so I can just grab and go out the door. I have three alarms set and I have a coffee maker that's got a timer so it's ready as my alarms go off. Let's go to waste. Ready? Roll way out in the bow. There's something incredibly wonderful about rolling on the river on a beautiful sunny day when the sun is just coming up over the trees and the rowers in front of you are silhouetted by the light and you're all pulling together in the water as you finish your stroke. The little splashes of water are gold in the light and like some people meditate and some people let go into nature to find that but I think in rowing like that's when during the day I really find my sense of peace. When you're all lying together you feel it. You feel the boat moving through you and just really beautiful repetitive moment. Raising the hands before we hit the lights, turning the water in front of us. Crew is all about. It's the ultimate team sport I guess you could say you know with other teams you can go on to the field with one less player but you can't go on to the river and race with one less person in the boat. You've got to have that full boat because it's all about catching together, driving together, pulling together. When you have all those things at once you have what we call swing and when you have swing the boat's moving gracefully through the water and it's the most powerful it can be and it's just the connection you feel between the ore and your body and the boat when you have swing is an awesome feeling. There's a boat that has eight seats for rowers and one seat for a coxswain. There's a stroke who can keep the tempo, stroke in seven, kind of keep the tempo, lead the boat and then six, five, four, and three or more powerhouse they call it in the middle and then two or two and bow are more kind of tempo that keep the tempo in the back. They do a lot of steering too. As a coxswain I steer the boat and I also give commands and calls. I time practice, I run the drills, I give the calls, I motivate the crew and try and get everyone moving together. So I'm steering a boat the size of a school bus with a rudder that's about this big. I could not be as successful as a student if I didn't have the physical exertion that rowing provides me to do one thing and to really put all of my concentration and energy into one task at a time is really helpful for everything. The dock gets higher here so make sure that you keep leaning away just like she said. All right get ready to stop. It's an early morning but you leave and you know you go to breakfast and then you realize I've been up for four hours already and everyone else is just getting out of bed and it's kind of like no matter how the rest of the day goes you've already accomplished something so even if everything just falls apart you've accomplished something for the day and that's a good feeling to have.