Crew The rower's handbook

This handbook is designed for the novice and beginning rower. Despite journalist Roberts's point that rowing has enjoyed great growth over the past two decades, it is a sport-both for men and for women-with limited participation and with little spectator attraction compared to football, NASCAR, baseball, basketball, and hockey. Roberts cites the rules of U.S. Rowing, which the majority of scholastic, collegiate, and club crews follow; provides a number of dos and don'ts; describes the elementary vocabulary of rowing (including chapter-ending glossaries); and chronicles the sport. She offers a definition of crew (which refers to the group of rowers assembled to propel a racing boat through the water using oars); a reminder that rowers row, they do not paddle; an explanation that an oarsman faces backward to go forward; descriptions of rowing equipment; and coverage of training techniques. Many photographs are provided by Roberts's husband, Modra, a veteran Sports Illustrated photographer. Crew is an informative, albeit elementary, book and is recommended for sports collections.-Tim Delaney, SUNY at Oswego (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.