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Questions for rowers
89ute
Member, Swaye's Wigwam Posts: 2,477 
1. Are scholarships offered in this sport?
2. What draws one to become a rower?
3. Do people row prior to college, such as high school, clubs or some kind of little league?
4. Other than rowing itself, how do you train?
5. How many miles per hour do you get the boat going?
6. Didn't even fucking know Pac-12 rowing was a thing, thought it was an east coast, Ivy League sport. So is it just UW, WSU, Cal and Stanford? (I looked at UW schedule)
7. Is it as demanding and time consuming as other collegiate sports?
8. What are the categories of competition?
9. Do people compete in the Olympics prior to college, during or after?
10. Proper use of the word rowing vs crew?
11. When did you row, were you on one of the national championship teams and include any bitchin stories.
12. Any post graduation benefits?
2. What draws one to become a rower?
3. Do people row prior to college, such as high school, clubs or some kind of little league?
4. Other than rowing itself, how do you train?
5. How many miles per hour do you get the boat going?
6. Didn't even fucking know Pac-12 rowing was a thing, thought it was an east coast, Ivy League sport. So is it just UW, WSU, Cal and Stanford? (I looked at UW schedule)
7. Is it as demanding and time consuming as other collegiate sports?
8. What are the categories of competition?
9. Do people compete in the Olympics prior to college, during or after?
10. Proper use of the word rowing vs crew?
11. When did you row, were you on one of the national championship teams and include any bitchin stories.
12. Any post graduation benefits?
Comments
yes
1. Are scholarships offered in this sport? Women's rowing at most Power 5 schools is NCAA governed and had about 16 full rides. Men's Rowing is not NCAA but is a Varsity Sport still at power programs like Washington or Cal. Most schools it's just a club team. There are about 8 to 10 full rides at UW but they are privately endowed and don't come out of the general AD budget. In my era, in 90's, there were no schollies for the guys and they only had just started for the women.
2. What draws one to become a rower? Sport of tall guys with huge motors not good enough for ball sports like hoops or football. I rode mt bikes in high school high up in the Wasatch Range which gave me a high pain tolerance and the requisite big motor.
3. Do people row prior to college, such as high school, clubs or some kind of little league? Now days at UW most everyone on the team rowed at a junior national team level in HS. In my era, half of the guys never rowed in HS. I didn't row in HS but was recruited in the sense that I was 6'6" and that helped me get in the school.
4. Other than rowing itself, how do you train? Little running, but mostly it's Concept II Rowing Ergometer which is the single best piece of all around fitness equipment ever invented. Seriously.
5. How many miles per hour do you get the boat going? Race is 2000 meters and typical time for elite men's team is 5 mins 40 sec do the math
6. Didn't even fucking know Pac-12 rowing was a thing, thought it was an east coast, Ivy League sport. So is it just UW, WSU, Cal and Stanford? (I looked at UW schedule) Only 4 men's school's in Pac have Varsity Rowing: Cal, UW, Stanford and OSU. Only UW and Cal are competitive at a Natty level. All of the schools have women's teams I think except for maybe AZ. Cal and UW have dominated the sport for the past 20 years with Harvard and Browne being in the mix from time to time as well. Really only 5 or 6 schools care enough about Men's Rowing to win a national title.
7. Is it as demanding and time consuming as other collegiate sports? Yes
8. What are the categories of competition? Every Freshman rows on the Frosh team and then there are races for Varsity 8, JV 8 and Varsity 4. Think of it being like the bench gets to race too since you can sub in your second string during the middle of a race, but you still need JV and Varsity 4 boats to develop a program.
9. Do people compete in the Olympics prior to college, during or after? Yes, most elite guys in college are on the U-23 national team and them from there some guys go onto the Olympics but usually after they graduate
10. Proper use of the word rowing vs crew? Either are appropriate, but it's either called the Men's Rowing Team or Men's Crew; you don't say Men's Crew Team as this is like saying Men's Team Team if that make sense.
11. When did you row, were you on one of the national championship teams and include any bitchin stories. I got 4th at Nationals my Frosh year and won 2 Pac Titles as well. Won a quasi national title (LOL) in the Varsity 4 in that we killed Cal at Pac 12's who then won the NT, they didn't take our boat.
12. Any post graduation benefits? Job networking I suppose - old boy's network in Seattle
1. The women's side for scholarships really took off as a way to offset a bunch of football scholarships. Kansas fucking State has a women's varsity rowing team.
3. On the East Coast the major areas for youth rowing are Boston/New England, Philly and DC Metro. Boston/Philly are largely private schools with lots of money. DC Metro has a very large rowing community full of public school competition with growing private school programs.
Where I grew up club/community rowing began around 7th grade. It's not really possible to start earlier than that as it would be too risky to send a bunch of 4th graders out on a lake. Get hit with a freak storm and they don't have the strength to row back to the dock and could easily capsize. Boats can flip in a hurry if you don't know what you're doing and you do not want to be trying to get 9 children with limited strength out of water and in to a launch before they get too tired and drown.
All of this is magnified depending on the body of water you are on. Row on a river and you are asking children to row against the current in one direction, which can be challenge for middle schoolers.
It's such a contrast to the era of youth sports now where most kids pick their sport before middle school. You can't actually start until middle school.
My sister actually coached for some Salt Lake City club rowing team, so such a thing exists, but she has since moved away.
4. Yep, the Concept II is something else. If only everyone who used them knew what they were doing. Sigh.
6. I would add Princeton, Yale and Wisconsin to the list (UW, Cal, Harvard, Brown) of teams that care.
8. There are also lightweight categories but UW doesn't compete in those. And sculling (two oars per rowing) is a thing. If you're talking masters rowing the categories go all over the place.
11. I sucked so no. lol. Do I get to claim I was on the same team as Olympic Gold medalists?
12. The older I get the more I appreciate the mental toughness, discipline and rigidity that rowing gave me. Especially since I never did anything in the military.
http://www.gohuskies.com/sports/2015/3/24/209981320.aspx
Getting a coxswain for masters or club rowing is really a pain.
Pretty much the entire team threw up after. The fall was also 6k race training instead of 2k so the it was long as shit.
I was pulling with the jv team because i told them in the beginning i was just here for the conditioning and had no intention of following up in the spring. I wouldn't have made the V8 anyways, those dudes were all 6'3-6'6 nerds who somehow could fucking fly.
One of my friends went to UW on that team (later transferred) but won a world title or some shit in an Erg competition. I'll always have respect for the sport.
@SpiritHorse is part white???
@Swaye!Q! True???
Amongst my friend group which is most ex- UW rowers, we have a saying: 2:00 min splits is the new 1:40. Most of us - me included - were sub 20:00 min guys on 6000 meters, so 1:39 or better, but these days we're all happy to just hold under 2:00 min splits for 30 minutes give or take.