There isn't just one way to win a race.

As a coxswain, there isn't just one way to call a piece, or to pull your boat together, or to surge toward the finish line, edging out the boat next to you. 

In this issue, we bring together the ends of the spectrum: from Spain to Arizona, from a Junior coxswain to an Olympic gold medalist. This issue runs the gamut of stories and technical expertise you can tuck away until race day.

Sandra Chu travels to Spain and relives her experience coxing the Trainera, and how the coxswains in these boats are as much the rudders as they are the rhythm and the race plan director. 

Mike Cipollone does a rare interview with his son, Pete Cipollone, who coxed the US Men's Eight to a gold medal in the 1992 Olympics. He asks his son the question every good parent will ask their child: what is it that makes you good at what you do? In this particular case, the question becomes "What makes a good coxswain?"

And then we give you a guide to Junior coxing–a Parent's Guide, specifically. This is a piece that will get your parents into the mix as much as they can be without riding alongside you in a launch or rowing in the boat with you.

Throughout it all, this issue is about goals: steering the straighest course possible, what calls to make mid-race, how to get stronger and faster without ever touching a microphone. We hit the ground once again, with the idea to highlight the things that are important to those of us who elect to be in that singular seat, the one place where everything is public and you can't hide, even if you try. 

There isn't any one thing that makes a coxswain good. It's the small movements, the hidden weaving of your fingers in the rudder wires to give you grip, the moment when you stop talking and let the sound of the course be your guide. These are the things that keep us awake at night, and these are the things that will carry us toward every finish line.

There isn't just one way to win.

Yours in the cockpit,

Jen Whiting
Editor