“Jesse’s trained as a teacher,” Buchholz said. “He’s a very clear teacher, and that really complements the strengths of our other coaches. We’re have done more work as a team at this point in the fall than I have seen before.”

One of the central challenges of coaching crew is familiar to any teacher—balancing collective success with individual improvement. Just as it’s inappropriate to focus on one person alone, it’s inappropriate to ignore individual differences.

Yet the most public challenge is still to come. Every year the Head of the Charles draws masses of strangers—each excited to watch solid competition and, presumably, each ready to judge any shortcomings.

Already Foglia feels a sense of gravity.

“When you walk into the boathouse here, you realize that you’re a very small piece of something that is incredibly large and historic,” Foglia said. “You feel privileged to just be a small part of it. From my standpoint, coming here there’s definitely a much clearer expectation of excellence.”

Off the water, this fact translates to a high level of team bonding. And as Buchholz made clear, Foglia has become an appreciated part of the program.

“We absolutely love Jesse,” Buchholz said. “We were really pleasantly surprised how seamless Jesse has slotted into our program and adopted our culture.”

—Staff writer Jamie Chen can be reached at jamiechen@college.harvard.edu.