Luella Lilly gets new shoes.

I often get asked; what do college rowing coaches do in the summer?  And I’ll be the first to admit, we do a lot less then we do during the year.  I really enjoy the relaxed pace of summer work, especially now that the weather has finally shifted and it looks like we may have a few sunny, warm days ahead.

But the work doesn’t stop.  It’s the time of year for catching up on projects without the deadline of practice and races.  Yesterday, for example, I went up to the office for a few hours, showed an awesome prospect around and really enjoyed chatting with her about our program, and finished up with a few hours at the boathouse giving our top women’s eight some love. The bulk of this project is seven pairs of new shoes (we replaced one pair earlier in the year when they fell apart in race season).  It’s time intensive work- undo three bolts to pull the shoe plate, cut off the old heel ties, unscrew the eight screws holding the shoes on and clean off corrosion, set aside old shoes for recycling and throw away rusty screws, screw on new shoes, bolt onto stretcher, undo stretcher bolts and take foot-stretcher out, tie new heel ties, grease stretcher bolts, put stretcher back on.  Repeat times seven.  Time intensive, but very satisfying to stand there at the end of the day and see the work done.

Finishing up some hull repairs on the Lilly this afternoon, then hopefully she can go back into the rack and I can get the next boat down.