Michael and Jan Rosman Continue to Lead Parati Rowers

THE WOODLANDS, TX -- Meet Michael and Jan Rosman. They have been married since 1986 after they met in college at Northwestern University. They have two grown daughters and run a Registered Investment Advisory, Rosman Asset Management. Michael was an athlete on the NU Wrestling Team, while Jan studied Communications. Michael discovered rowing after moving to The Woodlands in 2006 from Minnesota. He loved the low impact nature and saw that rowing, like wrestling, was an endurance sport where the critical variable was the conditioning of the athlete.

Back in 2012, when a dispute arose between adult rowers and high school athletes at The Rowing Club of the Woodlands, where Michael was a volunteer assistant coach, the Rosmans stood up with a few parents to form Parati Competitive Rowing. Michael and Jan have been volunteering with Parati ever since. Michael stepped into the breach to coach Parati and its 40 athletes. He felt he owed it to today’s kids to show a path to success that has been so formative to him and his career, both in athletics and business. He volunteered to coach the team because he wanted provide opportunities for a new generation.

“Coaching is a real labor of love. That first year we didn’t have a boat house or anywhere to store our equipment, so we used our home and yard in East Shore. The house took quite a lot of abuse, but it was so worth it.” Coaching high school, not unlike parenting, is often an exercise in delayed gratification, but being an instrumental part of a kid’s life is its own reward. “We are a rowing team, and a very good rowing team, we constantly have coaches contacting us wanting to recruit our athletes to row in college, but rowing is a very grueling sport, it isn’t difficult, but it is very physically tough.” Parati trains six days a week, 48 weeks a year. And the most successful Parati athletes do more, much more. Success is a culture at Parati, but rowing isn’t the only thing going on.

“Rowing is magical, but it is only a vehicle”, the Rosmans say, “our goal has never been to make professional rowers, we want to make professional humans. People with determination who are not afraid to advocate for themselves, whose word is their bond; people who strive to lift their teammates up, people who will be good husbands, wives, parents, who, as our motto says, are Paratus Enim Vitae, Ready for Life.” To date they have graduated future engineers, United States Naval officers, doctors, lawyers, investment professionals, teachers, coaches, finance professionals, a world champion rower who hopes to be in the Olympics in 2028, and Parati’s current assistant coach, Jacob Castro. “It’s not about me. I want to instill in the kids that anything can be done with hard work. Listen, when you’re down by half a boat at the 250-meter mark (a typical sprint race is 2,000 meters), and your body is screaming to quit, you reach down deep to gut it out to the finish. Is it really any different in life?, as a parent?, in most professions? We strive to make the kids comfortable in an uncomfortable positions, it works. It is great seeing the kids accomplish their dreams and to feel like we helped.”

For much of the last 12 years, Coach Mike has been alone in the trenches with the athletes. Running daily practices while Jan handles much of the team’s administrative tasks, but since the fall of 2022, Jacob Castro, one of Coach Mike’s athletes, has returned to the team to impart some wisdom to the next generation. “Jacob has been great for the kids. They love to see someone closer to their age who has had a lot of success in the program, come back and coach,” says Coach Mike. “He really cares about the kids, and it shows and he knows how to have success and I find myself helping him as he does a lot of the heavy lifting with the kids.”

The Rosman’s have made many sacrifices to keep up with Parati. Vacations, time with family, and time visiting clients have all suffered so the team could keep training and compete at the highest level. The current young team, just two seniors will graduate in 2024, is working to build the endurance to do what Parati does so well, prepare to win. In early June, nineteen Parati athletes head to Sarasota Florida for USRowing’s Youth National Regatta. Training is fierce, as is anticipation, stay tuned for the results.

If you have the drive to be successful, check out Parati at www.ParatrowingTheWoodlands.org, or call 832-510-6288. Parati is hosting three camps sessions this summer for rising 7th graders and up. Learn more on their website.