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| Jane LaRiviere |
Chat with Washington State rowing coach Jane LaRiviere on Thursday (May 1) at 10 a.m.
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| Moderator: Good morning Cougar fans and thanks for visiting wsucougars.com and today's online chat with Washington State Rowing Head Coach Jane LaRiviere. The Cougar rowing team, and its No. 3 nationally-ranked varsity eight crew, will face Oregon State this Saturday, May 3 on the Snake River at Wawawai Landing. Coach LaRiviere, thank you for taking the time out of your schedule to join us this morning. |
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Jane LaRiviere: Thank you for giving me the opportunity to chat about our Cougar rowing team. |
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| Moderator: Okay, let's get to some questions. |
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| Garett Mathiason (Regina, SK, Canada): Is the strength of your program mostly from a strong recruiting class or a strong novice program? |
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Jane LaRiviere: In my view our novice program and recruited classes are equally important. We currently have three true walk-ons in our top varsity eight and without our novice program we might not have found those athletes. The recruits are important because they bring a knowledge of rowing, training, and racing that helps bring the novice rowers along more quickly. I believe having a strong novice program is critical for depth. |
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| Steve (Yakima): Jane, what advantages does practicing and competing on the Snake River present to the program? |
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Jane LaRiviere: The Snake River is stunningly beautiful, wild and even peaceful; I'm quite certain it is one of the most strikingly beautiful places to row in North America. As I said, it's a bit wild and slightly unpredictable, but we train on it and we are able to adapt to all sorts of conditions that, without doubt, help us on race day. |
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| Erin (Seattle): What would you consider a hallmark of your program this 2008 season? |
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Jane LaRiviere: Youthful exuberance. |
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| Russell (DeKalb, Ill.): How much does it benefit the team having the Pac-10 and NCAA Championships at the site your very familiar with? |
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Jane LaRiviere: Each year we go to winter camp and Pac-10s on Lake Natoma in Sacramento. We do spend a fair bit of time there and feel quite comfortable competing there. As far as NCAAs go, we still have to qualify through strong performances at Pac-10s but if we get the opportunity, being in Sacramento will be great. |
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| Connie Turman (Kirkland): As an alumni rower, what goes into the elite training to prepare for Pac-10, but how has this years varsity team prepared- not just physically? |
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Jane LaRiviere: In my opinion, the physical and mental training go hand-in-hand. As an athlete trains and improves, they feel more confident and that leads to optimism. This year, we've been fortunate to have a great group of workers. They've really embraced the training, and for whatever reason, they seem to have fun doing it. |
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| Dan (Green Bay): How do the natural bodies of water around Pullman compare to your competitors in terms of training opportunities? And how much does WSU need to lean on man-made training facilities? |
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Jane LaRiviere: Hi Dan, as I mentioned before, I love the Snake River! However, this winter has been a bit rugged. We were delayed getting on the water by a couple of weeks in February due to weather and have continued to experience some level of frustration through March and April. In fact, it was still snowing last week. The most exciting development regarding our training facilities is that our Athletic Department has committed to building a 16-person moving water indoor rowing facility this summer. This will dramatically improve our ability to train consistently and it will be instrumental in speeding up the progress of our novice rowers. |
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| Janey and Liam (New Zealand): Hi Jane, the team is doing very well and seems to have a large number of younger athletes (which is exciting for the future), do you think this is an advantage or disadvantage when the competition within the PAC 10 conference is so close? Good luck this weekend, GO COUGS! |
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Jane LaRiviere: Hi Janey. Yep, things are going pretty well at the minute, but as you know we have to keep our nose to the grindstone. We are quite young but I would have to say that our freshmen and sophomores are showing a lot of maturity. Our upperclassmen have really been great role models and have embraced the young guys in all of their splendor. It's a reasonable cohesive group, so I am optimistic. |
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| Moderator: Okay, that's all the time we have. Jane, thank you once again for joining us today. |
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Jane LaRiviere: Thank you for having me. I appreciate the Cougar Nation. Come out and see us on the Snake this Saturday at 10:30. Go Cougs! |
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| Moderator: Thank you to everyone for your questions. Remember, to get all the information about WSU Athletics, go no further than wsucougars.com, the official website of Cougar Athletics. Please check back to wsucougars.com for future online chats. |
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