|
Rowing is the oldest intercollegiate sport in the United States. Despite this, rowers comprise only 2.2% of total college athletes. This may be in part because of the status of rowing as an amateur sport and because not all universities have access to suitable bodies of water. In the 2002-03 school year there were 1,712 male and 6,690 female collegiate rowers. This is compared to the 2,037 male and 2,049 female high school rowers who competed in the 2003-04 school year.
 Harvard men's eight at Henley, 2004 History
- 1852 - Rowing becomes the oldest intercollegiate sport with the advent of the Yale-Harvard Boat Race. Since 1864 this race has been held annually and since 1878 has been located on the Thames River in New London, Connecticut.
- 1875 - Wellesley College established the first women's rowing program.
- 1894 -The Intercollegiate Rowing Association was founded by Cornell, Columbia, a Pennsylvania and its first annual regatta was hosted on June 24, 1895. Today Navy and Syracuse are also members of the association. Each year these five schools choose who to invite to the regatta and are responsible for its organization along with the ECAC
- 1916 - Lightweight rowing was first introduced at the University of Pennsylvania.
- 1922 - The first Harvard-Yale-Princeton lightweight race is held on May 20.
- 1946 - The Eastern Athletic Rowing Conference is formed and the first Eastern Sprints is held for lightweights and heavyweights.
- 1972 - Congress passes Title_IX which causes huge growth in women's rowing.
- 1976 - The Yale women's rowing team strips in front of the Yale athletic director to demand equal opportunity under Title_IX. The incident makes national headlines.
- 1997 - The NCAA establishes a rowing championship for women.
A Year in Rowing
Rowing is one of the few collegiate sports where athletes practice year round and competes during both spring and fall. This culture of year round training is attributed to Harry Parker who became head coach of the Harvard heavyweight men's team in 1963. In addition many athletes train at various rowing clubs around the country during the summer.
Fall
In the United States fall is the season of head races which are typically between three and six kilometers. Because most collegiate rowers will have taken the summer off from training, these longer races are paradoxically easier on a rowers body and allow him or her to get back into shape before the spring season. The largest fall race is the Head of the Charles Regatta held in Boston, Massachusetts each October. This race includes rowers of all ages, abilities, and affiliations and features the best college crews in competition with Olympic level athletes from the US and other countries. The largest collegiate-only regatta is the Princeton Chase, typically in early November.
Winter
Because most colleges practice on lakes and rivers which are frozen during winter, training consists of rowing on the ergometers and in indoor rowing tanks, if the college is lucky enough to have them. Most colleges and universities send their fastest rowers to the CRASH-B Sprints in Boston. This 2,000 meter race is held on ergometers and features separate events for collegiate athletes. Typically most northern colleges have a winter training trip to a warmer state such as Florida or Georgia during either winter break or spring break to give students extra time on the water while the local rivers and lakes are frozen.
Spring
Spring is the primary season for college rowing, and the majority of the spring is spent in a series of dual races. These 2,000 meter races take place between two, or sometimes three, schools. Performing well in these dual races is the most important selection criteria for the various post season invitation rowing championships. If the crew is in a league, the dual race results will also typically be use in determining the team's lane for the league championship.
Leagues
Eastern Athletic Rowing Conference
The Eastern Athletic Rowing Conference, formed in 1946, is the oldest rowing league. Each year the EARC schools race at the Eastern Sprints regatta, which some argue is the most important race of the year since Yale and Harvard typically do not participate in the IRA regatta. This is disputed though, because other top schools on the west coast such as Cal Berkeley and the University of Washington are also highly competitive.
New England Rowing Conference
Eastern Colleges Athletic Conference/Metro League
The ECAC/Metro League is a women's rowing conference. The ECAC allows Division II and III schools and Division I clubs but not Division I varsity teams.
The participating schools are: Buffalo, Colgate, Delaware, Fordam, Marist, UMass, UNH, URI, Villanova, WVU
National Championships
For men, the national championship in rowing is organized by the Intercollegiate Rowing Association. The IRA was founded by Cornell, Columbia, and the UPenn in 1894 and its first annual regatta was hosted on June 24, 1895. Today Navy and Syracuse are also members of the association. Each year these five schools choose who to invite to the regatta and are responsible for its organization along with the ECAC. The IRA is the oldest rowing championship in the United States and is considered by those is the rowing world to be the most prestigious. If a crew wins the IRA regatta then there is a good chance that they will earn a chance to participate in the Henley Royal Regatta.
For women, the NCAA has hosted an invitational rowing championship every year since 1997. However, because of NCAA budget constraints only sixteen division I schools are invited to compete each year. Because the NCAA manages women's rowing directly, women are subject to several rules that do not apply to men.
Sources
|
