Culture of personal responsibility

By: Justin Lafleur, Lehigh Sports Media Relations

In the sport of rowing, intangibles are arguably just as important as erg scores. Everyone in the boat needs to be on the same page, working towards the same goal. Without teamwork and trust, all the individuals wouldn't equal the sum of its parts.

The Lehigh rowing team understands the importance of intangibles. There was more behind the 2015-16 Mountain Hawks than the results on a sheet of paper.

"We featured a smaller roster, so everyone came together and was on the same page in terms of goals," said Lehigh head coach Brian Conley. "The team created a core to start bringing about a culture of taking on personal responsibility towards the success of the overall team. Because of that camaraderie, the team was a lot closer, which allowed them to have some pretty good results, both in the fall and spring."

The season saw the Mountain Hawks bring home medals at the Murphy Cup and Kerr Cup. The women swept Lafayette and Loyola, and beat Patriot League foe Holy Cross in late April for the first time since 2007.

The success all stemmed back to the team taking personal responsibility for the collective team success, which ties into the Lehigh Athletics' Better Me, Better We initiative.

Personal responsibility is tested most when the going gets tough. Over spring break, the coaching staff challenged the team with a 2,000 meter test. That's when an upperclassman stepped up.

"We knew the team was tired and we knew it was going to be a big struggle," said Conley. "With the test coming up, people started to get a little bit negative, saying I'm not going to do well, and starting to go down that route. One of our student-athletes, Elise Fredericks, stepped up and said look, we need to stop being negative and we need to be positive about this in order to do well. The team did well and Elise set a new personal record."

Spring break is when the staff made its selections for boats. The coaching staff heard about Fredericks' actions and was impressed.

"Elise was on the cusp of making the Varsity Eight and we told Elise, you just made the Varsity Eight," said Conley. "That's the mentality we want and that's what's going to help us win."

Fredericks' mentality doesn't only help the individual rower, but more importantly, the team as a whole. Everyone's success is intertwined, so trust is a must.

"Rowing is a sport where you must be perfectly synchronized with your teammates," said Conley. "You're putting your success in your teammates' hands as much as they're putting it in your hands. If one person is off in a boat, the boat goes significantly slower. Everybody needs to be so perfectly in tune with each other to make the boat go as fast as possible."

The Mountain Hawks went through a pre-race ritual which helped foster team unity and a sense of synchronization in the boat.

"Before each race, every women's boat would do something we like to call 'send it back,'" said Fredricks, a rising junior. "Each person turns to the person behind them and says I've got your back, then the other person responds by saying I've got your front.

"I love this tradition because it's a way to reinforce this idea of trust in one another and our capabilities as a team. When I say those words to my teammates, I mean them with every fiber of my being. I wholeheartedly trust every woman I am racing with, and knowing that they trust me the same way is the most rewarding feeling I have ever experienced."

The student-athletes trust their teammates because everyone in the program is bought in, taking personal responsibility for their actions. Knowing a teammate is fully invested in the program's success breeds trust.

"Early in the season, we talked about first trusting ourselves, then we revisited it in January with the help of some other facilitators like (Director for Leadership Development) Julie Ammary and (Sports Psychologist) Cristy Dominguez," said Conley. "We needed to trust ourselves as individuals first so we could do the work, which allowed everyone to start trusting each other."

Personal responsibility goes beyond competing physically. The sport of rowing can arguably be more grueling mentally.

"Everyone kept a journal to track their nutrition, their training and their mental preparation towards practice each day," said Conley. "That way, by the time they got to competition in the spring, they knew what was going to be their biggest distraction on race day and how to channel it in the best ways."

There will be plenty of times when an individual may fall short of an erg goal, or the team falls short in a respective race. What's important is reaction to that adversity.

"We took the approach that we can't fix the past," said Conley. "All we can do is fix the future and fix what we're doing right here, right now. If we came up short on any given weekend, in the moment, we would identify what went wrong, where we need to improve and what went well so we can continue. If we identify that it should take us three weeks to fix an issue that we discovered while racing, we are committed to making sure that we fix it within those three weeks."

The commitment was taken to an entirely new level in 2015-16. The season featured a togetherness that makes Conley excited for the future.

"Everyone wants to see results, but you may not necessarily see them on the day you're expecting them. The reward could happen in three weeks," said Conley. "The patience comes in terms of believing that it's going to happen. Our teams started to see the results, little by little.

"For me as a coach, one of the biggest things I learned this year was having patience to let them develop on their own, more so than driving them to develop. I've found that when they develop on their own, they develop faster because they're taking on that person responsibility."

Conley let a core group of student-athletes lead the way.

"When a couple student-athletes started finding success, more people wanted to buy in," he said. "Starting off, having four or five athletes really believe in the process and then at the end of the year, having the whole team believe in the process, is a testament to the team finding a path towards someday winning a championship."

It can be rewarding when all the hard work leads to tangible success. Two moments especially stood out to Conley. The first was with the Men's Varsity Four winning the Kerr Cup.

"When they were challenged by other crews in prior races, they started doing things as individuals within the boat," said Conley. "When they got challenged pretty hard in the Kerr Cup, they stayed composed and waited for the moment to move together. When the time came, they did it together and found success and a greater confidence in themselves, and each other."

Another example came in the Women's Patriot League Championships.

"In my six years, we've never seen four boats across with 500 meters to go in the heat of the Varsity Eight against the top-ranked teams in our league," said Conley. "That in itself gave us an understanding that the team is headed in the right direction. Later on in the Second Varsity Eight Petite Finals, there were several lead changes with Holy Cross, and it was a battle the whole way down. At no point did our boat give up. They just got beat by a better team that day, but they came off the water knowing it was the best race they could have ever put together, and that's what matters."

Yes, tangible results are nice, and the Mountain Hawks had plenty of them in 2015-16. But even more important is the process. The team has bought into the process and because of that, the foundation is in place for continued improvement next season.

"In order for us to be successful in 2016-17, our team will come back in the fall in shape, set new and higher goals and get to work making them a reality," said Conley. "I expect our upperclassmen to continue the culture and legacy that was started last year by taking ownership of our academics, our training and our pursuit towards making this young team into what will eventually become a championship team one day."

The upperclassmen are continuing to hold the team to high standards, even in the summer months.

"It's difficult to stay motivated over the summer, but we've developed a collaborative network within the team where we motivate each other through social media outlets in order to stay focused on our goals," said Fredericks. "We have created a Google Document to log our training hours and workouts in an attempt to hold everyone accountable for their fitness, despite the physical distance separating us all. We frequently leave motivating comments on each other's personal training pages as means of encouragement for any and all training accomplishments."

In the process, the Mountain Hawks are keeping the momentum that they developed from this past season.

"When we arrive back on campus in the fall, we want to be stronger and fitter than ever," said Fredericks. "I cannot wait to see what this program can accomplish in years to come, and I am honored and proud to have been a part of the extraordinary team transformation this past season."

"Being here as the team is starting to take off is really exciting," said rising senior Madeleine Wescott. "It's bittersweet that this momentum is starting to really build at the end of my four years, but I am really confident that we have the talent and leadership among the underclassmen to keep building this team into a championship program."

Seeing what's unfolding behind his eyes is rewarding for Conley. He's learning from his student-athletes just as much as they're learning from him.

"I'm having a lot of fun coaching this team and seeing their improvement," said Conley. "In turn, they're making me a better coach. My goal is to help them develop into adults who can think critically, make the hard and right choices and set dreams that they each have, and believe they can attain them. I see it in them and I believe they are all very capable of achieving a great deal more."

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Completed Event: Women's Rowing versus Patriot League Championships on May 15, 2026 , , 8th of 9

Completed Event: Women's Rowing at Colgate on May 2, 2026 ,

Completed Event: Women's Rowing at Lake Wheeler Invite on April 24, 2026 ,

Completed Event: Women's Rowing at Knecht Cup on April 11, 2026 ,

Completed Event: Women's Rowing at Drexel and George Washington on April 4, 2026 ,

Completed Event: Women's Rowing versus Mountain Hawk Invite on March 28, 2026 ,

Completed Event: Women's Rowing versus Class Day Regatta on November 1, 2025 ,

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