Mr Butler: Rowing Revolution
By Archer Jones
Mr Joshua Butler is a former international rower, having competed at Henley Royal Regatta – the most prestigious annual rowing event in the world – 12 times, winning the Wyfold challenge cup in 2017. Having been in the junior rowing coaching business since 2015, Mr Butler took up position as Head Rowing Coach at Hampton in 2023 and, since then, has overseen some of Hampton Rowing’s biggest achievements, such as the 1st VIII making it to the Henley semi-finals, and having 5 rowers compete for the GB rowing team on the international stage, all within his 2 years here.
Ever since his arrival, Mr Butler has been working to ‘transform’ the Boat Club, making the Hampton rowing program a ‘resurgent’ one, as it was recently described by commentators, and helping them to retake their place as one of the strongest in the country. Despite all this change, Mr Butler still believes there is more to come as he ties up his ‘loose ends’ around the Boat Club. I caught up with him to discuss this resurgence of the Hampton Boat Club and to understand his views on what makes a successful rowing program like Hampton’s.
Previously, Mr Butler had worked at Westminster School as their head rowing coach from 2015 to 2023. Given his rowing prowess and amazing track record as a coach, he understandably received job offers from all around the country upon leaving Westminster, yet he chose to come to Hampton. Having grown up rowing as a junior, Mr Butler remembers ‘the black and yellow oars’ and the ‘big noise around them.’ Evidently, he was aware of the success Hampton held at one point and so when he saw that the Boat Club ‘wasn’t doing as well as [he] thought it could’, he ‘thought [he] could add some value.’
Obviously, it hadn’t been doing terribly prior to his arrival, but what had Mr Butler wanted to do, and successfully changed as results would show, to place Hampton back at the top end of schoolboy rowing? He says it’s all to do with mentality and psychology. When he first arrived, he mentions having to force his rowers to keep training, having to ‘shove pairs out onto the lake’.
Whereas now, it seems he’s created a different atmosphere where weather conditions, difficult sessions, all type of things that could cause issues, are now seen ‘as a challenge rather than a threat’, where every session is ‘more like an experience rather than a result.’ Clearly, this mentality change is working for Mr Butler and his squad, who are now putting out pairs that regularly ‘beat world champions from previous years.’
Another change in psychology that Mr Butler wanted to input was developing a real ‘pack mentality’, in that rather than being a collection of single rowers, his squad functions more as a collective: bringing each other up and pushing each other further and further, instead of forcing the coach to whinge on about trying harder or rowing better.
His main way of doing this was by developing the ‘third eight mentality’, a principle that attracted him to Hampton originally. He believes that the third eight idea is the core of his boat club. He believes one of the most important things about running a successful boat club is creating a competitive spirit, in races but also for seats in the boat. For him, if the top end of the 3rd eight have the competitive desire and ‘want to be in the second eight, then it’s all running well.’ It seems that this competitive desire within a crew and within each individual rower is the key desire of his working philosophy.
Despite every boat club running differently with different personal issues, Mr Butler believes there is one thing that is essential for all clubs to function successfully. ‘The biggest thing is the backing from the boys. If you don’t have the backing from the boys, you could be the best coach in the world and still not have a truly functioning club.’ Once this has been established, ‘once the boys have bought in, it’s (the Boat Club) just running itself.’
Since Mr Butler’s coming to Hampton, the Hampton rowing squad has changed and grown in many ways: size, ability, atmosphere. With this, there is obvious evolving challenges, with each year bringing a new method of coaching to try and get the most out of rowers. Yet, Mr Butler says he prefers this. ‘If I don’t have something to do, a current goal to work towards, I struggle to kind of organise my life. I know that if my plate’s quite busy, I’m going to be alright.’ Mr Butler’s drive to stay busy is very evident when examining how he divides his time. Currently, he is working toward completing an Iron Man later this year, with much of his training happening late into the evening after working all day down at the Boat Club. His effort in all parts of his life is certainly commendable.
For many coaches, in all forms of sport, it seems reasonable to assume that their best moment, their coaching highlight, would be seeing the top end of their squad doing well and performing at very high standards. Yet, for Mr Butler, his is ‘seeing the third eight last year, watching them get their medals. Simply seeing how happy they are, how they are moving in a boat, their drive to train. Watching them do all the same training as the rest of the seniors, and trying to give them as much encouragement as possible. Then, watching them coming over with the medals that they truly earned. Yeah, that was pretty cool.’
Finally, Mr Butler explained how he’s personally adjusted as the Hampton rowing programme has changed and evolved. Given the change in size between last year’s squad, with close to 40 rowers, to this year’s with just over 20 seniors, there is bound to be some big changes to Mr Butler’s coaching style. He commented :‘I was really lucky last year with the squad size. In some of the previous jobs I’ve had there’s only been small squads so I’ve learned how to manage that size of group. While I did enjoy the larger squad, I find that in a smaller one things become a lot more laser-focused and the coaching can become more personal. Nobody’s forgotten in a smaller squad, whereas sometimes there is a risk that some people become, I don’t want to say numbers, but when you’ve only got 2 hours in a session, it becomes very hard to address every single rower.’
Yet, one thing he has loved about the rowing at Hampton since his arrival is just the school’s spirit. ‘I find that there are schools that row and then there’s rowing schools, and this is definitely a rowing school. I know there’s a huge alumni base who are super proud of the Boat Club, I know that the school is super proud of the rowing. I think that all round support for the Boat Club from every direction is what truly makes this rowing club something special and something that I’m happy to be a part of.’
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