Learning and Bonding as Crew Walk-ons

As a walk-on to the lightweight crew in the fall of ’84, I enjoyed reading this article quite a bit. As freshmen, we fielded two boats, the 1F and 2F. If memory serves, 11 out of 18 of us were walk-ons. In ’88, our senior year, the varsity consisted of three boats and 17 out of 27 were walk-ons. As the freshman lightweight coach in ’89, my two boats had 13. Walk-ons, most of whom played soccer, lacrosse, or ran cross country and track in high school, were critical to the depth and success of the program. I’ve been curious to know whether walk-ons comprise as significant a proportion of the squads since the freshman and novice programs were absorbed by the varsities some years ago. My hunch is they do not. Those programs allowed good athletes the time and space to learn technique and bond as a class. That seemed consistent with a liberal arts education.