Rowing News Ignores Lightweights - Again

Yesterday's post put me in a belligerent mood, so before I get back to this weekend's races, I may as well air it all out. In it's latest issue, Rowing News (the establishment mouthpiece) published an article discussing the greatest eights of all time. A difficult proposition to be sure, and several eights are discussed. Several, that is, for each category - heavyweight men, heavyweight women, lightweight men, and, and, and.... Yes, that's right, it ignores lightweight women. Why cover three categories and not the fourth? Are there no great lightweight women's eights? Hard to believe given that we've seen three incredibly dominant programs - Radcliffe in the 90s (and earlier), Princeton in the early 2000s, and Wisconsin now (plus a surprising Villanova in 1998). No boat in there was great? Given that the great boats were only compared against others in their category, by definition there MUST be a great lightweight women's eight. Or, could it be that Rowing News considers the category to be so weak that there is no boat worthy? There is a promised second part, that will cover junior crews! Junior crews are worthy but collegiate lightweight women are not!? As always, Rowing News refuses to publish letters from me (sorry, I'm not going away), so if this bothers you as much as it does me, please write a letter to the editor. You can reach him at letters@rowingnews.com.

Rowing News also has a story about women's heavyweight rowing ten years after the first NCAA championship. Much time is spent on the growth in numbers and visibility of heavyweights brought on by NCAA recognition. Readers of FITD know that I appreciate this aspect of NCAA involvement and that my principle beef with the NCAA is the way it has marginalized lightweight women. Despite all of the problems and the NCAA's continuing lack of understanding of the sport, if lightweights were offered an NCAA championship I'd take it in a minute. In a world where most people are afraid to think for themselves (even athletic directors), the NCAA imprimatur would enable lightweight rowing to grow far faster than without it.

In a sidebar (of course) to the story, Chip Davis makes two points I've been making for almost two years now (could he be a secret reader?):

Highly competitive student-athletes continue to race to tight finishes each year in weight class events. But collegiate lightweight women still crown their national champions in the shadow of men's events at the IRA. Recent tragedies with wrestlers trying to cut too much weight combined with a heightened concern for eating disorders have kept lightweight events out of the NCAA. Some coaches have also bristled at the idea of splitting limited talent between two categories.

Hallelujah! Credit to Chip here for speaking the truth. I've talked to coaches, lightweight and heavyweight, as well as NCAA officials, and nearly every single one has denied that weight and eating disorder concerns play a part in the NCAA's antipathy toward lightweight women. As Chip points out, that's ridiculous, and that's why I spend time on FITD questioning the sensational eating disorder articles we see in the press and the "scientific studies" that, failing to prove a connection between today's lightweight athletes and eating disorders, go on to discuss how "common sense" tells us otherwise so we need to be careful. My point is not that uncontrolled weight loss isn't dangerous, but that today's lightweight women's programs control it and produce healthy athletes. I won't even get into the lack of studies looking at the obesity problem and heavyweights, but turnabout is fair play, isn't it? I've begged for scientific studies that produce a comparison of eating disorder prevalence among lightweight women and their college age peer group, but have yet to find any.

The negative feelings of heavyweight coaches (not all, of course) toward lightweights that Chip mentions has also been mentioned to me by lightweight coaches. This is why the CRCA does not and cannot represent the interests of lightweight women.

In the article, Jim Dietz (who was interviewed on FITD) hits upon the solution for lightweight women when he says:

Although the NCAA voted to make us a team sport, where a team consists of two eights and a four, I think the sport would be better served if we were an individual team sport, where each boat had to qualify on its own merits, its own speed.

He's talking about expanding the boat classes here, not specifically about lightweights, but allowing boats to qualify individually would open the door for lightweight boats.

Look, we all know that heavyweight women's rowing is the ethanol of college sports - unable to exist at current levels on its own, but thriving through the gift of government regulation. If you're a plug-in hybrid in an ethanol world, you've got problems. You need to get some of that regulation for yourself. You know it's not the right way to do it, but if it's there, you need it to compete. Given the inflated amount of money and attention lavished on heavyweight women, it's a testament to the strength of lightweight women's rowing that it can exist at all.

Yeah, I'm on a bitchy jag right now, but when I see the kind of interest a goofy little blog like FITD can generate; when I see how many women row lightweight or want to row lightweight; when I see incredible but normal sized athletes crank down race courses moving big boats really fast, I get a little upset when they're ignored by the rowing world. I've said many times here that we're all in it together, but sometimes it sure doesn't feel like it.

Rowing News Ignores Lightweights Again

I'm a little late on this because I just came across the January issue now, but in an article discussing the IRA's likely move to the West coast in the next year or two, the regatta is described as "the national championship of American men's collegiate rowing." Hmmm. I wonder where we've all been going in the beginning of June for the last ten years or so?

One of the things the article talks about is the impact the move could have on attendance. Given that there are so few lightweight women's programs on the West coast, it's unlikely that any other category could be as affected, a pretty important point that should have been made. Well, I guess that's only true if you give a darn about lightweight women.

Now when we think of that establishment organ, Rowing News, we can just think of Steve Martin in a plaid sports coat saying, "I forgot!"

Giving the Devil His Due

The latest edition of Rowing News actually gives some decent press to women's lightweight races. The first race discussed in the Knecht Cup article was the lightweight eight. Of course,given the prominence of the lightweight crews racing, it could hardly have been any other way. It goes on, though, to discuss Radcliffe's wins at Windermere and both stories (Knecht and Windermere) include pictures of the Black and White. (There's a group hug thing going on at Knecht, but they're in racing form in the Windermere shot.) Next, the Sports Science column is illustrated with a picture of two Wisconsin lightweights from a year or two back (another hug). Finally, the "let it run..." feature in the back, which publishes reader submitted essays, is about a high school lightweight. I'm happy to see this but let's remember, eternal vigilance is the price of lightweight coverage.

Rowing News Refuses to Publish Critical Letter

I opened up my latest copy of Rowing News the other day and guess what – no letter from JW Burk! That letter was written, of course, in response to the magazine’s two sentence snub of lightweight women in its collegiate preview article. I was ticked off about the snub at the time, and many of you were too, so I wrote a letter to the editor. The managing editor responded to me asking for my city and I replied that I write this blog anonymously but wondered if there was some other way to satisfy his request. He said he would just put "USA" and left it at that. Now I’m told that they “made a last minute switch as we didn't feel comfortable printing a letter from someone who wouldn't disclose their location.” In other words, if I had just responded to the original email with “Dubuque,” my letter would be in. For all the concern about anonymity, I was too honest! Even worse was the fact that I offered to work to satisfy them in another way, but I never received a second chance to get the letter in, they just didn’t print it.

[Update: Read the comments for another view on this.]

There were only three letters in this issue, leaving a lot of white space on the page, so there was plenty of room. There was only one letter critical of the preview article and that was as much about DII rowing as it was about lightweights. With no real criticism of the article it perpetuates the perception that no one cares about women’s lightweights. It was also disappointing to see that no one else wrote in either (or did RN just not publish them?). If anonymity was a problem, they could’ve told me. I’m certain I could have had someone else send in the letter with their city listed. This isn’t life or death here, but the whole point of FITD is to spread the word about lightweight rowing, not to simply talk amongst ourselves. This was a great opportunity to do that. Heck, I basically wrote an article for them – facts and figures about numbers of crews as well as the storyline for this season. RN’s two sentences, by the way, didn’t even mention the current number one boat in the country, Radcliffe. I’d ask a FITD reader to copy and paste the letter and send it in, but it’s unlikely it would get published this long after the offending issue. (If you want to contact RN, however, you can reach the editor at editor@rowingnews.com.)

So what is behind this? Not anonymity, because they never asked me to address that issue, they simply used it as an excuse. Why is Rowing News lightweight phobic? I truly don’t know. No one is asking for a lightweight article every week, but when you split the sport into its constituent parts, how do you justify leaving one of those parts out? We’re looking for SOME coverage, not more coverage. They would probably say there’s no demand, but I disproved that with the numbers I cited in my letter, not to mention with the readership of FITD. Do they not want to publish criticism? I doubt that’s the case because that would create a serious integrity problem for the publication. I like Rowing News and read every issue, but this phobia is inexplicable. Maybe it’s simply that no one there understands what’s happening in this corner of the rowing world.

On a similar note, you’ve never seen FITD mentioned on row2k either. Ed Hewitt has a no blog and no anonymity policy. Looking at the purpose of FITD again - to spread the word - it’s tough to accomplish when you can’t get in the two major rowing publications in the US. Be that as it may, I’ll remain anonymous - that’s just the way it is. I’ve got almost ten months of posts here so everyone pretty much knows the kind of things I’ll say and cover and I’m a lot easier to contact than a typical letter writer in Rowing News. I’m no expert and I don’t claim to be, I just pay attention. We all owe row2k a debt of gratitude because it’s a fantastic site. Most of what we read about rowing comes from it, not to mention all race results. I contribute money to it. I just wish, though, that Ed would read FITD and then decide if it’s not worth the same link notice that the Little Sisters of the Poor High School Crew's web site gets. Let’s base these decisions on what you have to say, not who you are.

A Slap in the Face, Courtesy of Rowing News

The latest issue of Rowing News contained its annual collegiate preview, in which lightweight women were given exactly two sentences, in a sidebar. Two sentences! [Update: The two sentences are below.] Heavyweight men, lightweight men, and heavyweight women were all given a page or more. This is inexcusable and, quite honestly, a mystery to me. Lightweight women are one of the four primary categories in rowing and in some boathouses the most successful programs on the water. Write to Rowing News and express your displeasure. You can write to letters@rowingnews.com. Of course, I did write and my letter is below:

Dear Editor,

I was extremely disappointed that you were unable to provide adequate coverage of the women’s lightweight season in your 2006 collegiate preview. The two sentences you did write provided more of a slap in the face than a commentary. Your decision to treat one of the four primary categories in rowing as an afterthought is inexplicable.

If you want drama, it doesn’t get more dramatic than watching Wisconsin try to continue fighting off the Eastern powerhouses to create a dynasty. What about Princeton’s and Radcliffe’s determination to return to glory? Have you watched Stanford and Georgetown making the off-season moves they hope will propel them into the Big Three? Meanwhile, we wonder if Dayton (where did they come from?) can sustain their Dad Vail championship season of last year. We get to see if UCF, URI, and Bucknell will be successful as they build their lightweight programs, and we watch to see if Ohio State can stay in the top ten with a club program. This is where rowing is growing and this is where the most interesting stories of the next several years will be found.

A recent analysis on Fight in the Dog (fightindog.blogspot.com), a blog dedicated to women’s lightweight rowing, found that last year over 70 different schools raced lightweight women’s eights or fours, resulting in over 300 race entries. Over the past two years over 90 different schools raced lightweight boats. Does that kind of participation sound like it’s worth only two sentences to you? More programs are seriously racing lightweight women every season. While Title IX fueled demand for heavyweight women athletes far outstrips supply, lightweights are a picture of women’s rowing as it once was – women with guts and heart racing for the glory of their school and their sport, not scholarships and Adidas warm-up suits.

To ignore lightweight women is to ignore the future of the sport in the US as well as internationally. While some critics trot out old canards long since shown to be false, lightweights just keep growing stronger and rowing faster. We usually read about the “main stream media’s” failures covering politics, not sports. Now we see it in rowing. As Rowing News sees fit to cover a whole category of rowing in two sentences, it falls to blogs such as Fight in the Dog to cover what you will not. Your omission was inexcusable and I hope for more professional coverage of rowing in the future.

Regards,

JW Burk
Fight in the Dog

Remember, write to the editor so he knows lightweights do exist, do race, and do read Rowing News. Write to letters@rowingnews.com.

[Update: The two sentences in the Rowing News article:

"Look for a bunch of strong sophomores to add to the existing speed of the Wisconsin lightweight women. The two-time defending national champions finished first among collegiate lightweights at the Head of the Charles and remain the crew to beat this spring, but look for Princeton to eat into last year's three-second margin for a tight IRA final."]