Rowing coach Andrew Derrick says often that it’s not a coxswain’s job to motivate, nor is it a coach’s. A functioning culture for Derrick, once he’s provided some initial guidance to his team, “looks like the team running itself in the right direction, because anything that is self-driven is more powerful than anything that is coach-driven.”
“I think something that I’ve really enjoyed is trying to get the chemistry amongst the team,” he added, “where on paper you shouldn’t be able to be in front of somebody, but the team does a great job capturing that X-factor and in fact is able to get in front of a team that should be faster.”
Derrick will aim to build a culture that can generate moments like that in his new capacity at KU. A three-time West Coast Conference coach of the year at Gonzaga, Derrick was announced as KU’s head coach on June 27 and met with local media at the KU Boathouse on Monday.
“We think inevitably if you start with the team, to the letter-winners, community, Kansas rowing can be a force,” athletic director Travis Goff said. “We really feel like certainly in the Midwest, (which) maybe people don’t necessarily associate (with) top-level rowing, that we can become one of those kinds of programs.”
Goff said one primary reason for making a change away from former coach Carrie Cook-Callen, whose contract KU declined to renew in May, was a desire to generate new energy in and around the program.
“It’s a really engaged, passionate group (of student-athletes),” Goff said, “and it’s a really engaged, passionate sport, and we’re just trying to pull that more out of them, and I think the differing vantage point, fresh energy from Coach Derrick will do exactly that.”
As for building excitement in the broader community, Derrick said that will rely on KU’s ability “to educate just how amazing the women are that move these boats really quickly, and make it known what goes into being a top-level rower.”
“I think the story of who the women are in the boat is going to galvanize a lot of people, and then success always helps as well,” he said. “So we hope to climb the ranks and get people excited about the program.”
KU finished third at the Big 12 Championship in its final season under Cook-Callen, its best mark since 2016, behind UCF and Tulsa.
“We’ve made some gains, we’ve made some strides, but we only have 16 programs,” Goff said. “Settling for rowing to be in the 40s or low 50s across the country didn’t match where we’re trying to go in this program broadly.”
Besides competitive performance and wanting to foster greater enthusiasm, Goff said the hiring of Derrick relied on factors such as culture, student-athlete experience and the “national narrative around Kansas rowing.” He wanted to introduce an outside perspective to the program; Cook-Callen had rowed at KU and served as an assistant before becoming head coach in 2017.
“(I’d) been super appreciative of what Coach Carrie and the previous group had done over a number of years, and sometimes it’s really a positive that it’s been kind of insular, that it’s been people kind of within the Kansas rowing family,” he said, “and then at other times you feel like you really need to go get somebody that is not totally unfamiliar with the place or the region, but who’s never maybe been there, who has a different vantage point.”
A graduate of Washington who is originally from Cincinnati, Derrick has ties to Kansas via a sister who lives in Kansas City and, improbably, the fact that he is the second cousin once removed of former Governor Kathleen Sebelius — he acknowledged he was “reaching” for that one.
Derrick has experienced success at several levels of collegiate athletics. After serving as an assistant coach at Oklahoma and UCF, Derrick helped Central Oklahoma earn its first-ever NCAA bid and then eventually finish No. 2 in the country, before growing another Division II program, Seattle Pacific, from four members to 35 and No. 4 in the country.
He said one thing that has remained consistent is the ability to develop high-level rowers even from those athletes who have not previously competed in the sport.
“If you’re already a really good athlete and you know how to be a great endurance athlete, we can teach you rowing in relatively quick time,” he said. “I think being able to capture that is kind of a cool aspect of our sport.”
The Big 12, which Derrick called “a phenomenal conference,” also features Kansas State, Old Dominion and West Virginia. By reaching a No. 15 national finish, UCF has stepped up to become “the gold standard” at the moment, Derrick said.
“That’s something that we aim to chase and hopefully catch,” he said. “At the same time, I think the conference is a place where we can do well and hopefully see some success in the near future.”
First, he has to meet his team. Other than crossing paths with a few rowers doing internships in the athletic department, Derrick hadn’t had the chance to interact with the squad prior to his meeting with reporters on Monday afternoon.
“I’ve already started filling up about three pages of legal pads with themes,” he said. “One of the big things is the team comes first. If you put the team first, that can’t help but be a really good thing for everybody involved. And the resources here are incredible, the people involved in the success, but also having the attitude of getting it done, nose to the grindstone, is what makes the difference.”
Henry Greenstein/Journal-World
