USRowing recently named Justin Moore as its new junior women’s national team coach. Currently in his 10th year at Williams College, Moore guided the Ephs to NCAA Division III team championships in 2002, 2006, and 2008. He was named the Collegiate Rowing Coaches Association Division III Coach of the Year in 2006 and 2008. Prior to arriving at Williams, Moore was the assistant heavyweight men’s coach at Yale University. Internationally, he served as an assistant coach for USRowing’s 1997 Under 23 National Team and coached at both the 1993 and 1995 U.S. Olympic Festivals.
 
USROWING: You’ve coached several past U.S. teams and development camps. How will your experiences benefit you in building a successful junior team this year?

MOORE: Having coached several U.S. National Team pre-elite and development camps will help in several ways. First, working with a broad variety of coaches, with differing views about how to best move a boat, has been an important part of my coaching education. In particular, during the summer of 1997, I had the opportunity to work under Mike Teti with Chris Clark, Paul Cook and Wieslaw Kujda. Chris headed the staff and did so in a way that maximized the contribution of each coach at the camp. I hope to do the same this summer. Second, in contrast to collegiate rowing, summer camps have significant time restraints relating to selection and the preparation period leading toward primary competition. This summer we will have less than two weeks to select the team, and four weeks after that to prepare them to attempt to win a gold medal at the junior world championships. I am better prepared to use this time well because of what I learned during those camps. Finally, I think these camps have helped me to better understand the type of athlete that can thrive in these environments, which should help during selection.

USROWING: What are your specific goals for the junior national team this summer? 

MOORE: Last year was the first year the U.S. junior women won the gold medal at the world championships. I believe we have the talent to compete for the gold again. My experience at Williams, winning back to back to back NCAA team titles, helps me to better understand how to approach an effort to repeat, rather than the effort to win the first time. Beyond the eight, we want to strengthen our performances in the smaller boats, with the goal of making the final and contending for medals with the four and the pair. We are still in the process of identifying our talent pool, but the system Steve Hargis has developed for the junior women gives us an outstanding chance to win medals in more than one boat class. We are also approaching the sculling component differently this year. It is no secret that we are behind most of the rowing world with our sculling development in the U.S.; however, there are some good coaches and athletes working to make sculling boats go fast. We are increasing participation and education for both the athletes and coaches. I believe we can put a quad on the water that can be competitive at the world championships. 
 
USROWING: You’ve had quite a bit of success in the last decade at Williams, including three Division III titles. What do you enjoy most about coaching at the collegiate level? Will your commitment to the junior national team conflict with your duties at Williams?

MOORE: Williams has been a great fit for me. I love the teaching that is required of me here.  The seasons are short and league rules prohibit me from teaching rowing more than I would like, but these limits also afford me the time to study and research aspects of rowing and training. I enjoy being a member of the USRowing Coaching Education Committee and presenting at the USRowing and CRCA annual conferences on aspects of physiology and training. Williams not only allows this, they encourage it. I also enjoy the other teaching that is a component of working at Williams. During the out-of-season period, I teach spinning, Nordic and telelmark skiing.  I'm excited to share this environment and knowledge of skiing with members of the women's senior team, who are coming to Williamstown to engage in a Nordic skiing cross-training camp in the final week of January. There is a Nordic skiing place 30 minutes north of Williamstown that is a winter wonderland. In recent years, Tom Terhaar and I have talked about how great it would be to give the women in Princeton a chance to get off the ergs and out into the fresh air. Tom has scheduled five to six hours of training a day in this camp through a mixture of training involving weights, swimming, erging and Nordic skiing. This is a low-cost way to give the women a break from the routine they have established at Princeton and to apply a different training stimulus that will hopefully be effective and fun. 

When Steve Hargis encouraged me to apply for this position, he talked about how the DIII rowing season dovetails perfectly with one's obligations to the junior team. There are several identification and education camps happening this winter, which I am able to attend because they are taking place when we are out of season. If we at Williams achieve our goal of competing at the NCAA DIII Rowing Championships this spring, we will finish on June 1, a full two weeks prior to the start of selection camp. Steve and I also believe that the teaching we do at the DIII level is very similar to the teaching required to be successful with the junior women.  Our DIII seasons are quite short, with seven weeks in the fall and nine on the water in the spring. We have to train, select and prepare our crews for championship racing in this limited period of time. This is very similar to what we will need to do this summer. Finally, because of the large novice component in DIII rowing - five of the eight rowers in the Williams boat that won the Head of the Charles this fall learned to row at Williams - I think I am well prepared to teach a lot of the "raw" talent that you see on the junior level. Overall, I can't think of a better fit.

USROWING: In 2006, you spent the academic year on sabbatical, working with the Canadian National Team and coaches Al Morrow, Mike Spracklen and Bent Jensen. What was that experience like for you, personally and professionally?

MOORE: It is nearly impossible for me to put into words how transformative that experience was to my coaching. Al Morrow, Mike Spracklen and Bent Jensen have all been FISA World Coaches of the Year, yet their styles are drastically different. To be able to work with and observe how each of them was able to get the most out of their athletes was an incredible experience. Additionally, the Canadians have a much smaller overall rowing population, one that continues to be based primarily in the clubs. This is strongly contrasted to the U.S. system, which is primarily driven on the scholastic side. I left Canada feeling that I had greatly increased my understanding of the sport and the skill set for teaching and mentoring athletes. 
 
USROWING: You are an avid athlete yourself - an accomplished masters rower, cyclist and triathlete, with five Ironmans under your belt. How has your philosophy of time management and dedication to training carried over to your coaching style?

MOORE: My collegiate and post-collegiate rowing career was extremely enjoyable, but very average in terms of the training required and our results. I believe I am better physiologically suited for longer events, hence the marathons, bike races and eventually Ironman-distance triathlons. (No, I am never going to row across the Atlantic). These athletic experiences have been very influential in my coaching. I consider every event an opportunity to learn something about athletic performance. I like to think of it as living on both sides of the megaphone. Sometimes I am instructing athletes; sometimes I am the athlete being instructed.  Most of all, I believe that I continue to compete and train because it brings me great joy. There will be a time when I can no longer row in the Head of the Charles or jump on my bike and ride 100 miles, but I can now and enjoy being able to do so. You see this with athletes who become injured. They tell you how much they hate training and erging, and then they get a rib stress fracture or develop back problems. Suddenly, all they can talk about is how they wish they could train and erg. Maybe it's because I have a very limited amount of time to train or compete that causes me to look forward to it so much. I hope this is something that comes through in my coaching.