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College Rowing Spotlight: University of Washington

In early June on the Cooper River (Cherry Hill, NJ), the University of Washington Husky men’s rowing team captured the national team trophy, edging out California and Wisconsin. In achieving this victory, the University of Washington men captured three gold medals (second varsity, varsity four and freshman four) and two silvers (varsity eight and freshman eight). The men’s program is directed by Washington Lee alumn coach Michael Callahan.

In May on Lake Natoma (Rancho Cordova, CA), the women’s program won the second place team trophy, losing out to Brown (profiled last edition). The women’s varsity four received a gold medal and the second eight a bronze. The varsity eight placed fifth in the grand final. Yorktown graduate Heather Young was the seven seat for the varsity eight.

Both Men's and Women's programs row out of the Conibear Shellhouse on Lake Washington. The Conibear Shellhouse has served as the home for Husky crew since it was constructed in 1949. While the facility has had a number of facelifts over the years, it has recently had a complete makeover, increasing space by 75 percent to over 47,000 square feet.

The University of Washington was founded in 1861 and is one of the preeminent research universities in the world. It is located in the great city of Seattle and has a student population of 26,000.

More information on the University of Washington can be found here, and more on both the women’s and men’s rowing programs can be found here.

Rowing in the News: USRowing Announces 2008 Olympic Games Roster

The 2008 US Olympic Team roster for rowing has been set. Thirteen crews will represent the United States at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, China.

The full press release can be found here

Fall Rowing

The following article by Steve Cauffman is reprinted from the most recent Yorktown Crew Review.

Fall. The air is crisp, the leaves are turning color, and crews are lining up for the fall racing season! Fall regattas feature a head race (time trial) format and are contested on longer courses, generally 5000 m in length. Crews start one at a time, about 10 seconds apart, building to full pressure before crossing the starting line and beginning their race. Overtaking another crew on the course is a huge motivator for a crew. Similarly, being overtaken can be demoralizing.

Many courses feature turns that require use of the rudder and often differential oar pressure to negotiate. Some courses have obstacles such as bridges that add to the challenge. The Head of the Charles, in addition to turns, has several bridges whose arches are wide enough for only one shell to pass through at a time. The turns and obstacles make head races challenging for coxswains, as does keeping a crew motivated to row strong for the 16-18 minutes it takes to complete a race.

Continued here

2K Top 5 Playlist

Each week, we're going to profile a different rower's top 5 favorite tunes to crank out their best 2K. This week we hear from Caitlin Wiederkehr (Class of 2010)

	Song	Artist
1	Revenga	System of a Down
2	Welcome to the Jungle	Guns N' Roses
3	Rockafeller Skank	Fatboy Slim (shown)
4	Blue Daba Dee	Eiffel 65
5	Jesus of Suburbia	Green Day

Attention Seniors (Class of 2009)

US Rowing has just made available the nomination form for their 2008/09 Scholastic Honor Roll.  To be considered, all of the following criteria must be met:

• Must be in 12th grade (Class of 2009)
• Minimum of 3.5 grade point average to be calculated from English, match, social studies, science and foreign language courses only. Calculated from the first semester of 9th grade through and including 11th grade year.
• Minimum single test composite on SAT of 1600 (out of 2400) or ACT of 24
• Active rowing participant for at least one year. Athletes must have achieved success in competitive rowing on the league or regional level, or above.
• Must provide official transcript and a photocopy of SAT/ACT
• Nomination form must be signed by coach and principal or high school counselor
• Must be a current member of USRowing

Please see the form for all the details. The form is due to USRowing by September 1, 2008.

Earlier this week, Yorktown High School selected Andy Bacas as head coach of the YHS crew program. Andy brings a wealth of rowing experience to the position including rowing for Washington Lee High School and for Yale. Over the last two years, Andy has produced several highly successful crews as coach of Yorktown's men's varsity program, winning silver in both the 1V and 2V at the 2007 Virginia State Championship and again capturing silver in the 1V at the 2008 Virginia State Championship. In addition to being head coach of the overall program, Andy will continue in his role as men's varsity head coach. Please join us in congratulating Andy on his new position.

Welcome to the first edition of the YHS Summer of Rowing 2008, a veritable smorgasbord of rowing tidbits from around the globe. Please let us know if you have any ideas to include in a future edition.

College Rowing Spotlight: Brown University

Earlier this month, Brown University's Women's Crew defended it's NCAA Women's Rowing Division 1 Championship title by rowing to victory at the 2008 NCAA Women's Rowing Championship on Lake Natoma, near Sacramento, California. This is the sixth NCAA team rowing title for the Brown University Women.

The Brown University Men's Rowing program is consistently ranked in the top 20 nationally.

Both Men's and Women's programs row out of the Hunter S. Marston Boathouse on the Seekonk River. The Marston Boathouse (pictured) has storage space for 18 eights, 7 fours, 5 pairs and 2 singles. The boathouse also houses a 16-seat indoor rowing tank, seperate weight rooms for men and women, and 34 ergs for each team.

Brown University, the seventh oldest university in America, was established in 1764 and is located in the College Hill residential section of Providence, Rhode Island. Boston is less than an hour away by train or car, and the state's major airport is a 15-minute taxi or shuttle ride from campus.

More information on Brown Univeristy can be found here, more on the women's program can be found here and more on the men's program can be found here.

Rowing in the News: Chinese Rowing

The Chinese are spending millions in an effort to prove their country is a world power in sports. On June 1, 2008, The New York Times had a front-page article describing the Chinese Olympic rowing efforts.

The full article can be found here

A slide show of the Chinese National rowing program can be found here

Coastal Rowing

If you think that rowing on the Occoquan is exciting, then you should try coastal rowing. Big in Europe, coastal rowing takes place along the sea coast and out into the sea. A competition without waves is, for coastal rowers, a complete bore. Knowing how to handle a coastal rowing boat isn't the only skill required by a coastal rower. They must also be aware of tides and currents, learn about a course's topography and know what to do in the midst of maritime traffic and in case of bad weather. Coastal rowers always have life jackets on hand.

This year's coastal rowing championships will be held in San Remo, Italy (details here).

Volunteer Chairs Needed:  Before school ends and everyone completely forgets about Crew, please take some time to consider chairing one of the following positions which need to be filled before September. Excellent opportunity for rising Sophomore and Junior parents and a great way to earn Points!: 

Many of our junior women are readily recruitable based on grades, height and rowing experience. Every school with a big Division I football program will have a big Division I women’s rowing program. ACC, SEC, Big 10, PAC-10 you name it. June is the time to have all the contact data in front of the schools so our kids can get on the lists for inclusion in fall sponsored visits. All the football schools offer real athletic scholarships for women’s crew.

The Ivies don’t, but can give preferential admission. Any of our women who are even close to six feet tall will be of great interest. The Ivies are interested in lightweight candidates even if under 5’7”.
All the parents and kids need to do is pick the school, go to Google, enter name of school, click, and go the college website. Click on Athletics, then click on “Crew-Women’s” or whatever they have. They will always have a recruit questionnaire to fill out. All the student need do is submit their data and the school will follow up with them. It is that simple.

Patrick O’Malley got campus visit offers from 12 or so schools. You can accept only 5. He went on 4, to Harvard, Princeton, Yale and Dartmouth. He got essentially offers of admission from all four. Patrick had outstanding SATs and grades and was of great interest because he had a good personality and good academics.

This Excel spreadsheet (available evening of 6/16/08) of men’s rowing colleges developed last winter shows web site addresses for people to use as a start in identifying schools. All of these schools will have women’s rowing, too. Over the coming few months, we will update this spreadsheet to include women’s programs.