“Can I see him to-morrow and try him?’ says the presi- dent; 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 Chureh 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 corréct.
A captain of a large club usually has his hands so full of dutics connected with representative or picked crews that he ean hardly be expected to find much time for systematically coaching juniors, This preliminary work he is obliged to depute to subordinates, Ina 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. Jn a college club it is 2 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. Eyen 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 yowing in various colleges, and so in the U.B.C. generally.
