How Many Lightweight Programs Are There? (cont.)

(Continuing with my last two posts, below)
So, what conclusions might we walk out on a limb and draw from this data?

- Women'’s lightweight rowing is strong (stronger than I might have thought) and may actually be growing. The boats that win Sprints and IRAs are at the top of a very big heap, a much bigger heap than most of the rowing world believes.

- If more regattas offered lightweight events, it seems as though there would be more consistent lightweight crews. If this is true, it wouldn'’t happen at once, because teams would have to believe that the events will be there on a regular basis before they would be willing to actually commit to them.

- These numbers, and experience with Dad Vail and ECAC level crews, suggests that the number of lightweight rowers is large, even though the big scholarship programs don'’t have lightweights at all.

- Low lightweight entries at a regatta like the Eastern Sprints reflects few Eastern Sprints schools with lightweights, not few schools throughout the country.

- The relatively large gap in speed from the top lightweight eights to the next group is a result of focus, not lack of rowers. Those schools that are beginning to focus on lightweights are moving into the top ranks. For examples look at Georgetown and Stanford. Now that URI and UCF are beginning to focus there, we'’ll see how they progress.