Stanford Recruit
There hasn't been much in the way of recruiting announcements this year, but a future Stanford rower did make it into the news this week. A story in the New Canaan News-Review on Maritime Rowing Club high school seniors notes that Krista Doersch, a Junior Nationals gold medalist in the light four, will attend Stanford next year. As I've written before, I think it's a good thing for Stanford to bring in rowers from the east. Not that there aren't plenty of good rowers in the west and midwest, but Stanford is a national school and it should recruit nationally. A quick look at this year's roster suggests that Coach Acosta has done a pretty good job - half of the twenty rowers listed are from the "east coast." I would guess that in the student body as a whole much less than 50% is from the east coast.
Technorati Tags: rowing
Technorati Tags: rowing
4 comments:
I agree it is smart for the Stanford lightweights to recruit nationally. Al Acosta and assistant coach Nicole Younts are building a terrific program. Kudos to them. - A former lightweight.
If a roster of 50% from the "east coast" garners a rating of "pretty good" what would coach Acosta need to do to get a "good" or "outstanding" rating?
Stanford is a West Coast school. Why should the rowing program have a different ratio of east/west then the school at large?
And considering the west coast produces some very strong lightweight junior rowers why go east?
Stanford is a West Coast school in location, but not in aspiration or reputation. Having sat through two admissions office presentations, one on the East Coast and one on the West, I know that the school is trying to broaden its geographic representation. In that regard it may be that Coach Acosta is leading the way and the admissions department should get some pointers from him.
The real point, though, is that any school should want to be able to recruit from the largest possible pool. If we split the country in half, some years the better rowers may be in the east, some years they may be in the west, and many years they're in both regions. Every school should want to be able to recruit from both regions every year, although few have the ability top do so. One can be totally agnostic about which section of the country produces the best lightweights and still want to have the whole country available to recruit from.
Since Stanford is a national school it should take students from all geographic regions. I personally know Krista Doersch, who has already lived in Califronia. She is a brilliant student and a nationally ranked rower. Stanford is lucky to have such a great addition. Congradulations to Coach Acosta for his spectacular choice!
Post a Comment