Coxswains Only Challenge

Camp purchases are fully refundable minus transaction fees until March 1 for summer camps.

• We strongly recommend you purchase travel protection with cancel for any reason coverage.
  • We offer these plans from Travel Insured International during the check-out process for our four and five day camps and during final balance payment for deposit-based multi-week camps.
  • Learn more about travel protection here
    
    
• If you withdraw after the above dates, there are no refunds for any reason whatsoever (including, but not limited to: voluntary withdraw, illness or injury, summer school, security concerns or other reasons).
  
  
• If your camper leaves camp after it starts, there are no refunds for any reason whatsoever, including but not limited to: voluntary withdrawal, illness or injury, dismissal by Sparks (due to discipline, behavior, lack of fitness or motivation, etc.) security concerns, or any other reason. Any costs incurred by Sparks as a result of an early departure are the sole responsibility of the parents.
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• In the unlikely case a camp does not proceed, we'll work to notify you by March 1. You'll be offered a different program or a refund. In some cases, we may extend the 'go, no-go' date. We recommend buying your flight after March 1 or later, if we advise.

We offer discounted prices for "early bird" registrations prior to January 31.

Regarding Scholarships:

Please see this link to our NCAA Compliance webpage.

We employ safety and risk management practices from the adventure education industry, where some risk is inherent but must be quantified insofar as educational value. These practices are initially employed in program design and we work hard to train operations staff to seek to maintain an awareness of specific risks at all times. No outdoors programming can guarantee safety, however professional management of risk is key to the art of providing consistently excellent experiential education programming.

Please also see our essential eligibility criteria here.  

Camp forms are issued at least six weeks prior to camp on our site via your dashboard.

We are the only camp in rowing with a full-time staff that has academic and professional backgrounds in experiential education. We also have a summer operations staff (many are returners that teach during the school year) who buy into the idea of personal growth at camp not just for campers - but for themselves as well.

The result is a culture sincerely committed to the power of rowing as a personally transformative experience built on vulnerability, thoughtfulness, responsibility, and initiative. This does not mean other camps are relatively inferior; in fact, we feel such a perspective is not helpful. The camp needs to fit the athlete. Our focus is on utilizing rowing to create self-awareness for our camp community.

Our coxswain camps are built off a curriculum that is the culmination of a decade of work in coxswain education on the part of three Olympic coxswains and a number of elite coxswains and coaches from multiple top rowing countries' national team programs. We teach coxswains how to think about coxing and approach it at camp such that when they leave, they leave with the ability to continually improve. You can find out more about our coxswain curriculum by watching the camp video above or visiting our coxswain curriculum page.

Campers at our Coxswains Only programs typically have at least a full year of coxing experience and up to four years' of coxing experience. We have also regularly had collegiate Division III, II, and I coxswains attend Coxswains Only as campers.

That said, Covid has made it a weird year for coxswains - and as a result we're happy to take those with a season of experience.

The program is intensive in that the schedule is jam-packed over the time the athletes are with us at camp.  As such, coxswains must be engaged with the sport and seeking an intensive, immersive experience that will contribute to improving their skills.

Our Coxswains Only camp coaches are generally coxswains trained in our curriculum with prior experience at Sparks camps. This includes multiple Division I coaches who are former coxswains and Olympic level coxswains - including our eLearning staff.

We take quality of educators extremely seriously at Sparks and know it directly impacts the word of mouth that enables us to continue to run camps. The primary thing we care about when hiring coxswain educators is their educational talent and fluency in teaching the meta-skills necessary to enable coxswain to continue to improve awareness, steering, commands, and organization after camp. As a result, the majority of our coaches come from highly esteemed backgrounds with impressive resumes, but educational talent is a different quantity than national team experience - and as such, this is not the case for all.

If you'd like to know more about who specifically is coaching at OKC this year, give us a ring via the chat box in the bottom right corner and we'll tell you.

You will fill out a travel form after registration that enables our staff to make sure your camper arrives and departs camp safely.

The majority of our coxswain campers fly in for this camp, and we do run an airport shuttle from Will Rogers Airport (OKC) on the first and last day camp. Campers are advised to arrive and depart while leaving 2 hours of margin between arrival and the end of registration and departure and the end of camp.

• Registration is 1 PM - 3 PM on the first day of camp
• Camp ends at 12 PM on the last day

Unfortunately, we cannot support unaccompanied minor travel at this camp. Please contact us and we are happy to work with you to find alternative options. Southwest Airlines does not require UM status for 14 year olds and serves OKC.

Registration on the first day is 1 PM - 3 PM

Camp ends on the last day at 12 PM; we recommend allowing two hours prior to scheduling flights.

Times for Day Campers generally run from 8 AM to 8 PM

Once registered for camp, more specific information is available on the dashboard, within the FAQ for campers link  - though we're always available in the lower right hand corner for questions.

Per NCAA rules, recruiting or speaking in specifics about institutional recruiting policies is not a part of camp. Campers may speak about the overall process and ask coaches' opinions on specific steps of their journey (i.e. coxing development), but may not inquire as to their possibilities at the coaches' programs during camp.

Coaches all have their own style of pedagogy. Part of camp should be to experience the differences in those styles such that campers may better understand the way coaching staff manage and connect with the sport for their own benefit.

Sparks runs a recruiting webinar specific to coxswains each Fall for camp alumni with seasoned rowing recruiting and academic college counseling experts for parents and students.

Campers in Oklahoma City immediately understand why we have camp there once we arrive. They are housed three to a suite at the Staybridge Suites Oklahoma City and are able to walk from there to the camp facilities in Oklahoma City's Boathouse District.

At Sparks camps, we have two staffs: a coaching staff and an operations staff. Our operations staff is responsible for the experiential education and pastoral care at camp. It is made up secondary school educators (Program Leaders) and current student-athlete alumni (Associate Program Leaders) who are led by an experienced Program Director. Operations staff chose to work at Sparks camps both as an active exercise in educational leadership development and to discuss rowing with the coaching staff.

The staff lives amongst the student athletes, and has oversight 24 hours a day. Unhealthy substances and/or behaviors are strictly prohibited.

Given our desire to meet and mix in our short time together, Sparks only permits an extremely limited number of "buddy pairs" who register together between October 15 and January 31 to submit roommate requests.

Otherwise, we do not honor rooming requests unless there's a medical issue presented via a note on letterhead from a licensed medical provider. We find requests encourage cliques and don't allow camp to meet each camper on an individual level: a level of educational quality we're serious about providing in our short time together. With so many groups of campers coming from the same schools or clubs - some of which having very different rowing situations than others -  the requests unintentionally disable the fun and growth of meeting new people and gaining new perspective. That said, there's plenty of time to hang out and experience camp with one's friends (the ones from before camp) during the day at camp.

Certainly!

If you have an logistical or informational question, feel free to use the live chat in the bottom right corner. We can generally turn these around quickly.

If you want to speak with a real, live human - that's also possible! We just ask you schedule a call with us (click here) given we're a very small office.