crew update

Two weeks ago, our Winter Park crew team hosted a dual regatta against Plant High School of Tampa. The Plant coach wrote up a glowing assessment of both the WP team and his team’s experience visiting us on that chilly saturday morning. Some excerpts follow here, the complete article is posted on the Plant website.

After the lopsided results, one may wonder: why even race Winter Park when we are clearly overmatched? There are two reasons. First, we don’t plan to always be overmatched. Plant is competitive and strives to be the best it can be in competition. Though it’s a cliche it’s true: to be the best, you have to beat the best. Winter Park is currently the best in the state. Therefore, though I know it sounds like General Custer saying, “bring on the Indians,” we will keep racing Winter Park.

Winter Park had parent volunteers flagging buses, trailers and cars in to the parking lot at their boathouse (Ed note: that would be Bob and Linda!!). Also, and perhaps most impressively, they had a cookout for our parents and athletes. All the Winter Parks folks with whom I interacted were friendly and welcoming.

All the previous mentioned facets of excellence are important, but I don’t want to take anything away from the Winter Park athletes. They train hard, practice relentlessly (traveling away for a spring break camp) and execute during races. Winter Park’s excellence shouldn’t be judged by hamburgers or buildings or boats, but by the excellence with which their athletes perform and conduct themselves.

As mentioned, it was healthy for our program to see this excellence up-close. It gives us all a goal of what Plant Crew can be, and hopefully a little more motivation to reach that goal.