“Physical limitations only exist if you’re willing to find them.” This is the philosophy of Mitch King, a coxswain for River City Rowing Club in Sacramento, CA. Every day he does countless things that doctors said were impossible when he was a kid diagnosed with Cerebral Palsy.

Mitch doesn’t call himself a disability advocate, doesn’t want to be an inspiration, and would rather folks didn’t try to tiptoe around his disability.

We talk balancing coxing with graduate school, collaborative coxing, finding tenths of seconds on the erg, and shattering expectations.

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QUICK LOOK

00:00 - Intro

02:10 - The Huddle

04:38 - Rate Your rowing week: 1-10… quickly turns into swapping coxing stories

10:05  - The Hot Seat Q&A

15:44 - Coxing origin story

19:24 - How rowing helps student athletes with discipline and time management

21:22 - Erging with the team began as a means to understand what his athletes were going through, and became an outlet for moving beyond internal and external limitations of his Cerebral Palsy

29:18 - Collaborative coxing: getting to know your rowers, giving and receiving feedback, sharing race strategies, leaving your worries on shore

35:08 - Diagnosed with Cerebral Palsy as a kid, Mitch wants strangers to assume he, and other people with disabilities, are competent and capable

38:50 - It’s okay to ask, and it’s okay to say “disabled”

43:21 - Being an inadvertent ambassadors for people with disabilities, how we’ve been socialized to understand disability, and  rebutting the notion of being an inspiration

49:03 - Mitch’s rowing pitch

50:00 - What’s next and hoping to make it to Head of the Charles

49:56 - Outro

54:48 - Outtakes

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To get links to the people, clubs, and events mentioned in this episode, check out the show notes on our website.

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This episode was made possible in part by Barb, Breakwater Realty, Concept2, EB5 Investors, RowSource, and our Patrons.