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If you work in the sport of rowing and you don’t have conflicts of interest, you must be new.
From our school crews to our summer clubs to our universities to our camps, sculling groups, and erg gyms, anyone who does anything in our sport beyond just rowing the boat will be tasked with working for one set of interests while having a personal conflicting interest. A situation in which the aims of two or more parties are incompatible is the definition of a conflict of interest.
It also describes a regatta.
We all want our crew to win; only one can. But our greater interest, fundamental to the integrity of the sport, is that the fastest crew wins. By holding themselves to that greater interest, organizers and volunteers who are alumni and supporters of participating crews can still work at regattas and make them fair. The desire for our crew to win and the principle that winning means being the fastest crew is rowing’s confluence, not conflict, of interest.
When we asked Dotty Brown to write about Ed Woodhouse’s new book about legendary oarsman and coach Joe Burk for the September issue of the magazine, she initially disqualified herself because she had helped Woodhouse and promoted his book.
But our greater interest is to inform the rowing community of the great tale of Joe Burk, who coached Harry Parker and espoused sculling while putting together the fastest eights in the last century (a formula very much in contemporary favor).
So Brown’s piece (page 32 in the September issue) isn’t impartial but it serves our readers by acquainting them with an inspiring rower and coach, thereby enhancing their enjoyment of our sport.
As a former captain of the Dartmouth lightweights, I bleed Green, and in assigning the two features in the September issue (as well as writing one of them), I lined up blatant conflicts of interest.
My interview with Dartmouth coach Wyatt Allen tells the story of his quarter-century journey from club novice to Olympic champion and now the IRCA Coach of the Year in a way I hope inspires other athletes and coaches to continue their own rowing journeys.
In Andy Anderson’s celebration of the heights lightweight rowers have reached recently, we recognize the excellence achieved within a segment of our sport that hasn’t let lost support at the Olympic level slow it down on collegiate and international racecourses.
Serving our community with these stories is the confluence, not conflict, of our interests.
