Bucknell's Methods and Lightweight Rowing

Observers of women's lightweight rowing have to be wondering today what Bucknell's method of having heavyweights drop to lightweight for IRAs will mean for other programs. As I mentioned before, I was told that last year's Bucknell light eight had problems with weight. Bucknell's solution, apparently, was to race them as heavyweights and only require them to drop weight three times during the season (presumably timed for lulls in the competitive schedule).

I find two serious problems with this. First, Bucknell, which could lead the lightweight community, has instead chosen to use the lightweight community. While other programs spend the time and money necessary to create separate programs and race schedules separate from their heavies, Bucknell does none of that and simply goes pot hunting at IRAs. It's obvious, but worth saying, that if every other lightweight crew did what Bucknell does, there would be no lightweight league and no IRA championship. There would be no Dad Vail, Windermere, Knecht Cup, Crew Classic, ECAC (oops, that's already gone with Bucknell racing only heavyweights there), or Sprints lightweight events. While other programs put their blood, sweat, and money where their mouths are, Bucknell apparently sees the lightweight category as simply another way to burnish resumes.

Bucknell's manipulation of the category is further highlighted by the fact that last year, when the student newspaper was writing about the "light eight," the coaches asked the paper not to refer to them as lightweights, but to call them the "2V." Is this a program that supports lightweight rowing?

The second problem with the Bucknell method, is that the strategy of dropping heavyweights for key lightweight races is exactly the kind of thing for which the category is criticized and which the NCAA finds unsavory. Clearly the leaders of the lightweight category also find this unsettling. Last year, when I repeated the false rumor that in 2004 Wisconsin dropped two heavyweights into the light eight for IRAs, it was met with instantaneous and emphatic denial from the Badgers. UCF, although actually racing a lightweight schedule, was faced with the same opportunity as Bucknell to pull down some of their heavies into the light eight, but chose not to. For better or worse, the coaches there made the decision to allow their rowers to race in only one category. With Bucknell, however, we have a national champion who may not even field a lightweight eight next year. Will they have enough lightweights and near-lightweights to field a full eight? Will they be fast? If not, will they enter anyway in support of the category or will they take their ball and go home?

Let me quote instructions that went out from the CRCA lightweight committee with last year's new weigh-in rules:

The goal of the weigh-in documentation is to ensure that crews racing at the collegiate lightweight women's National Championship have been racing as lightweights with consistency throughout the season.

Clearly this procedure failed this year, and one must wonder if it needs to
be revised for next year.

While we're at it, let's dispose of the silly notion, put forth both last year and this, that Bucknell somehow makes faster lightweights by racing them as heavyweights. Any athlete would know this is spurious - it doesn't matter what your opponent is, it matters how fast your opponent is. Perhaps those making the argument are suggesting that no lightweights exist fast enough to challenge Bucknell, yet that was obviously not true last year, and this year when Bucknell raced the Princeton lights, a crew that just pushed them to the limit, they raced heavyweights. Is that supporting the category?

Bucknell is at a crossroads; it can become a leader of lightweight women's rowing or it can continue to ride on the back of the programs that actually do support and maintain the sport.

What's it gonna be?

Comments on the IRA Fours

The Exhibition race for women's lightweight fours that will be held at the IRA (see previous post) is, of course, a tremendous step forward for lightweight women. Many programs that are unable to put out competitive light eights, are able to boat extremely competitive light fours. For this reason, a fours event at the IRA is even more meaningful for the lightweight women. The addition of this race (although on a temporary basis at the moment), is another sign of the growth of the category. At Sprints this year, the spread among the top three boats was as tight as among the top three heavyweight boats, with first and second even closer among the lights than the heavies. At Dad Vail, the spread was a little wider, but still compared favorably among the top three. At lower levels, of course, the category continues to see a wider dispersion, but it's not what it was just a few years ago. This is an exciting new initiative and I feel confident it will be successful this year and become a permanent event.

As for the selection process, it's hard to get too worked up about an exhibition race (which I suppose simply means no medals, no championship, and temporary for now), but let's take a quick look. It's pretty hard to argue with the idea of inviting the gold medalists from the A-10, WIRA, SIRA and Dad Vail. This provides an opportunity for boats who rarely, or never, race at the IRA to do so (perhaps the PCRC champs could be added). More importantly, however, it makes those championship regattas that much more meaningful. The boats that receive invitations because they are champions, earned their invitations on the water. Although a reader has posted that Pitt will not be racing, I desperately hope they can work out their conflicts because they deserve to race at the pinnacle of collegiate rowing. (BTW, see Pitt story here.) I'm also thrilled for Lawrence. I would argue that the Dad Vail fours silver should be invited before the WIRA eights silver, but Long Beach's entry in the eight mooted that concern. It can be hard to imagine what this kind of exposure can mean to a school like Lawrence if you've never worked your butt off for a club program that is all but unknown at your school (of course, this is true for most club programs, Pitt included). It's hard not to have a soft spot for this little school in Wisconsin that's coming to the big stage. As the winner of A-10s, Duquesne deserves an invite as well.

I find the IRA program invites a bit more curious. The theme for the other invites is that they earned it on the water this year. The IRA boats are invited based on what they did a year ago in an unrelated boat. Unrelated because the rowers in the four would come from the 2V eight, not the varsity eight. A look back at the past several years shows that rarely does the V8 winner also win the V4, suggesting that there is no correlation between the two.

It seems to me that there two more logical ways to choose the IRA program fours. The first, and best, is to pick the gold and silver medalists in the 2V at Sprints. The fours from these programs will be made up of athletes from the 2V and this is where those athletes proved themselves on the water. The speed of last year's 1V says little about the worthiness of this year's 2V athletes. The other option is to invite the gold and silver medalists from last year's Sprints fours final. Although it still relies on a performance from a year ago, at least it's in the right boat.

Now, let's compare. The IRA programs that are actually coming are Wisconsin and Georgetown (Radcliffe gets in through a loophole). If the preferred option were used it would be Princeton and Radcliffe. Given the Tigers' victory at Sprints, it's pretty hard, well, impossible, to argue that Princeton doesn't have the most deserving 2V athletes. I suppose it's possible that Wisconsin's and Georgetown's best four are as fast as Princeton's best four, and that the 20+ seconds was all due to the relative quality of the next four, but that stretches too far for me. If we used the second method the invitees would be Princeton and Radcliffe again. (Oh, and don't forget that Princeton was just after Pitt at the HOCR.) Because Radcliffe gets in through a loophole, it looks like Princeton is really the program that suffers here.

One is tempted to wonder about MIT. After all, they did beat a Princeton four during the season. The problem there is, with the Sprints programs concentrating on 2Vs instead of fours, we have no idea who was in either four. The boats weren't put together with an IRA invitation in mind, so we can't really look to that race. Nonetheless, it does seem as if MIT should be there, but I can't think of formula that puts them in the race.

The upshot of all this is that all of the right boats seem to be involved except for Princeton. It's difficult to get too exercised over an exhibition race, but it just misses being a race of this year's top fours.

About the IRA Fours Race

Steve Kish was kind enough to explain how the lightweight four event at the IRA came into being and how the invitees were selected for this year's exhibition race:

CRCA Lightweight Committee met over the winter and one of the initiatives that came of its meeting was the goal of increasing participation in the lightweight eight at the IRA. In addition to encouraging the eights to attend (good to see LMU and Long Beach coming this year), the thought was to also encourage programs that are still developing and perhaps racing the lightweight four, in the hopes that the experience would lead those programs to put together an eight for the next year. It is not meant to be exclusive nor do we think it is the perfect system and I am sure there are plenty of ways to look at the idea and poke holes in it. Long of the short is that a number of programs who have never raced at the IRA will be there this year. We’ll see where it goes from there.

It took a while to get the idea off the ground and definitely on the program. Very happy that the IRA (Gary Caldwell) was supportive and the CRCA lwt committee is very happy that they agreed, as are all the coaches I have been in contact with. It is an exhibition and we’ll see how it goes. It is a six boat straight final on Friday afternoon.

The initial idea was to invite the gold medalists from the A-10, WIRA, SIRA and Dad Vail. The other two spots were to be filled by the top lwt eights programs based on their finish from the previous IRA. So, that is Wisconsin and Georgetown .

Duquesne accepted the invite. LMU is coming in the eight, not in the four. Georgia could not accept as a result of scheduling conflicts. And Pitt is still working on their scheduling conflicts but we hope they will be able to come. The scheduling conflicts are a result of me not getting the word out soon enough. Hopefully, if all runs well this year, it will be something that everyone will be aware of right from the start next year.

Without the WIRA champ available as they are coming in the eight, the next idea was to invite the WIRA silver, but that is Long Beach and they are also coming in an eight. The decision was then made to simply find the most competitive non-IRA program and invite it. So the next one on the list was from the Dad Vail, and that is Lawrence . They have accepted. Brock was considered but the IRA would like to keep the regatta as a US championship, as is the general IRA as well as the NCAA, etc.

So, the sixth spot has been filled by Radcliffe, as they were third at last year’s IRA.

Stanford made a case for their four which won the PCRC’s. But, again, based on the spirit of what we were trying to do, it didn’t make sense to bring a VL4 from Stanford, when Stanford is also rowing a lwt eight. Radcliffe on the other hand, is being invited based on last year’s finish, similar to Wisconsin and Georgetown .

So, currently it is Duquesne, Lawrence , Wisconsin , Georgetown , Radcliffe and hopefully Pitt.

About Last Week

This blog is about lightweight women's rowing and therefore the growth of lightweight women's rowing. One of the things holding back that growth, is the commonly held idea that lightweight women rowers are more likely to have eating disorders than their college attending female peers. I have never seen any studies that support that notion and therefore I believe it to be a red herring. I could certainly be wrong, but I just have yet to see anything to suggest that.

This idea seems to be held most strongly by the NCAA and certain athletic directors and heavyweight coaches. As a counter, I like to point out the hypocrisy of thinking proportionately more lightweights have eating disorders, while not also worrying that proportionately more heavyweights have a BMI above 25. (Both of which, by the way, I suspect are false.) The Yale "Food" video was a perfect example of this. As I said, had this been done by lightweights, alarm bells would have been rung all over campus. I, however, thought it would have been as funny done by lightweights as it was done by heavyweights.

In this case, my target was the NCAA and all of those who believe that lightweights are destined to eating disorders. The heavyweights simply suffered collateral damage. As those who have read this blog for any length of time know, I'm not about to let worries about political correctness stop me from telling the emperor he has no clothes.

There is another point. I've known for some time that certain readers were using FITD to mock lightweight rowing. Although it was unintended, the "Food" post smoked those readers out. I could not ask for a more powerful statement of why lightweights cannot leave their fate in the hands of predominantly heavyweight organizations (i.e. CRCA and NCAA) than the kind of sentiments that were posted as comments. (This attitude is hardly new. We've come across it before.) It's hard to work to grow the category with people who don't even believe you should exist. I'll no doubt refer and link to those comments for some time. When you read them, you have to ask yourself if they're shared by those readers' coaches, the very CRCA coaches entrusted with ensuring the health and growth of women's lightweight rowing.

Lightweight Pocock All-America Award

Nominations for the first Lightweight Pocock All-America Awards are due by noon on May 15th. I noted earlier in the year that the CRCA Lightweight committee was able to get this honor instituted on a trial basis, with the first awards coming this year. Perhaps this seems like a small thing, but I think it's a much overdue step forward for the category.

A friendly reminder never hurts, and it would sure be a shame to miss the deadline in the first year.

Is Oklahoma OK?

As a reader pointed out, Tulsa is absent from the light four event at Knecht. You may recall that Tulsa had an excellent row at the Head of the Charles (as evidenced by its fall season number four ranking) and I for one was looking forward to seeing how they would make out this spring. As a result, I wrote to Coach Kevin Harris to see what happened. Coach Harris responded by saying that the crew has suffered injury and sickness and is done for the year (didn't this happen to Pitt last year? [Update: see comments; I should've remembered this.]). He's clearly disappointed as is the crew. As a varsity program that is giving some attention to lightweights, I was pulling for the Golden Hurricane to have a successful spring. We shouldn't get too worried though, as Coach Harris goes on to say:

[W]e are still working hard to promote lightweight rowing at TU and I expect that we will be back with a more solid team next year. We'll be looking, with envy, at all of our lightweight colleagues races this spring! We wish we could be there.

In more news from Oklahoma, I see that Oklahoma City University is adding sculling to its program. This is the men's program but FITD readers know that I'm a big proponent of sculling and this is a good step. [Update: See comments - OCU is also recruiting lightweight women scullers!] There are problems that go along with it, of course, beginning with finding opponents. Nonetheless, I applaud the move. Isn't it funny that some of the freshest thinking is coming from Oklahoma (e.g. night racing), a place until recently viewed as a rowing backwater? Heck, we even have a pretty good lightweight team there!

I'd love to see a quad take over from the four, but again, there are some logistical problems with that. The next time I get on a conference call with FISA and the IOC, I've got the new Olympic program for them - only the fastest boats in each class (i.e. 8+, 4x, 2x, 1x), and both sexes and weight classes in each boat class except eights, which will only have heavyweight men and women. That would result in more international participation (because there are more lightweights) while cutting the total number of rowers by two (an IOC goal). It would be more exciting (faster boats) and more inclusive. Hmmm, maybe I should send that idea to the NCAA too.

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.

Boat Priorities - NCAA Style

Over the past several days, we've had two related discussions going on in the comments section of various posts. They tie together and I think they're important enough to bring to the front page.

The first revolves around the relative competitiveness and intensity of racing at NCAAs vs. IRAs. I (and others here) have argued that last year's IRA was as intense and competitive as last year's NCAA, if not more so. While I think the competitiveness of the two events is an important discussion, it's been discussed here quite a bit, both on the front page and in comments, and I've yet to hear a reasonable argument to support the NCAA side in 2006. I'll leave competitiveness at that. A reader commented, however, that "If any of the UCF lightweights make a boat and race at NCAA's, they will step up to a higher level of intensity than they have ever experienced."

Now, I don't think that this intensity discussion is particularly important or fruitful because intensity is a function of many things, not simply the importance of the race. Unlike "spectacle sport" athletes, rowers derive intensity from the competition against themselves as well as their opponent; from the the battle for perfection. I've experienced practice pieces as intense as championship races. Intensity of any race or regatta will vary from year to year and from event to event.

I understand why the reader who posted the comment above wants to hold that view. I understand that we've been conditioned to believe that something about the NCAA legitimizes a championship that mere mortals can't handle for themselves. Nonetheless, I completely reject the notion that in any given year the NCAA championship is more intense than the IRA championship. That position is unsupportable by any objective means. (By the way, the opposite proposition is also unsupportable.) Let's go back to 2006. I was at both the NCAA championships and the IRA championships. The surprises and back and forth nature of the IRAs have been discussed many times here and I assume are familiar to the reader. The NCAA championship was over within 20 strokes. That's right, 20 strokes, and by 500 meters Princeton had open water on the field and for 1500 meters simply countered any boat silly enough to attempt a move. I can't imagine a less competitive race. Oh, wait, I forgot that the slower boats frothing in Princeton's wake were in a battle too, for the team trophy (aka the "national championship"). And that brings me to the next point of discussion.

For many years, when you raced a dual or a regatta, there were only two questions to answer - Did you win? and Did you sweep? While there were point trophies, no one really cared about them because if your boat didn't win, they were simply self esteem trophies. It wasn't until the NCAA got hold of rowing and deemed it a "team sport" that we were told we need to care about point trophies (this is a different discussion if we're talking international rowing). We need to care because now, the point trophy is really the "national championship." Well, let me tell you a secret about point trophies - no one cares. Let me say that again - NO ONE CARES. Well, except the winners who see it as the next best thing to a sweep (maybe it is) if they won the V8, or see it as a self esteem trophy if they lost the V8. Whenever I read about the "national champion" Cal women, I laugh.

Look at the men, however. We all know who won the V8 at IRAs - Cal. Cal is the National Champion. Do you know who won the point trophy? Is there a point trophy? Give truth serum to a member of the Cal women's V8 last year and ask her if she'd rather be a "national champion" or winner of the V8. What do you think she'd say? I know what she'd say. The NCAA has distorted rowing's priorities.

It is this distortion that has had a deleterious effect on lightweight women. In another comment, when discussing lightweights rowing with heavyweights, a reader noted that " the point is that maybe it ought to be about the fastest BOAT, regardless of class year OR size of the rower." I agree with this point completely. This is why heavyweights will always take precedence and always be more glamorous. It's when we get beyond that fastest boat that things get dicey.

To me, there is a natural priority of boats when the sport is unencumbered by outside influences. That priority is:

1. Heavyweight 1V
2. Lightweight 1V
3. Heavyweight 2V
4. Lightweight 2V
5. Heavyweight 3V4
6. Lightweight 3V4

This priority assumes all six boats can be equally competitive in their categories (an unlikely assumption). After the heavy 1V, the light 1V is comprised of the best rowers in that class. If we bother to create the class, it's best rowers get priority over the second best rowers in another class. Priorities adjust when certain boats are not competitive (I'll come back to this).

Under the NCAA regime, the priorities are as follows:

1. Heavyweight 1V
2. Heavyweight 2V
3. Heavyweight 3V4
4. Lightweight 1V

This is a complete distortion of the sport's historical and natural priorities. Under the guise of a "national championship" the lightweight category has been relegated to rowing's backwater, ignored by the NCAA, the CRCA, and athletic directors. As one poster said:

There should be lightweight V8 and V4 events at NCAAs, not as part of the heavyweight team event, but as an entirely other category, they same way DII and DIII programs have their own championship. From what I can tell, there are far more competitive Lightweight programs than there are DII programs.

Unfortunately, as long as rowing is a team sport, this can't happen. Lightweights can only be added as another event in the "national championship" which would mean that all contenders would need to boat a lightweight crew. Let's all hold our breath for the CRCA vote on that, shall we?

Sorry for the length here, but one last point. If the heavy 1V looks like it will be cannon fodder, but the light 1V could be competitive, a coach has a strategic decision to make. With the NCAA involved, every coach will still go with the cannon fodder heavyweights, when perhaps it would be best for the program to go with a nationally contending light 1V. Same for a light 1V - this was the point of the Line of Hope. If the lights are cannon fodder, they go back to a heavy 2V or 3V4. This happens all the time.

There's the straw man, set a match to it if you will. Of course you'd like a shot at the heavy 1V over the lightweight boat, but please skip the "NCAA think" and be honest with yourself before you tell me how you'd rather be wallowing around in a heavyweight JayVee than contending for the national championship in a lightweight Varsity.

Lightweights in Philadelphia

A reader wrote to note a new high school lightweight policy for the Pennsylvania Scholastic Rowing Association. A "Lightweight Certification Letter" is required of all lightweight rowers. The reader notes that this looks like a good policy, but some schools will probably choose not to race in some lightweight events to avoid the hassle, and goes on to say that "How to thread the needle and have safe weight policies that encourage natural lightweight seating in boats, while at the same time not creating an unreasonable liability hurdle for schools that will result in further dropping of lightweight participation, will be the task."

It's tempting to believe that those who can't be bothered probably also can't be bothered worrying about natural lightweights and safe weight management. That's likely to be wrong, however, and this is probably a case where rowers should take it upon themselves to remind coaches that they want to compete in lightweight events and are willing to bird-dog the letter through its hoops.

Also from Philadelphia, is a story about Temple's upcoming Murphy Cup races. It mentions Temple's light four race at the Keuper Cup in Florida. Temple also has a light eight entered at Murphy (more on that tomorrow). I think this is big news if Temple is getting serious about lightweight rowing, even if it's only for this year. It's a disgrace that there are no lightweight programs in the Philadelphia area, a hotbed of rowing. Some of the smaller Dad Vail schools could have a real impact if they focused on lightweights, instead of providing cannon fodder for the big heavyweight programs. In the Sprints League, Penn should clearly have lightweight women. Their heavyweight women have been mediocre and they have the example of the light men who had a surprisingly good season a few years ago. When the light men medaled at IRAs it was a surprise to even find the Penn name in a grand final.

Temple is a program that could focus on lightweights and almost immediately do damage on the national scene. They want to play with the big girls and that would get them there. We'll see what kind of success they have and where it takes them.

Selling Short

A month or two ago, in response to a post about an interview with UCF head coach Leeann Crain in which the lights were not mentioned, a couple of UCF rowers showed commendable loyalty and team spirit by commenting that they understood why the heavies were getting the spotlight and that they deserved it. One noted that "we did get 5th out of 12 teams and the heavies were ranked 20th out of well over 100 teams." While I certainly agree that the UCF heavies had a commendable season, I think this UCF lightweight is selling herself short. Let me tell you why.

First, given the genesis of this discussion, let me define a "competitive" crew as one with a credible chance to make the grand final at IRAs or NCAAs. In addition, at NCAAs, I am only talking about the DI grand final (more on that later). I am also going to make the assumption that boat speed among both lightweights and heavyweights is normally distributed. I haven't done the analysis, but I think this is a reasonable assumption. In any given year, particularly among lightweights, speed may not be normally distributed, but as a working assumption, I'm going with it. (Even if I'm wrong about this, it doesn't necessarily harm the theory because this assumption is used for illustrative, not probative, purposes.)

The NCAA Web site lists 86 DI schools with women's crew, 15 DII schools, and 43 DIII schools, for 144 total programs. Of those 144, 16 eights make it to NCAAs (DI eights; the assumption is that the DI eights are the fastest boats), and 6 make it to the final. Nonetheless, let's say that 20 (with a nod to UCF) heavyweight boats are "competitive." Twenty out of 144 is about 14%. That means that those boats are all more than one standard deviation from the mean heavyweight boat speed (in a normal distribution, 15.8% of boats would be one standard deviation or more faster than the mean). The rest of the heavyweight universe, which in a given year is slower than one standard deviation better than the mean, is, to use an honest but crass term, cannon fodder for the fast DI boats. I have more experience with (in) cannon fodder crews than I would like, and I can tell you that victories are just as glorious and defeats are just as painful, but you spend your season trying to win local duals, state championships, and make the finals at regional championships. You compare yourself with peers who, for one reason or another, are not those crews that are nationally competitive. You plug along, looking for that marginal improvement while hoping for a leap forward that finally makes you competitive. For many it comes, and there is movement into and out of cannon fodder territory.

The chart below illustrates this distribution.
(Recognizing the cannon fodder problem, the NCAA introduced DII and DIII championships, moving those programs onto their own curves, even as it killed serious DIII lightweight rowing. Because lightweights don't have separate divisions, however, I'm ignoring the distinction among heavyweights as well.)

I also assume that lightweights are normally distributed and that there are cannon fodder lightweight boats as well. As you move back from one standard deviation, however, something odd happens. (OK, now we're into theory, and I have no proof, but hear me out.) As the season progresses, the cannon fodder boats disappear. Sure, the 12th place boat at IRAs would get hammered by the 1st place boat, but the same is true of the heavyweights at NCAAs. The real fodder among the lightweights simply vanishes by the end of the season. Because I believe in the law of conservation of mass, I know those athletes have to go somewhere, and where they go, is into heavyweight crews. That's right, by IRAs most lightweight crews have self-selected themselves out of competition and the athletes are rowing in heavyweight boats. Most programs don't even try a lightweight eight because they know they can't be competitive with the Wisconsins of the world, and there is no other lightweight level. As the top lightweight crews plow through early season lightweight hopefuls, those defeated boats realize they're not competitive and fall back into the least restrictive category, and therefore the category that will always be available - heavyweight.

Without lower level championships, lightweight rowing is all or nothing. Yes, there's Dad Vail, but the Dad Vail champ can be pretty competitive at IRAs, meaning that it's a really fast boat. A lightweight boat of moderate speed doesn't have the option of satisfying itself with a DIII championship because there is no DIII championship. The coaches of these boats realize that it would be a waste of time and money to race them as lightweights all season and watch them get their brains beat in. The better option is to take the best rowers out of those boats, put them in the heavyweight varsity or 2V, and make those boats faster. The heavyweights MUST exist, but the lightweights are optional. If the optional boat is slow, you get rid of it and use all of your resources to make the mandatory boat less slow.

The chart below illustrates this, with a line drawn in that I'll call (because I'm an optimist) the Line of Hope. To the left of that line are those lightweight boats that have abandoned hope and moved their rowers into heavyweight boats. (We can argue about the placement of this line, but it exists.) In between the competitive line and the Line of Hope are the hopefuls, those crews hoping they can pull off the upset of upsets.



If the boats at IRAs are really the cream of the lightweight crop, rather than the only available boats, the time spreads from 1st to last should be similar to those spreads among the heavyweight cream of the crop. In 2005 and 2004 things didn't look so good for my theory. The spread between the winning boat and the sixth place boat was 34 and 37 seconds, while among heavies it was 6 and 8 seconds. In 2006 (the year that prompted this post), however, things changed. First to 6th among lights was 14.5 seconds and 1st to 6th among heavies was 14.4 seconds. From 1st to 12th among lights the spread was 37 seconds and from 1st to 6th among heavies the spread was 26 seconds. A dominant Princeton heavyweight boat may have skewed this a bit, but I think we can feel confident that the 2006 lightweight national championship was as competitive as the heavyweight championship.


You see, lightweights, this notion that the lightweight champ is the champion of a very small field is a canard. When you reach the mountaintop first, you don't look around and feel diminished because only 12 people came up behind you. You also count the scores of bodies lying on the slopes below. In lightweight rowing, the last breaths of the defeated are spent changing into heavyweight unis.

Is there room for improvement? Of course. There are still plenty of outstanding lightweight rowers who choose to row in good heavyweight programs. With a stronger lightweight league, perhaps those athletes would row as lightweights. Quite honestly, the lightweight spread should be tighter than the heavyweight spread and if we could get more programs to focus on lightweights it would be. But don't let heavyweights, heavyweight coaches, and the mainstream rowing media dictate your thoughts on this. If heavyweights didn't make fun of you, and everything else, they wouldn't be worth the label "athlete." Likewise, you have every reason to look down your nose at them. This is healthy. This is believing in yourself. This is knowing that what you do is special. This is knowing that you're pulling a 230 pound boat and a 120 pound coxswain down the river while weighing 130 pounds instead of 180 or 200 pounds. Lightweights and heavyweights should fight just like brothers and sisters because in the end, we're all one family. Just don't ever start believing everything your big sisters tell you. As for the rowing media, well, I think we've already seen that they're thought followers, not thought leaders.

Stop selling yourself short. The lightweight national championship is every bit as precious as the heavyweights' and you're about to get another chance to win it. The time is now - get off the erg, get on the water, and kick some ass.

Chapman Racing a Light Eight

In response to my last post, a reader noted that Chapman has a light eight entered in the San Diego Crew Classic. Since that's a few weeks off, I hadn't looked at the entries yet, so wasn't aware that the Panthers had entered the race for the Coggeshall Cup. A quick look at the Chapman roster (which only lists heights) suggests that there may be a quite a few lightweights on the crew. We're probably seeing this boat now because it happens to fit the personnel, but it sure would be nice to see another lightweight crew start up on the west coast.

What a Tangled Web We Weave

A story in Saturday's Philadelphia Inquirer explained how Princeton's men's wrestling team at least partially owes its existence to the Princeton lightweight women (with a boost from the women's water polo team), while Bucknell's women's crew owes the existence of its new assistant coaches (maybe freeing up one to work with the lightweights?) to Bucknell wrestling. The article is about men's wrestling programs that had been given Title IX death sentences, coming back to life through the intervention of alumni fundraisers. The article starts by noting that Bucknell wrestling has been revived through the donation of alumnus Bill Graham, who also funded certain Bucknell women's programs, including crew. Although certainly not the official line, there can be little doubt that the women's funding was what is known to politicians as a bribe, to enable wrestling's reinstatement.

At Princeton, wrestling was given its Title IX death sentence in 1993, at which time fundraising efforts began immediately.

[Alumni] offered to endow Princeton's team as soon as it was eliminated. The university, knowing that alone wouldn't solve its Title IX problems, declined.

It wasn't until 1995, when new athletic director Gary Walters created a women's lightweight crew and upgraded a women's water polo club to varsity status, that the restoration of Princeton wrestling became possible.

It's somewhat ironic, isn't it, that the fates of two prominent weight class sports have become so intertwined? I'm ambivalent about the value of Title IX. It sure has done some great things for female athletes, and in particular for heavyweight women rowers. It has had some benefits, to a much lesser extent, for lightweight women as well. But any law that results in de facto quotas and zero sum games pitting male sports vs. female sports, has to be flawed. I wish I were smarter and could come up with a better solution, but I can't. One thing starts to seem pretty obvious, though, maybe football should suffer a little pain. Think the quality of the game would suffer with less than 85 scholarships? As Dennis Dodd said back in 2002,

Don't you get it? Oklahoma and Nebraska could have 22 iguanas facing off against each other, and it would still be a football rivalry.

2V at Sprints!

In another sign of growth for women's lightweight rowing, the 2007 EAWRC Eastern Sprints will include a women's lightweight 2v event. The Eastern Sprints schools of Wisconsin, Radcliffe, Princeton, and Georgetown all have varsity lightweight programs and should be able to support this event. I would guess that the coaches have been talking about it for a few years and it's nice to see the ECAC respond.

Lightweight All-Americans!

With the launch of the re-designed CRCA Web site comes the posting of the minutes from the December meeting of the CRCA Lightweight Committee. The big news here is that the CRCA board approved the awarding of lightweight All America and Academic All America. See the minutes for the process, but I think it's consistent with how the heavies do it.

Other topics covered:

• Selection criteria for lightweight athletes
• Review of the variations in weigh-in weights and procedures
• Methods to promote lightweight rowing within United States colleges
• Results reporting for the upcoming spring
• Seeding and Weigh-In procedures for the I.R.A.s
• Increasing educational opportunities for lightweight rowing coaches

It's hard to imagine a more pertinent agenda, isn't it?

Under the weigh-in and weight discussion, the Head of the Charles weight limit of 135 pounds was addressed. I've never understood why the HOCR averages weights, and allows a max of 138 pounds. It's a practice that seems to encourage unhealthy weight loss (often even easily underweight rowers lose weight to make up for their heavier boatmates). The committee agreed to ask the HOCR to lower the max weight for college rowers to 133. Well, OK, that's better, but why not stop all of this nonsense and just go with the standard 130 pounds, no averaging?

A couple of points raised in the "growth" discussion:

• Structure championships in a fashion that would encourage more schools to participate
  - include the light eight in team trophies
  - a V4 at IRAs.
• IRAs
  - sponsorship funding for new schools to attend
  - change the 2V4 format to a 1V4

Note that these are all just suggestions at this point.

I'm not certain I understand the 2V4 to 1V4 at IRAs, since there is currently no V4. Maybe this refers to lobbying for a lightweight V4? In any case, I'm excited to see these issues being addressed by the committee. There are no quick fixes and any progress will only be accomplished through hard work, but at least the work has begun.

(Random FITD statistic: yesterday's post was #400)

Jim Dietz on Women's Lightweight Rowing (cont)

(Interview with Jim Dietz continued)

I next challenged Jim's idea of creating a NCAA championship that looks like the Olympics. While I recognize the value in that, I suggested that with only the 2x available for lightweights, it would effectively kill lightweight rowing. Jim responds:

Your premise is that you as the coach make that decision. If your athletic director is supporting rowing because of numbers then there is no way you will drop the big boats. Case in Point: Last year the coaches of the Atlantic 10 voted to drop the points for the lightweight eight “IF” there were fewer then two or three crews in that race. In the Atlantic 10 the V8 only gets two points more then the lightweight eight in team points. The coaches felt that it was unfair to award full points in an event that only two crews were entered. The Athletic Directors voted the coaches down. They were afraid that schools would not try to fill the lightweight events and numbers would drop.

Not everyone gets to the Olympics. Not everyone should get to the NCAA Championships. It should be just for the best! Even now there are lightweights going to the NCAA championships. The two times that I went to the championships with teams I had lightweights in my crews. They were the best they could compete.

Under the present system are the best women going to the championship or just the best women from the biggest programs. Are there better women at other programs but not enough to have the large team? If rowing were an individual team sport would there be more opportunity for more women, possibly smaller women?

Some good points made here, but I'm not sure they contradict the notion that lightweights would be in trouble with an Olympic format. One thing that I hear time and again from coaches is how such-and-such a boat had a lightweight in it and was fast. Probably not Jim's point here, but this is like noting a boxer who can beat people two weight classes above him and suggesting that there shouldn't be weight classes. These rowers are remembered precisely because there are so few (I'm talking about DI and elites here). Also, I've had a national team coach tell me how he had a lightweight in bow of one of his medal winning eights. This "lightweight" weighed 168 at peak condition. I think it's common for heavyweight coaches to see a rower smaller than their average heavyweight and refer to them as "lightweights."

The A10 athletic directors reaction to the lightweight proposal is very interesting. I wish that were the attitude of more conferences. Also note the coaches' role. Heavyweight coaches get paid to win heavyweight races. If a lightweight event is in the way of that goal, they will try to remove it. This isn't a criticism of heavyweight coaches for doing their job, but it is a criticism of those who would put the fate of lightweights in the hands of heavyweight coaches at theCRCA.

Further addressing lightweights at the A10 championship:

They are a valid part of the Championship. I am all about rowing for everyone. They all count in our gender numbers and they should have an equal part and enjoy a great experience. The points are important and the lightweights know their contribution to the team win. This gives everyone value and a true sense of team. To have lightweight programs traveling to different events then their open weight programs is divisive.

Finally, I asked about the idea of more events at the NCAA championship (Olympic events), and wondered if that would dilute the field too much, leaving winners unsure if they beat their opponents best or if the best rowers were in another boat.

If we only think that the eight is important then we should get rid of all the other boat classes. Did the US Men’s eight at the last Olympics feel less of their victory because the English 4- was not in their race? Did the English feel cheated because the best Americans went in the eight and not the 4-?

If we are going to have different events then each of those events should be able to stand on their own merit. Does the 4+ at the NCAA feel cheated because there might have been a faster 4+ in the country whodidn ’t have two other eights to give them a free ride. Maybe it should be about the top 8+, or maybe just the top 4+, or if we really want to know who is the best then each school should only send their top 1X!

I have been involved in rowing for quite a while now. I have seen lightweights win the Olympics in open events. I have seen lightweights compete in theUSRowing Nationals, Trials and NSR ’s often humbling heavyweights. I don’t know where the answer lies. I think an open mind will be necessary to break down the years of “This is the way we always did it in America”. We need more people questioning. That’s how things change.

The issue of an eights only format (Mike Teti scheme) vs an Olympic format is best left for another time. Again, the notion of lightweights beating heavyweights is a two-edged sword - it's great when you do it, but the fact that it happens is usually used as an argument against having a lightweight category (I don't think that's Jim's intent here).

So, some of Jim's more interesting points:

• The NCAA championships should follow the Olympic format (that would mean a WL2x)
• All boats should receive equal points in the team championship calculation
• The A10 seems to be a "lightweight friendly" conference
• No lightweight issues have come before the NCAA rowing committee in the past two years

As always, no easy answers, but certainly some food for thought. Perhaps the most important thing Jim Dietz had to say were his closing thoughts: "We need more people questioning. That’s how things change."

Jim Dietz on Women's Lightweight Rowing

Several times over the course of the past year or so, people have mentioned in comments and emails that Jim Dietz, women's coach at UMass, is a supporter of women's lightweights and has some interesting ideas about our sport. I contacted Jim, and he was kind enough to give me his views.

I began by asking if the NCAA championship has been good for women's heavyweight rowing and if there might ever be a NCAA lightweight women's championship. Jim responded:

I do think that the NCAA has been good for women’s heavyweight rowing. The up side is that the NCAA is the yardstick that all sports are measured on here in the USA. This is very important because all athletic directors and sports enthusiast understand it. The down side is the direction that the sport took when it became a “team sport” under the NCAA umbrella. The championship quickly turned into what the BCS is in football. (Only for those with 1A football programs or endowments capable of supporting the 2 eights and a four format).

There are many serious rowing programs in this country that will never be part of that NCAA experience. Like lightweight rowing the question then is WHY? Rowing is an Olympic sport, yet it is the only “NCAA-Olympic sport” that does not look like the Olympic program. If it were, at least there would be lightweight doubles and ALL the collegiate rowing programs would have an opportunity to qualify for the championship. When you go down to smaller boats the “size” of the individuals rowing become less of a factor.

The only chance that I can see for lightweights becoming an NCAA sport would be to get 40+ programs together and petition the NCAA for a separate event. In the two years that I have been on the NCAA rowing committee, I cannot recall any lightweight legislation or proposals for inclusion. That legislation would have to come from a Conference Office or the CRCA.

I think there are two interesting points here - one is that the NCAA championship program is different than the Olympic program (more on that later) and the second is the last paragraph on lightweights becoming a NCAA sport. Lightweights are dependent on Conferences or the CRCA to bring lightweight legislation to the NCAA. It's hard to see a conference that might do this, and the CRCA, although tasked with representing lightweights, is generally hostile to the category (for evidence see my interview with the CRCA president, who was ignorant of any lightweight issues).

I then asked about team championships and if counting lightweight women toward team trophies would help grow the category.

I don’t understand the American fascination with the V8. Every medal is of equal value at the Olympics. Why do they have so many events at the IRA if the coaches themselves discount these wins in pairs and fours as “not real events.” To say that it's not fair for one school to be racing their top 2 or 4 athletes against another school's 16 through 20th athlete’s is crazy. If the Women’s NCAA is a true “Team Championship” then all three boats should get equal points. I don’t think that this strategy will help the lightweight agenda. Organization and creating more events would better serve your cause.

I agree that organizing and more events would help the cause, but I still think that a team trophy for say, Eastern Sprints, with equal points for a lightweight eight, would go a long way toward creating more events.

I then asked a general question about the future of women's lightweights.

Lets face it, there would be no NCAA women’s championship if there was not a need for gender equity. ... We should be demanding more from the NCAA. If you look at the numbers of women rowing and not the number of institutions having teams you will see that the NCAA is getting off cheap. The schools with full lightweight squads are giving those schools the gender numbers with no opportunity to get to a NCAA championship. There are still many collegiate rowing programs in this country that are not varsity. If they believed that they could qualify one boat for the NCAA do you think they might go varsity? If those schools went varsity the NCAA formula for athlete participation would go up.

[To be continued following the next team preview...]

Stetson to Add Lightweights!

Stetson will be adding lightweights to it's women's crew program with the first recruits entering school in the fall of this year. The Hatters aren't talking about simply rowing a few lightweight fours, however, they're going full bore - a goal of 9 to 10 rowers and coxswains this fall and 5 the following three years. And...scholarships are available. Looks like newly hired coach Chris Thomas will head up the program and he is the main recruiting contact. I guess UCF will have to pay a little closer attention to what's happening up I-4. In a short time they'll no longer be able to wake up each January 1st as the new year's Florida state lightweight champions!

Digging into the Everything is Connected File, we see that the Stetson head coach, Chris Deatrick, and an assistant, Jessica Clark, are both UCF grads. In fact Deatrick rowed as a lightweight at UCF and coached at UCF, including one year as the head lightweight coach. It seems a pretty safe bet that UCF's success helped convince the Stetson athletic department to add lightweights.



It seems to me that women's lightweight rowing is really starting to gain momentum. We had an exciting, highly competitive IRA Regatta last year, Tulsa added varsity lightweights, Alabama went varsity with the intention of keeping lightweights, Pitt is suddenly a national force in fours, the Radcliffe novices were blowing away heavyweights last fall, the slumbering lightweights at MIT are beginning to stir, and a lightweight coach is heading up the CRCA lightweight committee. Things are good and they're getting better!





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IRA Participation

It's been an awfully slow winter and rather than see how long I can sit on an erg before I hurt my back, I decided to take a look at who's been racing at IRAs.



I looked at 1997 through 2006 with the exception of 1998 (there seem to be no records from that year although I thought I saw them once), so it's a period of nine years, with the one break. It will surprise no one to hear that Radcliffe has raced at IRAs in every one of those years, since the Black and White are really the pioneers of collegiate lightweight women's rowing in the US. Perhaps a bit surprising however, is the fact that Wisconsin has also raced in each of those years. Surprising because I think we tend to think of the East coast schools as rowing forever while the western (west of Washington DC, that is) schools seem like relative newcomers. Wisconsin's tenure at the IRAs shows that dynasties aren't made overnight.



Princeton has raced eight times and Georgetown six. It's hard to remember that Wisconsin's program is older than Princeton's and Georgetown's is only two years younger. At five races come Villanova, UCF, and Stanford, a mix of the old and new. Villanova was quite a power in its day, which was really 1997 through 2000. Although the full results are missing, I do recall that Villanova won the national championship in 1998. Villanova lost its focus on lightweights and sunk into the morass of middling Dad Vail schools (attention class, that lesson will be on the final exam!).



In all, 30 schools have raced lightweight women at IRAs in those nine years. One can only wonder what happened to Mercyhurst who raced four times from 1999 to 2002. Will they ever be back? MIT, with a long lightweight tradition, has only raced twice. Some odd names show up as well, such as Brown and Virginia, two schools now known more for meat boats than for lightweights.



Over the nine year span, 90 boats raced (Wisconsin entered a B boat one year) for an average of ten entries per year. The number of entries per year has been quite variable, however, from a low of seven in 1999 to a high of fourteen in 2001. An average of 3 and a third boats drop each year while four new ones come on. For some reason 2001 and 2004 both saw a surge of a net four new boats racing. Since the field is now capped at 12 we won't see another fourteen entry year.



Of the thirty schools that entered boats over this period, nine only entered once and only nine (not the same nine) failed to make the grand final at least once. Of course making the grand has become harder in recent years. I've pointed out before that over the past ten years (including 1998) there have been four different national champions, a record the same as the heavy men and similar to the heavy women (they have five, I think). One other little surprise in the record is that in 2000, Radcliffe didn't make the final and finished 9th out of ten boats. Unusual for that program but a not unexpected sign of how difficult it is to maintain top finishes year in and year out.



Judging by these entries, the foundational programs of women's lightweight rowing stand out - Radcliffe, Wisconsin, Princeton, Georgetown, UCF, and Stanford. These are the key schools that make lightweight women's rowing work in the US (normally I'd put MIT in there too but their IRA attendance is pretty low). The names would be only slightly different ten years ago but I hope there will be many more on the list ten years hence. The fact that the average net change in boats each year is positive and the anecdotal evidence we see of varsity programs adding lightweights (e.g. Tulsa) are good signs for continued growth. The field is extremely competitive at the upper end and the days of near row overs are long gone. This year should be even better as crews normally relegated to the petites claw their way into the grand.



Speaking of this year, it's almost half way through January which means only about two months until racing begins. It's been so warm I wonder if they haven't already been rowing on Lake Mendota.



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I'm Pulling for China

The Asian Games are going on in Doha, Qatar right now and I think what is happening there may ultimately have an impact on collegiate women's lightweight rowing in the United States. China, home of the world champion lightweight 2x and lightweight 4x, is hoping to display its rowing prowess in Doha and use the Games as one more stepping stone to glory in the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

I hope China does well in the women's lightweight event in Beijing (after the US, of course) for the good of the category. Olympic lightweight rowing is constantly under attack and a good showing by China will help the IOC look favorably on lightweights. Why? A couple of reasons. First, the IOC likes sports that increase participation around the world and until recently China hasn't been a huge player in rowing. When lightweight rowing was added it was meant to increase participation by countries such as those in Asia with people of smaller stature (although Yao Ming may argue with that). A good showing in the lightweight 2x by China would be proof of concept.

Secondly, if a country like China, an economic and demographic powerhouse, decides that they have a competitive advantage in lightweight women's rowing, they can be a powerful positive influence on the IOC when the subject of lightweights is raised yet again. Perhaps most importantly in that calculus, they are not the United States or Western Europe and would therefore be more likely to receive a favorable reception from an international body.

Perhaps this is the trickle down theory of lightweight rowing, but increased prominence for lightweight women internationally will result in more USRowing attention for the category and subsequently more collegiate attention. The pie just gets bigger.

This week, grab a Tsingtao and Ganbei for China!



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CRCA - I've Been Remiss!

Somehow I missed taking a look at the 8/28/06 CRCA Board of Directors conference call minutes. Now that I've read them, I found two things quite interesting. First is this report:

There was some discussion that non-NCAA Women’s Teams be allowed to join the CRCA (lightweights). This met with Board approval with the understanding that these coaches could not serve as Directors on the Board of the CRCA.

Huh? Lightweight teams aren't members of the organization whose stated mission is "to unify collegiate women’s rowing coaches, to act as a collective voice, and to inform collegiate women’s rowing coaches on issues related to rowing?" An organization that serves "as the primary adviser on collegiate women's rowing issues to the United States Rowing Association?" Oh, don't worry, as long as no lightweight coaches defile the board, they can join. Look, either the CRCA "exists to unify collegiate women’s rowing coaches" or it exists to unify heavyweight women's rowing coaches. This is why they lack credibility. If this is a heavyweight only organization, fine, say so. If not, why make lightweights second class citizens? Just be honest.



Second is the update on lightweight issues from the head of the lightweight committee, Cecile Tucker.

The major point of discussion was whether the CRCA would provide awards to Lightweight Athletes and Lightweight Coaches. She agreed to determine how many colleges sponsored 'varsity' lightweight programs and would provide that information back to the board.

Obviously I think this is an excellent step and one on which I've posted before. This idea of determining the number of "varsity" lightweight programs is particularly interesting. There are a couple of ways of looking at it. First, is undoubtedly the board's way - we need to know how many programs there are to determine if an award would be meaningful. OK, that seems reasonable. A cynic, however, might say that it's a question asked because given the fluid nature of women's lightweight rowing, there are several very different but still "correct," answers. A look back at my own attempt to answer this question will show you what I mean. There are all sorts of definitional problems here. Let's take Bucknell. Is Bucknell a varsity lightweight program? It's a varsity program all right, but it only races lightweights at IRAs (and perhaps one other race during the season). Is it a varsity lightweight program? I can answer that with a yes while the CRCA board can answer that with a no. Another point here is that we could accept that there are enough programs (there were 12 good boats entered at IRAs last year plus a few more at Dad Vails) and use the awards to promote lightweight rowing and help it to grow. Before reading anything more into this, let's just see where it goes.



One quick note on the lightweight committee. That group has a thankless task working within the structure of the CRCA for the betterment of lightweight rowing. It's easy to sit outside and take shots (as I do), but much more difficult to be inside trying to make it work. The CRCA is the group that lightweights have to work with and the committee does the best it can within the constraints it is given. I've never heard, directly or indirectly, any member criticize the CRCA.





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