The Stanford Daily published a preview of the Stanford lightweights, focusing on their upcoming Sacramento State Invitational. The most interesting information to come out of this article is the fact that Coach Acosta said "three of our top eight athletes studied abroad this year." That could be tough to make up.
I received clarification on the question I had below as to whether you must race lightweight if possible to get your weigh-in certifications. The answer is that a weigh-in before a lightweight race is preferred, but if a rower is racing heavyweight or not enough races are available then a weigh-in certified by school staff will suffice. So, if the UCF rowers I mentioned below race as heavies all season, they can still race as lightweights at IRAs as long as they follow the 3 weigh-ins, after April 1st, one week apart, protocol.
The weigh-in procedures for the 2006 IRA Women's Lightweight National Championship have been announced. There are two primary changes from past years:
- Weigh-ins will be held the day before the first day of racing
- Each rower will need documentation of three prior weigh-ins from spring races.
Another key part of the procedure continuing from previous years is that a rower weighing over 132 pounds at the first weigh-in may not race, and a rower over 130 but under 132 may make two more attempts to make weight within one hour.
So, as some of you have wondered, you will hear "Paperz pleez," at IRAs. (Actually, the documentation of your weigh-ins will be sent along with the entry.) What you won't hear, at least not yet, is, "Fill ze bottle, pleez." There will be no hydration test.
To provide a little bit more detail, let me quote from the weigh-in principles:
To participate in the IRA National Championship, each MEMBER of a lightweight women's crew entry will be required to submit documentation of weigh-in on at least three different race dates between April 1 and the IRA entry due date, in that given year.
Weigh-in records, presented as documentation for the IRA entry, must be spaced at least 1-week apart; where there is a scheduling hardship (lack of enough April race-dates), a weigh-in record alone for a crew or athlete, will suffice.
Obviously waiting to see what appeared on FITD, Wisconsin released the lightweight women's season preview. Best Mary Shofner quote:"It is about staying humble and having the guts to keep doing what it takes to do it."
The thing about Wisconsin is that over the last couple of years (maybe always?) they've been a bit uneven early. They almost have to be given the winters they have. I'm not sure if the Wisconsin winter has been mild this year, but if so perhaps they'll start a little faster. We'll see about that at Windermere.
Now that I’ve finished my season previews, a reader or two have dropped me a note expressing disappointment that their school was not covered. I have two points about my selection of schools, one of which is an explanation, the other of which is a mea culpa. First, the schools I covered were those ranking in the top ten of my final 2005 spring rankings. Some judgment was required to do that ranking, but I feel pretty confident about how that turned out. There are other schools that may have deserved coverage, but I needed to limit it so I stuck with the top ten. Now comes the mea culpa. If you looked at the top ten, you’ll notice that Bucknell was not among them. UCSB was ranked but their coach told me that they won’t be racing lightweights this year so I dropped them, replacing them with Bucknell. I chose Bucknell for more or less arbitrary reasons, and therein lies the problem.
One of the benefits of actually having readers, is that they immediately call you out if you make a mistake or show questionable judgment. An MIT rower wrote wondering why the Engineers weren’t covered. If it weren’t for that pesky UCSB-Bucknell switch, I’d have the answer in the top ten. There were at least three other programs deserving of coverage by virtue of their longevity, performance, and consistency with lightweights – MIT, URI, and Cal. There are other programs, such as LMU, that take lightweights pretty seriously, but which aren’t as consistent. So the question is, “Why did I choose Bucknell?” I’m not sure I can answer that, other than to compare it to a new, small, tech stock receiving press while larger, more consistent performers receive very little. The value stocks just keep chugging along providing returns to their shareholders while the little guys bounce around sometimes turning into value stocks, other times flaming out. This is particularly true of “value stock” MIT and only a little less true of “value stock” Cal (a club program). Both of these programs consistently row lightweights (they are, in fact, lightweight programs) and do well. URI is newer to the game, but a serious contender, and actually fits the Bucknell “high-tech stock” mold. I really should have done the previews on my pre-season top ten, but I started them to fill the dead of winter and I just couldn’t do the top ten in time. So, my apologies to those schools, I certainly consider them to be top lightweight programs and expect that at least one of them will make it into my pre-season top ten.
On another subject, I hope to have information on this year's IRA weigh-in procedures posted later tonight.
Two national championships in a row do not make a dynasty. Three in a row might. Wisconsin enters the 2006 season looking for its third straight national championship and from the results of the head season, must be considered the favorite. By beating Princeton, Radcliffe, Georgetown, URI, and MIT in Boston, the Badgers proved that they are still the crew to beat come June. Including the coxswain, the Wisconsin boat at Boston held five seniors, four of whom are two-time national champions, one junior, and three sophomores. The boat was stroked by a sophomore transfer from Georgetown. Taken together, this is a lot of bad news for the rest of lightweight rowing.
Wisconsin begins its title defense in mid-March in Texas with the Texas Invitational. I assume this is on the tail end of a spring training trip and I have no idea who will race in it, but it will simply be a tune-up. Life gets serious for the Badgers when they travel to San Diego to race in the Crew Classic where, among others, they’ll meet up with Stanford. After the Crew Classic the Badgers stay on the road and head to New Jersey for the Knecht Cup. After Knecht the schedule lists a home race against Michigan State and Michigan. Both of those crews serve as evidence of the truth of the Football Theorem, so they won’t have lightweights racing that day. Looks to me like Wisconsin feels they need to look to heavyweights for some Midwest competition.
On April 22nd Wisconsin will race at home in the Midwest Sprints where they’ll have the opportunity to slap around some more heavies. A week later it’s back to the East Coast to race Georgetown, followed by Sprints in May and IRAs in June. As a lightweight power in the Midwest, there isn’t a lot of competition nearby and, while there are more interesting schedules around, Wisconsin does its very best to test its lightweights prior to Sprints and IRAs. No question about it, they’ll be ready.
A strong Wisconsin program is great for lightweight rowing. As an exception to the Football Theorem, the Badgers’ program provides hope that one day the theorem will no longer hold. They show other heavyweight-only programs that it is possible to play the Title IX game and still have a successful lightweight crew. But beyond all of that they add a real spark to lightweight rowing. After the 2004 IRA, a coach told me he knew Wisconsin would win the final by the way they put their boat in the water. That boat, by the way, was named “Decerto” (look it up). I remember walking around the school tents at that regatta and being amazed at the Wisconsin spread. First of all, there was a tent specifically for the lightweights with their name across the top. Inside that tent were red and white checked tablecloths, boom boxes playing “On Wisconsin,” and, this is the best, Barbie dolls dressed as Wisconsin cheerleaders! I mean come on, who wouldn’t want to be part of that? This was more like a Wisconsin-Minnesota football game than the Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race. I’m all for tradition, but these fans knew how to party. And they didn’t mind cheering a little either. I don’t know about this year, but in the past, when the lightweights raced in the Crew Classic, a band contingent traveled with them and waded into the water to play “On Wisconsin” as the crew neared the finish. This is great stuff! Everyone wants to beat Wisconsin right now, and sooner or later someone reading this will. When that happens, look over at the Badger boat, congratulate them on a hard fought battle, and remember all that they’ve brought to this party. But this year, they’ve got bulls eyes on their backs – it’s time to go Badger hunting!
A reader wrote to say that the "UCF Lights and Villanova Lights are going head-to-head next weekend at Rollins." This should be a good race. Good in the sense that both crews will learn something - Villanova will learn if it has a chance to be competitive this year and UCF will learn if it has a chance to be as good as many suspect.
Thanks for the tip, and please continue to write if you have good information that I've missed or don't know about.
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
"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."]
As Coach Paul Rassam begins his second year at the helm of the Princeton lightweights, he continues the Tigers' quest to regain the national championship. Princeton has won 5 of the last seven national championships, but the two years they lost were 2004 and 2005. Princeton is out to stop the uprising.
Princeton's season begins in late March as the varsity heads out to California for the Windermere Cup and the freshmen travel to Philadelphia for the Murphy Cup. At Windermere the Tigers will meet Stanford and Radcliffe, among others. Always a good early season regatta that establishes a pecking order for the next couple of races.
After Windermere Bucknell visits Lake Carnegie as the Bison begin working to bring their program into the Big Leagues. Should be a tune-up for Princeton, but watch out if they take Bucknell lightly. After Bucknell is the Knecht Cup, the first of the three lightweight "death matches."
Two weeks after Knecht the Tigers race Georgetown at home, followed the next week by Radcliffe at home. Georgetown will always be dangerous (they beat Wisconsin in a dual race last year) and Radcliffe is the rivalry. I think Radcliffe wants to beat Princeton so badly they can taste it. This rivalry is what rivalries should be - all encompassing. The (wimpy) editors at US News and World Report have had Princeton and Harvard tied for the number one school in the nation for the last few years, and I'm pretty sure both schools have had enough of that. If this race ends in a tie, the only thing we'll hear at the finish line will be two coxswains saying, "Ports to row, starboards to back. We're gonna do this again." After Radcliffe at the end of April comes Sprints in May and IRAs in June. Although Radcliffe is Princeton's natural rival, a few years of defeat at Wisconsin's hands has made any matchup between these two crews a blood feud. The Badgers know Princeton wants a piece of their hide and Wisconsin revels in defeating an Ivy League East Coast crew.
This is a year for Princeton's juniors to make an impact and for the sophomores to push for seats. Depending on what those two classes do, this could be a rebuilding year or it could be a return to dominance. Both the juniors and the sophomores won Sprints as freshmen, so the potential is there. Princeton, as a program, expects excellence and will accept nothing less. Although perhaps the most successful program in the Princeton boathouse over the last several years, recently the lightweights have fallen just short of that expectation, and no more motivation is needed. In a few short weeks we'll begin to see if a return to glory is just around the corner.
As expected, the UCF lightweights won the Metro Cup V8 in convincing fashion - 55 seconds. Perhaps more interesting, though, was the fact that the UCF heavies, who were only 2 seconds off of Michigan in their race the same day, raced with two lightweights and one rower listed as Light/Heavy in the boat. This suggests to me that for a big race UCF has some more guns to bring to the battle.
In the V4 Villanova beat UCF (with four rowers frrom the V8) and Rollins. Looks like Villanova plans to race lightweights this year. They didn't have a V8 here, but maybe it's just too early in the season to get one together for a race.
With Radcliffe, we enter the land of the Big Three. Everyone wants to break the stranglehold Radcliffe, Princeton, and Wisconsin have on lightweight rowing, and someday soon someone will. At the moment, however, breaking into this group will prove daunting.
While Radcliffe's inability to field an eight at the 2004 HOCR gave its rivals some hope for last spring, the Black and White came roaring back to occupy a familiar position by the end of the season. Unfortunately, that position, third, is not what Radcliffe had in mind. This year Radcliffe seems stronger and deeper throughout the program, but we'll need the season to see if that translates into a faster varsity eight.
The revelation begins at the end of March at the Windemere Cup. Radcliffe will meet Stanford and Princeton, among others. Following Windemere URI comes to town. (Actually, the day before URI, I think Radcliffe races Georgetown, although it's not on their schedule. I don't know why this isn't listed, but it will be a tough race for Radcliffe, as Georgetown continues its climb into the very top ranks of lightweight rowing.) This is like the Michigan - Notre Dame football games of the '90s' (1890's) in which Notre Dame was thrilled to play Michigan because they were learning how to play football. Radcliffe better hope their ending isn't the same, as the student surpassed the master. In fact, URI will be close to Radcliffe here, but I don't think they'll pull off the upset.
The week after URI is the Knecht Cup, one of the highlights of the lightweight season at which the Big Three will bash heads and hope that no one else sneaks into the top ranks. A few weeks after Knecht comes the annual dual with Princeton. Until Wisconsin muscled its way into the party, Radcliffe - Princeton was as good as it got in lightweight rowing. For the rest of rowing that thrill has mostly shifted to Princeton - Wisconsin now, but I can assure you that the loser of this race is a boatload of unhappy puppies. (If you're looking for a first-born, this is the place to be.) After Princeton comes MIT, in a URI kind of race, followed by Sprints and then IRAs in June.
Radcliffe was the pioneer in women's lightweight rowing and dominated the sport for years. For many years the varsity's only real competition was the 2V. They supported the sport and urged other schools to start programs and unfortunately the sign of their success is that they haven't won the national championship in years. They've been close, beating Princeton in dual races in some years that the Tigers went on to win IRAs, but they just haven't won the big one recently. Radcliffe, though, is getting faster. But so is Georgetown, Stanford, URI, UCF, Dayton, Ohio State, and Bucknell. Wisconsin and Princeton aren't standing still either. Radcliffe has earned its place in the top echelon of lightweight rowing both on and off the water, and its return to the top is not far off.
Alabama's new varsity coach, Larry Davis, tells me that he plans to continue racing lightweights, subject to Athletic Department approval. That's a big qualifier, but one over which he has little control. Nonetheless, it would be a great thing to see a large state school like Alabama join Wisconsin as sponsors of lightweight crew. This would catch the attention of the larger rowing community as well as the NCAA.
I recently came across a news conference transcript from 2002 in which former Wisconsin coach Maren LaLiberty discusses lightweight rowing at Wisconsin. I link to it now because it gives a little bit of insight into how a great program operates, while at the same time showing how far lightweight rowing has come. If you think women's lightweight rowing is going nowhere, take a look at this.
LaLiberty names her three main rivals - Princeton, Radcliffe, and Villanova. Villanova? Villanova is a classic example of a good lightweight program that decided to concentrate on heavyweights and became a mediocre heavyweight program. You would think schools would learn from this sort of thing, but they never do. LaLiberty then says that the only other programs in the country with separate lightweight programs are Princeton, Stanford (just went varsity at that point), and Radcliffe (the pioneer), and there are about 30 to 40 other colleges that compete in lightweight events. I'm not sure how many schools have separate lightweight programs now, but I consider a program with a separate lightweight coach a separate program. By that measure there are more schools joining this group all the time. Georgetown, URI, and UCF are three that come to mind. Also, as my analysis of colleges rowing lightweight shows, we now have about 70 schools racing lightweight boats every year. That's a big change in three years.
The best part of this interview is her discussion of weight. What LaLiberty describes here is how all good programs operate. As she says, it's a "weight-based sport... not a weight-loss-based sport." My favorite point is her assertion that the Wisconsin lightweights worry about how big their food budget has grown to be.
LaLiberty discusses a national championship by saying the obvious, that the NCAA is worried about weight issues with lightweight rowing. Isn't it funny that in my communication with the NCAA the issue of weight was never mentioned? LaLiberty's position on an NCAA championship mirrors the one I've stated on this blog - that a championship isn't the goal, participation is. She predicts a NCAA lightweight championship within ten years (2012). She also says that the coaches have been pushing for a four at IRAs. Boy, that's gone nowhere. The IRAs have men's intermediate midweight fours for rowers with red hair named Jason, but they don't have a Women's lightweight four.
Reading this interview can give you a pretty good feeling. Even though LaLiberty is gone, you have to believe that Mary Shofner, Paul Rassam, Cecile Tucker, Al Acosta, and Jim O'Conner are working behind the scenes for the same things. Personally, I wish they'd be a bit more militant about it. Really, I think the problem is that they all figure they'll be heavyweight coaches some day so if they push too hard for lightweights now they'll look like hypocrites then. That's not true and I hope I'm wrong about that, but I don't know...
UCF and Rollins are scheduled to race at the Metro Cup Regatta in Florida, but the schedule lists no lightweight events. I would think that UCF will race their lightweight boats in the heavyweight events, but we'll probably not know that from the results. If they do, look out Rollins. Heck, look out UCF heavies.
Wow, the season snuck up on me. The Stetson Sprints were raced last weekend with, as far as I know, the first race of the season. The University of Tampa (two boats) and Stetson raced lightweight fours. The finish was Tampa, Stetson, Tampa, with the winning Tampa boat listed as novice. The 2006 season is underway! Many of you have a few more erg pieces left, but pretty soon it will be all water time. It's time for the real season where no one cares what your erg score is and the only thing that counts is where your bow ball is after 2,000 meters.
Georgetown is in a position similar to Stanford except that, well, it usually beats Stanford. Nonetheless, it's been bouncing around the bottom of the top five crews (mostly at four) for a few years and needs to break out. Unlike Stanford, however, the program has had a few changes recently, changes which may shake things up just enough. For years Jimmy King tried to coach both the heavies and the lights with the result, believe it or not, that the heavies seemed to come up with the short end of the stick. A year ago Georgetown split the lights away from the heavies to form their own program with King's assistant, Rebecca Besant, as head coach. Besant soon left (to go to Africa, I believe) and Georgetown hired Jim O'Conner to take over the program. That's where we stand now, with a new coach and a new hunger to win on the Hilltop.
Georgetown begins what it hopes will be its spring feast at the Jesuit Invitational. Last year only St. Joseph's contested the lightweight eight event with the Hoyas and I expect they'll do so again this year. This is a race I'm anxious to hear about because although I think Georgetown should take it, St. Joe's is capable of a surprise. There may be other crews racing, such as Holy "Blue, no Yelloooow" Cross, or perhaps Fairfield, but it will be a Georgetown/St. Joe's race. Two weeks later comes Radcliffe and MIT in Boston. Another good race as it's early in the season and Georgetown will have had the benefit of racing Jesuits while Radcliffe will have raced at Windermere. Prime time for an upset here. This race, by the way, is not listed on Radcliffe's schedule but, given that it has a name (the Class of 2004 Cup), I assume it will be raced. While not up to Georgetown/Radcliffe speed, MIT is coming along and should be closer to these two boats then in the past. A week later comes the big party at the Knecht Cup. Before the month is out the Hoyas will race Princeton and Wisconsin again in dual races. May brings the Sprints followed by the IRAs in June.
Georgetown has a good schedule this year, meeting the traditional powers several times as well as a few crews on the next tier down. Rumor has it that Jim O'Conner is working the women hard and is serious about winning some major races. I don't know if this is the year Georgetown will move into the top three, but I'm pretty sure that at the end of the season Radcliffe, Princeton, and Wisconsin will know that they are facing a new and improved Hoya lightweight crew. They knocked off Wisconsin last year, providing what may have been the shock Wisconsin needed to get in gear and win IRAs. This year, if any of the Big Three take Georgetown lightly, they'll be in for a big surprise.
The results for C.R.A.S.H.-B.s are posted. A quick look at the top 10 lightweight college finishers shows something interesting: 7 row heavyweight in college, 2 row lightweight, and 1 is Canadian (doesn't count on FITD). One I've counted as lightweight rows for Marist so she probably rows as much heavyweight as lightweight. Another woman rows for UCF but is listed as a heavyweight. One problem here is that the weight limit for lightweights at erg races is 135. This means that women who couldn't make 130 but could just suck down to 135 can race lightweight. The funny thing here, is that that would mean there are heavyweight coaches who know that the best thing for their heavyweight racing athletes is to let their weight go where it would naturally while training, yet have them lose weight for an erg race. I could care less about heavyweights crashing the lightweight erg party because the sport, after all, is about crossing the finish line on the water first, not getting a digital readout to 2k first. But for all the heat lightweight coaches take about unsafe weight loss practices, I wonder if the most unsafe are these heavyweight coaches.
You must be wondering who that one lightweight racing erg monster is, right? It's Sarah Bates, Radcliffe's senior captain and stroke. By the way, of these top ten lightweights, at least three of them raced together in NYAC's Senior B eight entry at Canadian Henley last summer.
Alabama, which will begin it's first season as a varsity program next year, recently named its club program coach as its first varsity coach. During his tenure as club coach, Larry Davis coached Alabama to a lightweight eight victory at the Head of the Chattahoochee. It would be nice to believe that this will make him sympathetic to keeping lightweight representation in Alabama crew, but the actions of other new varsity programs suggests this won't be so. No doubt Coach Davis is already preparing to begin the national heavyweight scavenger hunt in which demand far outstrips supply. I've already mentioned my belief that Big Ten schools are particularly prone to drink the heavyweight Kool-Aid, but more specifically, I think that the average weight of a school's women's varsity crew is directly proportional to the prominence of its football team. (Stanford and Wisconsin, with varsity lightweights, are two exceptions that prove the rule.) Think of Notre Dame, Michigan, and Tennessee. Then think of lightweight schools Princeton, Radcliffe, and Georgetown. I suppose we can call this the Football Theorem. I don't know why this is, other than to speculate that the student populations at these schools have already shown themselves able to tolerate the carnival atmosphere caused by having abnormally large people walking around campus.
In any case, perhaps Coach Davis at Alabama will prove this theorem wrong. [See my update here.]
Stanford has been bouncing around the bottom of the top five nationally ranked crews for several years now, and it's time they make a move. Their first opportunity comes at the Sacramento State Invitational. Although other lightweight crews may compete, Stanford's major worry should be the Cal Lights. As the two major lightweight crews in the West, these two boats will run into each other several times during the season. Two weeks later comes another big race at the Windermere Classic. Here the Cardinal should meet up with Princeton and Radcliffe, and get an early, probably too early, read on their season. One week later comes the Crew Classic and Wisconsin, as well as Cal once again. Haven't had enough yet? OK, head straight to the East Coast for the Knecht Cup and see Wisconsin, Radcliffe, Princeton, and Georgetown. Now, take a week off.
Whew! What an opening schedule! Stanford has an opportunity to make a name for itself quickly this season, or get pounded for three straight weeks. Despite being a West Coast school, by the time of the Knecht Cup Stanford will have had the most experience in the field racing the major powers - only Georgetown will have been unseen by the Cardinal. That will make the trip interesting because Stanford has been closest to catching Georgetown the past few seasons.
After Knecht comes Cal (again), St. Mary's, and Santa Clara. At this point Stanford will know if it has an easy week or a dogfight since it will have raced Cal a few times already. Next listed on the schedule are the Cal heavyweights. This looks unusual, but I'm guessing the Stanford heavies are racing and the lights though they'd tag a long and see what they could do. It will be motivating to race heavies, but I'm not sure this is the right match-up for an upset. A few weeks later are the Pacific Coast Championships (another date with Cal, most likely), and then the IRAs. I hope the Cardinal has the PCC date circled on their calendars, because I'm pretty sure UCF does. UCF has something to prove on their trip west, and they have it to prove to Stanford. The loss to Stanford at last year's IRA cost UCF quite a bit in the final standings and this will be their first chance for revenge. As much as they'll be missed at Dad Vail, UCF's presence at the PCC will be great for Stanford and West Coast rowing.
Stanford is certainly going after it this year, scheduling tough crews and putting their season on the line. This is the only way to improve and Stanford has been treading water long enough. Some schools might be happy with a fairly constant 5th or 6th in the nation, but I don't think Stanford is one of them. When this school makes a sport varsity, they do it for one reason - to win, and the learning curve is just about over. I'm not sure Stanford is ready to break out just yet, but I do think they'll be knocking on Georgetown's door. One way or the other, we'll see Stanford break into the top three in the next few years.
Dayton had perhaps its most successful year last year, winning the lightweight varsity eight at Dad Vail. I wish they had gone on to race at IRAs, but I assume there was a scheduling conflict of some sort that didn't allow it. Dayton enters Spring 2006 as the school to beat among Dad Vail competitors.
The Flyers open the season March 25 at home against Duquesne, who has raced lightweight boats the last two years. This race should be a nice tune up to start the season. Next up are Cincinnati, Eastern Michigan, and Indiana. I don't think any of those programs has lightweights, although I seem to recall that Eastern Michigan was talking about adding them not too long ago. The first real test for Dayton will come at the Knecht Cup. As I've mentioned, this race has become a great event for lightweights as the top crews in the country usually compete and I think this year is no exception. This will give the Flyers an early read on where they stand.
Dayton then gets into its championship season as two weeks after Knecht is the A-10 championship. Dayton will be the crew to beat here, although URI might put on a good show, and I just have a feeling that St. Joe's has a lightweight surprise or two up its sleeve. Three weeks after A-10 is Dad Vail. Only time will tell who actually shows up at Dad Vail, but it's guaranteed not to be a cakewalk. Despite the sometimes low number of entries at Vails, as I've noted before, the Vails lightweight eight was a bit of an anomaly in 2005, given that the times were much closer to the heavy boats than one might expect. Dayton will be the crew to beat, but they'll have their hands full, even without UCF. After Vails comes IRAs and as it is listed on their schedule, it looks like Dayton plans to race. I expect they'll earn their attendance and should put in a good show.
Dayton was a relative newcomer to the top ranks of lightweight rowing last year. Their inability to race at IRAs robbed them of an opportunity to see if they really deserved membership in the Big Dog Club. This is the year for the Flyers to step it up. They tasted victory last year and know that it's sweet. The only thing more motivating than remembering what a gold medal feels like around your neck is wondering what one feels like. Those crews chasing Dayton are wondering. This is the year for Dayton to pull out all the stops - they CAN compete with the top crews, but WILL they?
Some readers have written asking about rumors they've heard concerning new weigh-in procedures. Specifically, there are questions about a possible hydration test and about the possibility that anyone racing as a lightweight at IRAs will have to weigh in throughout the year even if rowing heavyweight. I've looked into this and the only thing I can report now is that they are still just rumors. The CRCA has told me that the "lightweight committee has made NO recommendation regarding a hydration test -- or a requirement of such." I assume, however, that this doesn't preclude them from making such a recommendation at a later time. Some of the top programs, however, have instituted these tests on their own. Although I think this test can be extra sensitive, using it within a program is a good move. We must be able to trust coaches and trainers with their own athletes. If a coach can't be trusted in this regard she or he should be fired. The hydration test, when used by coaches, trainers, and physicians who know their rowers and understand the sport can only be a good thing. As FITD readers know, I'm not so sure about using it at weigh-ins.
I've also been told that the CRCA has "come up with some revised weigh-in recommendations that will be adopted at the IRA this year." These recommendations have not been communicated to coaches yet so they obviously won't be released to me. As soon as I get them I'll post them so if you don't hear anything from your coaches you can look here.
This idea of weighing-in even if racing heavyweight is a curious one. On the one hand I understand it - rowers shouldn't be losing a ton of weight just before IRAs to try to go out and win a gold medal. That's dangerous and not fair to true lightweights. On the other hand, how would it be policed? Would you need a document certifying that you've made weight all year? What if you missed weight one weekend? I can see it now, the first words from the scale attendant's mouth will be, "Paperz pleeze." A few years ago, when Wisconsin blew the field away by 12 seconds at IRAs, there was a rumor going around that about half the boat was heavyweights who dropped down just for the race. I tried to check this rumor out at the time and as far as I could tell it was false. [Update: See the comments on this post for confirmation that this rumor IS false.] I also think the rumor was a bit insulting. If Wisco was racing 2 heavy eights and a heavy four at NCAAs (and assuming those girls wouldn't be messing around with their weight) that means that the 21st through 24th best rowers on Wisco's heavyweight crew simply had to drop to lightweight to win an IRA gold. Sorry, as much as heavyweights want to believe that can happen, it can't, and certainly not when racing Princeton, Radcliffe, et. al.
Sorry for going on here, but the upshot is, keep checking this site and I'll let you know as soon as I have solid information.
A reader commented on my last post saying, “the ncaa governs womens rowing. lightweight rowing is not its own sport-it is simply an event -like the pair, four etc. -within womens rowing.” This is an interesting statement, and one that I think is worth exploring a bit. First though, we need to ask if it really matters. I think it does because it determines if the NCAA has any power over women’s lightweights and it also has an effect on the likelihood that lightweights will ever have an NCAA championship. Readers of this blog know that I’m conflicted over whether the latter result would be a good thing. I think the answer is yes, ONLY if it increases participation in the sport (or is that “event?”).
As you may remember, not too long ago I posed a series of questions about women’s lightweight rowing to Tina Krah at the NCAA. Some of her answers support my reader’s contention that lightweights are simply an event, while others do not. Her answer to the first question suggests that lightweights are an event as she discusses lightweights in the context of what constitutes a team – eights and fours. In the second question she says that “the championship is in place,” again suggesting that lightweights are just another event. It’s at Question 3, however, where things really get interesting. I ask if schools have to follow NCAA guidelines in their lightweight women’s programs. Her answer is, “The institutions would determine this.” Whoa! That doesn’t sound like the NCAA governs lightweight rowing. This says to me that if Georgetown was caught giving it’s lightweight recruits new Cadillac Escalades when they enrolled, the school could simply say, “We have chosen not to follow your guidelines with women’s lightweights,” and the NCAA would say, “Oh, ok.” Tina does go on to say that this depends on “how the institution is counting the sport on their individual campuses.” I’m not sure what that means – can a school say that they are not counting the sport as an NCAA sport? Maybe it has to do with whether the sport figures into Title IX numbers, my next question. Again, Tina says that whether lightweight rowing counts as a women’s sport for Title IX purposes is “an institutional decision.” These two answers suggest to me that the NCAA has no authority over lightweight rowing unless the school chooses to allow it. Even if it had the authority, how would it exercise it? It couldn’t punish violators because there are no scholarships to lose and no championship to deny. My conclusion – the NCAA does not govern women’s lightweight rowing.
Now, let’s look at this idea that lightweights are an event, not a sport. I don’t want to get caught up in the meaning of sport, I really want to explore if lightweights are simply an event and what the answer to that question means to lightweight rowing. If lightweights are an event, that means that to race in an NCAA championship, coaches (or the NCAA rowing committee) would have to vote for the inclusion of that event. If the event were included, that means that lightweights would count toward the team championship and schools would need to add lightweights to be competitive. I can’t imagine this EVER happening. The committees advising the NCAA are made up almost solely of heavyweight coaches, most of whom believe that adding lightweights would detract from the resources needed to run successful heavyweight programs. Uh oh, that doesn’t sound like just another event to me. (By the way, I think this undue emphasis on “team championships” is an NCAA concoction. I want to laugh every time I see members of a losing varsity eight hoisting a team championship trophy.) I’ve never heard coaches say that they can’t race pairs because they would need to bring in separate coaches and recruit separate athletes. If the NCAA decided to add a pairs event to its championship, teams would just go out and buy some pairs and send the 13th and 14th rowers out to race. You can’t do that if lightweights are added. In fact you do need to recruit completely different athletes and completely different coaches. No, I don't think lightweights are just another event. The women who race in the lightweight varsity eights are the top rowers in their programs. The heavyweight women in the NCAA governed sport cannot simply race a new event – they don’t qualify, that’s the point of lightweight rowing. I think the NCAA’s inability to know its own mind on this point is another sign of that body’s lack of understanding of the sport of rowing.
So what does all this mean? Well, it means that I honestly don’t know how women’s lightweights would ever end up with an NCAA championship. I don’t know the inner workings of the NCAA rowing committee so I’m sure I’ve made some wrong assumptions, but I still believe that the NCAA tries to meddle in lightweight rowing for political reasons while it discourages the sport through active neglect.
St. Joeseph's University plans to race lightweights this season. I'm starting to think this may a good year!
The Ohio State coach wrote to say that OSU WILL be competing at Dad Vail this spring, followed by a quick trip to ECACs to defend their title the next day. I also didn't mention OSU's race against Ithaca the weekend after the Purdue race, mainly because Ithaca hasn't been putting out lightweight boats. OSU hopes they'll have an eight this year. Ohio state's lightweights will be racing against heavyweights as the 2V most of their races.
By the way, the conflicting dates of Dad Vail and ECACs brings the ECACs back to their roots as Dad Vail spoilers. I wrote about this once before and wasn't contradicted, but if my memory serves me correct, ECACs were started by some of the men's crews who got tired of Temple winning every Dad Vail. They thought it was about time for Temple to move up to IRAs so in protest they started their own regatta. The only school I recall as one of the ringleaders is Georgetown.
The results of Bucknell's Erg Armageddon are out - check out the lightweight times. I know it's old school of me to say this, but whenever you look at erg scores just remember, ergs don't float.
The December 3rd USRowing Board of Directors meeting minutes states that the USRowing Medical Commission is creating "procedures for safe weight loss for lightweights." The Commission will write a recommendation paper on this subject. The group working on it is pretty impressive - Kris Carlson, Jo Hanafin, Larry Klekatzky, Tim Hosea, a representative from the NCAA (huh?), Paul Fuchs, Charlie Butt, Greg Hughes, and Andy Card. I suspect the death of Scott Laio at last year's Dad Vails prompted, or at least increased the urgency of, this project. The rumor I heard is that this group, or at least Tim Hosea, the head of the Commission, would like to institute hydration tests at lightweight weigh-ins.
It was quite interesting, though, that it fell to Wisconsin heavyweight coach Bebe Bryans to ask that a lightweight coach be added to the group (no word on if that's been done). Bryans was Michigan State's head coach for years and is now at Wisconsin - both Big Ten schools. I think of Big Ten programs as quintessentially heavyweight. At Wisconsin Bryans is responsible for the lightweight program too, so given that the lightweights are the most successful program in Wisco's boathouse (men or women) it only makes sense for her to take care of them.
The results of this group will almost certainly have an impact on collegiate lightweight rowing in the US. Even if its recommendations come out too late for this season, they will probably go into effect quickly.
What's up with the inclusion of an "NCAA representative?" Are lightweights an NCAA sport or not? They give lightweights none of the benefits of being an NCAA sport yet somehow want a say in making the rules? Since the Commission refers to NCAA wrestling rules, perhaps the rep is there just to give input on wrestling. Whatever, but isn't that like the NCAA - "I'll have my cake and eat it too."
If they're lucky, Ohio State opens their season with a dual race against Purdue on March 26th. As usual with these schedules, it's not clear if the lightweights are racing against Purdue, but there is some hope that they will because Purdue does field lightweight boats, although they didn't do so last year. They've recently won Dad Vails though, so they should have some motivation to get back in the mix.
The next race with lightweight potential is probably the Ohio Cup, which is scheduled to include a lightweight four event. Since this is OSU's race, it doesn't seem to be a particularly good sign that there isn't an 8 on the schedule and I wonder if OSU is thinking of just racing a 4 this year. They couldn't have been too happy with their race against Dayton in the fall, although you never know the circumstances leading up to that race. Plus, a good winter can do wonders for a crew.
Next is the Indianapolis Invitational Regatta, which usually consists of largely Big 10 schools - a gathering of heavyweights. Then comes MACRAs which may have lightweight events, perhaps at minimum a lightweight four. Wisconsin has raced there in the past, although mostly in heavyweight events, so there may be some (in the case of Wisco, top) lightweight competition. ECACs follow and OSU has a title to defend. OSU should run into URI here, and that would be a good test for both schools, making this regatta one to watch. The Buckeyes then finish the season with IRAs. Dad Vail is not listed on the schedule, which I find quite disheartening. At this point, two of last year's five competitors at Dad Vail aren't racing this year. Usually someone else steps into the gap, but it looks like this year's race will be up for grabs. [Update: OSU WILL be at Dad Vail this year.]
The Harvard web site published a short update on the Radcliffe lightweights after their Florida training trip. The important mention here is about the strength and depth of the lightweight squad. In fall of 2004 Radcliffe was unable to field a lightweight eight for the Head of the Charles. This past fall they raced two freshman eights at the Belly of the Carnegie. I don't quite know where the varsity eight is, but this program is back.
A new study done by Rutgers University researchers suggests that college freshmen are at particular risk for disordered eating. The study showed that on average students gain 7 pounds during their freshman year in college. This results from a "positive energy balance" of approximately 112 excess calories per day. If left unchecked, this could result in a staggering 27 pound weight gain by graduation! In addition, this leaves these students particularly vulnerable to the college freshman triad of Type II diabetes, hypertension, and hypercholesterolemia, commonly known consequences of obesity (are we allowed to say that word or do we need to come up with a euphemism using the word "open?"). The Council of College Presidents is expected to issue guidelines for recognizing and treating disordered eating of this sort. The authors noted that recognition begins with the patient looking downward and determining if she can see her belt buckle.
Ok, ok, poor attempt at humor, but isn't this simply the opposite of what everyone seems to be up in arms about with female athletes?
The next season preview should be UCSB, but their coach tells me they won't be racing lightweights this season. Instead, rather than skip a spot, I'll cover a team that didn't have much national impact last year, but which I expect to have some this year - Bucknell.
Bucknell opens their season March 25 at the Murphy Cup in Philadelphia. Last year there was only a lightweight four event, although I suspect that some lightweight programs entered the heavyweight events. The lightweights, then, may have a chance to race there. This regatta is followed by a home race against Penn State, but the lightweights won't be there. It's too bad that doesn't work out because Penn State made some noise in the fall, winning the Head of the Occoquan and the Philly Frostbite. The competition may have been a bit suspect there, but a Bucknell/Penn State lightweight eight race would be a good early season race. Instead, though, the Bucknell lightweights travel to Princeton. That's a tough way to start the season. The Bisons are getting serious about lightweight rowing and this is one way to find out where they stand. I wouldn't be surprised to see close race here. Early in the season crews come along at different rates, often trying to peak at different times, and with differing goals for early races. (No one's goal, however, is to lose.) By the way, the schedule doesn't list the freshmen as traveling to Princeton. The Bucknell frosh boat that did so well at the Head of the Schuylkill contained mostly lightweights so a frosh lightweight race at Princeton could provide a surprise.
On April 8 is the Lake Wheeler Invitational. Last year this regatta had a light four race, but that was it. I can't tell if the lightweights are going to this or not. The next likely race for lightweights will be a home race with Buffalo. Last year Buffalo raced both a lightweight four and a lightweight eight so this should be more competition. At the end of the month is the Patriot League Championships, which do not have lightweight events. It's not clear to me why, though, since both Bucknell and Lehigh will be there, as will Holy Cross which considers racing lightweights every now and then.
May brings the Championship Season with Dad Vails, followed by IRAs in June. In UCF's absence, I expect Bucknell and Dayton to duke it out at Dad Vail. I may revise that opinion if someone like URI shows up, or Lehigh or OSU shows some real speed, but that's the way I see it right now. I also expect Bucknell to make a run at IRAs.
Businesses only launch products when they see evidence of demand, and Kaschper has just launched a new flyweight (<138lbs) single.
Santa Clara announced their schedule today which included a Stanford Lightweight Dual as well as a race against Sonoma State and Cal lightweights. We don't know if these races will be eights or fours, but since they are going to the trouble of scheduling them it seems they'll be eights. Last year Santa Clara raced a light four at WIRA.
MedPage published a review of the IOC's new treatment guidelines for the female athlete triad. In the review, the writer quotes the guidelines' authors as saying, "Disordered eating with athletes typically involves a willful attempt by the athlete to create a negative energy balance. Part of this attempt is based on the premise that a thinner or leaner body can enhance performance (e.g., lightweight rowing, distance running) and/or a thinner appearance can render a better score in sports that are judged (e.g., diving, figure skating, gymnastics)."
Catch the problem here? Lightweight rowers do not believe that a thinner or leaner body, once below weight, enhances athletic performance. And making weight is done because it is required, not because lower weight enhances performance. There is absolutely no incentive to lose weight below 130 pounds. The incentive is to be as close to 130 as possible, while still ensuring that you make weight. No rower in her right mind would want to create a "negative energy balance." Of course, an individual with an eating disorder could be seen as not being in her "right mind." The point here, however, is that unlike non-athletes, lightweight rowers actually have an incentive not to create this negative energy balance. This would suggest that any worries about what making weight does to the fragile psyche of those delicate lightweights is balanced by the offsetting incentive not to go below 130.
One of the worries about the proposal to add hydration testing to lightweight weigh-ins is that it DOES provide an incentive to go below 130. Some weight would need to be reserved for water alone. Because you can never know for certain before actual testing on race day if you meet the hydration requirement, you'll have to drop below 130 to make room for the extra water you'll have to consume.
By the way, the actual Olympic triad guidelines mentions a study by Brownell and Rodin which it says suggests that "athletes have more problems with eating, dieting, and body image than nonathletes, and the problem appears to be greatest in sports in which there is an emphasis on thinness, either for performance or appearance. Athletes most at risk would be those involved not only in sports that emphasize a thin body size or shape (e.g.,
distance running) but also in sports that utilize weight categories (e.g., rowing, martial arts)..." I don't have Brownell and Rodin's book so I can't read what they actually conclude, but as usual the statement is mushy. Rodin, however, is the former president of Penn - maybe that's why there are no lightweights there?
What are "openweight" women? Men are lightweight men and heavyweight men, but women are lightweight women and "openweight" women. My spellchecker flags the word and it doesn't seem to show up in other sports. (Well, that's not quite true.)
A University of Dayton press release listed the lightweight eight's achievement of reaching a #6 national ranking in the USRowing poll in 2005 (also their final ranking in FITD's Best in Show!). Somehow they missed the fact that they won Dad Vail!
Another article about women athletes with eating disorders appeared on Monday. This is two in about a week and a half.
These stories all have the same flaws. They talk about "eating disorders" which includes simple dieting (according to the American College of Sports Medicine), they don't compare female athletes to female college students, and they substitute intuition for facts when suggesting that lightweight rowers are more at risk.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, as long as dieting is considered disordered eating, 98% of college women evidence disordered eating. These researchers do themselves a great disservice here because when I see the words "disordered eating" I know that what follows is essentially useless to me. Yes, some serious eating problems are also included in disordered eating but using the broader category is not helpful.
This article actually does present some numbers. The first statistic is that about 1/3 of female athletes have some type of disordered eating. Huh? Can you imagine only 1/3 of college women answering "no" to a question like, "Over the past six months, have you dieted?" What was their definition of disordered eating? Again, this is useless. The next statistic is that 43% of female college athletes said they were "terrified" of becoming too heavy! "Terrified?" I'm terrified when I open my closet and find the Alien in there. I'm terrified when my parachute doesn't open. I'm terrified when... well, you get the idea. This has to be BS, and therefore, useless. Finally we learn that "2% to 3% of female college athletes have full-fledged, diagnosable eating disorders." Then we learn that this is, uhh, about the same as the general population. My next question - "How does that compare to the college female population?" Athletes may actually be lower, but we aren't told.
Then we have the gratuititous lightweight rowing comment, "Female athletes who seem especially vulnerable to disordered eating and excessive exercise are in either the 'thin-build sports' or activities that require a lean body weight, such as ... lightweight rowing, says Beals." [Emphasis mine.] Is this an opinion or a study result?
Eating disorders are a terrible, life threatening problem, but I've yet to see anything to suggest that they are a greater problem among lightweight rowers.
A reader wrote in a comment to the CRCA post that the CRCA lightweight committee is re-evaluating weigh-ins and is advocating that part of the weigh-in procedure will be a urinalysis. This test would measure hydration. I discussed these tests before and noted that it is very easy to turn up as dehydrated. My guess (and that's all it is) is that if you or I were tested right now we'd both show up as dehydrated. The problem is that the only way to ensure you pass this test is to overhydrate. Even a rower whose natural weight is 130 pounds, just the kind of woman you'd want rowing lightweight, can't risk overhydrating before a weigh-in. Does this mean she's taking risks with her health? Of course not. It means she weighs 130 and can't afford to be bloated with water before a weigh-in. This procedure may actually result in rowers losing weight to 125 so they can fill up with 5 pounds of water before weighing-in.
Trying to get a handle on weight control issues is a good thing. The problem is that no test or rule will ever really work. The only thing that works is having responsible coaches in focused lightweight programs working with good trainers. As this reader noted, serious lightweight programs have trainers and team doctors who weigh rowers away from coaches to make sure weight control is being handled properly.
UCF will be a team to watch this spring. Except for a bad race at Dad Vail, they had a good season last year. Although during the season they lost to some of the same teams they lost to at Dad Vail, I don't think their 4th place finish there reflected their true speed at the end of the year. A drop from 6th (2004) to 7th (2005) at IRAs may not sound good either, but they got pipped by Stanford in their IRA heat and were relegated to the petites. Had they made the grand final they may very well have beaten Stanford. I think UCF is serious about lightweights and within a year or two they should be a model for how to become national players.
I have to say, the UCF schedule listing is one of the most uninformative listings around. Every race is a named race so no opponents are listed. The first four races listed are the Metro Cup (which I thought was with Rollins), the Rollins Invitational, the Rollins Tri-Meet, and the Spring Break Race. Sounds like a lot of racing with Rollins, which doesn't usually put out a lightweight boat. I guess we just don't know who they'll be racing, but given that I can't think of any Florida crews who can really give UCF a run for their money, I'll consider these races early season tune ups.
In early April UCF travels to Camden, NJ for the Knecht Cup. As I mentioned below, this has become a premiere race for lightweights and this will provide the Golden Knights' first real test. UCF doesn't race again for a month or so, when they head out to California for the Pacific Coast Rowing Championships. This race should give UCF an opportunity to avenge losses last year to Stanford and UCSB. Unfortunately this race takes the place of Dad Vail on UCF's schedule. There was only a five boat V8 race at Dad Vail last year so UCF will be sorely missed. It is good, however, to see some intense lightweight racing on the west coast and it does give the rowers a great trip to look forward to. UCF's coach came from USD which no doubt played into her decision to bring the team (heavies go too) to California. The PCRC is followed three weeks later by the national championship race at IRAs.
I have no doubt that UCF will belong at IRAs this year and I expect they'll be ready to put on a good show. It looks like last year's IRA boat only lost the coxswain to graduation so they should be at least as fast again this year.
Stephen Kish wrote me to say that in fact, Cecil Tucker, Radcliffe's lightweight coach, took over the chairmanship of the CRCA lightweight committee the day after he left office. The notes and minutes on the web site made it seem as though there might have been some difficulty in filling the spot - apparently that's not the case.
I think that Cecile Tucker's chairmanship is especially good news. While Kish's crew, Bucknell, does (and intends to continue doing) some serious lightweight rowing, he is head women's coach and also has to concern himself with heavyweights. Tucker will not have these dual loyalties. In addition, Radcliffe's role in the development of women's collegiate lightweight rowing was seminal and I think the school has a real interest in seeing it grow.
The CRCA, though, seems to be the Trilateral Commission of collegiate rowing - just what are those guys up to? And in particular, what does the lightweight committee do?
So is there a benefit to having a NCAA championship? I can only think of two. First, there are no doubt some athletic directors who don't consider a sport a sport unless it has a NCAA championship. If such a championship would cause more schools to race lightweights, that's a benefit. Maybe more important though, is the organization the NCAA provides. By organization, I mean the self organization such as that found in the CRCA as well as the NCAA's committees. The CRCA supposedly concerns itself with lightweights but it currently doesn't even have a chairman of the lightweight committee (Stephen Kish has taken another role).
Speaking of committees, just who are these NCAA committee members? You can find them here. You'll see that there are some schools represented that have lightweights, but it's doubtful that the individual representatives care about, or even know much about, lightweight rowing. Bryn Mawr's representative is the tennis coach!
Lightweight coaches though, could create their own organization to govern the sport. I'm not talking about a revolution, simply a group to make rules, address issues of interest to lightweights, and yes, promote the sport. Does this exist?
The NCAA's answers to my questions (see below) amounted to a punt. A punt because the answer to most of the questions was, "We do whatever the membership wants." I'm not suggesting that this is wrong or untrue, only that it seems a bit disingenuous for the most powerful sports governing body in the country to act as if they only do the will of their members. Nonetheless, let's look at each question.
As for the question of whether the NCAA intends to make lightweight women's rowing an NCAA sport (for better or for worse), the answer is no. Of course, it's up to the rowing committees, and they apparently have no interest. In fact, viewing rowing strictly as a team sport, it appears that lightweights would almost never have a NCAA championship because a lightweight eight would have to be made a component of the team. This is why a reader wrote a week or two back to say that the best move to help lightweights get a championship would be for rowing to move from a team sport to an individual sport. Currently, however, some V8s are invited to the NCAAs without the rest of the team when the full team doesn't deserve an invitation, which suggests that if desired, lightweight eights could be invited as single boats also. It's far from certain, by the way, that a NCAA championship would be good for lightweights, but it probably would signify an increase in popularity.
The NCAA states that to be considered for a championship 40 schools would have to sponsor lightweight rowing. As my previous research shows, well over 40 schools race lightweights, although only 30 or so lightweight V8s race. With a championship invitation at stake, however, I think the schools racing only fours would be able to find their way to racing eights. I don't think the 40 threshold is a problem.
I thought the next two answers were very interesting. The NCAA said that schools themselves determine if they have to follow NCAA rules with their lightweight programs (recruiting, etc.), depending on how the institution counts the sport. What does that mean? How CAN an institution count the sport? I suppose it refers to my next question, which asks if lightweights count for Title IX purposes. The NCAA's answer is that this is an institutional decision. I suppose that is really a trick question because, although I'm not an expert, I think that if a school is sued under Title IX, it will not be the NCAA making the determination to sue or not. Which sports count will be up to a judge or jury. Ultimately, I don't see how the NCAA has any leverage at all over a sport for which they don't offer a championship, which would suggest that lightweight programs are on their own. Nearly all varsity programs, however, follow NCAA guidelines because it would be too hard to separate out what the lightweights are doing versus what the rest of the teams are doing.
The NCAA says that it would be very complicated trying to hold other championships (men's and lightweights') with the heavy women. I really can't imagine why - a fair, well run regatta is fair and well run for everyone.
In answering the last question, the NCAA suggests that rowers care much more about winning a championship sponsored by the NCAA than one that is not. I don't understand why this would be so. People worked pretty darn hard to win championships before the NCAA and those not under the NCAA's rule still work hard to win them.
There was a lot of talk here about growing the sport, but there was never any inkling that supporting lightweight rowing might aid that growth. But then again, it's all up to the membership, isn't it?
(Gratuitous insult - when "NCAA's" is spell checked with Blogger's spellcheck, the suggested word is Nazis.)
A few weeks ago I sent seven questions to Tina Krah, Associate Director of Championships, who handles the women's heavyweight championship for the NCAA. My purpose was to try to get a better understanding of the NCAA's view toward women's lightweight rowing. My questions and Tina's answers, both unedited, are below.
1. Do you intend to make lightweight women’s rowing a NCAA sport? If not, why not?
The NCAA National Office does not determine what the format is for any of the championships, the committees do. At this point in time, the NCAA Rowing committees, made up of college coaches and administrators, do not have intentions to add lightweight rowing to the women's championship format. We have had and will continue to have discussions on the format as well as what defines a team at all three divisions. Presently, Division I defines a team as I Eight - II Eight - Four; Division II defines a team as I Eight and Four; Division III defines a team as I Eight and II Eight.
2. Is there a minimum number of schools that have to race lightweight women’s boats before you consider sponsoring a NCAA championship?
Certainly to add lightweight rowing we would want to know the membership feels there is a desire to add this event to the format. I do not believe there is magic number of institutions that needs to have lightweight rowing. Presently, for the women sports, we would need to have 40 institutions sponsoring the sport to consider it for a championship. Since we have the championship in place it would be a matter of considering if lightweight rowing is what the membership wants to add this to the present championship format. As stated in the previous answer the committee has been discussing the championship format with the rowing coaches.
3. Since the NCAA doesn’t sponsor a lightweight women’s championship, do schools have to follow NCAA guidelines in their lightweight women’s programs (recruiting, etc.)?
The institutions would determine this. It would depend how the institution is counting the sport on their individual campuses. It is not determined by whether there is a championship or not.
4. Do varsity lightweight crew programs count as a women’s sport for Title IX purposes?
This is an institutional decision.
5. Is it the NCAA’s intent to discourage women’s lightweight rowing?
The national rowing committee has been in discussions with the rowing coaches to determine how to continue to grow the sport of rowing. We have not discouraged any event. The decisions to add or change the format of the championship are driven by the membership. The rowing committee continues to look to the membership for direction.
6. Why is the heavyweight women’s championship regatta separate from the men’s and lightweight women’s championship?
The NCAA championships are exclusive to the events that are considered for crowning the champion. If the lightweight events would want to be held at the same time but not be included into the NCAA championships there would be restrictions on how the lightweight event would be run. There would be several issues and would be complicated in having both events at the same time especially since at this point in time we do not have a men's championship. You would have to keep the events completely separate.
7. What do you think has been the major benefit NCAA sponsorship has brought women’s heavyweight rowing?
I am sure for every sport on a college campus the ultimate accomplishment is winning a national championship not only for the schools but more importantly the student athletes. The fact that rowing has been determined as a team sport the direction collegiate rowing has been heading is (as far as championships) is to keep the team concepts in place. I would hope establishing an NCAA championship in women's rowing has given those student athletes that have a passion for the sport an opportunity they did not have previously on their campus. I would also hope it has aided in continuing to grow the sport at all levels. The fact we have a championship in all three divisions shows there has been growth in the sport.
My comments follow in the next post.
It's almost February, some crews have already gone south for water time, others will be headed there in the coming days and weeks. In about eight weeks the season will be in full swing. Plenty of erg days lay ahead, but soon we'll be slipping and sliding on icy docks as we carry our boats to the water. (If you row in the south, well, please gloat silently.) With all this in mind, it's a good time to look ahead at the coming season. Most schools have published their spring schedules, so I'll take a look at what will be some highlights. I'll go through school by school, starting with last year's number 10 V8 and ending with last year's number 1. Doing one or two teams each week brings us to the season. By the way, since I have the only season ending ranking, by default my ranking is the OFFICIAL national ranking.
This week we start with Lehigh. It can be problematic to do a preview for some of these programs because we can't even be sure they will race a lightweight boat, much less know which races on their schedule will include a lightweight race. In Lehigh's case, they have raced lightweight boats in 2004 and 2005, so I'll assume they will continue, and press on.
Lehigh begins the season on the Schuylkill in Philadelphia against Delaware and St. Joe's. Delaware doesn't race lightweights but St. Joe's often does, so there may be a light eight or four race that day. St. Joe's has the potential to make some noise in the lightweight ranks so if they race a light eight this year, this will be a good test for both. The next week is Villanova in Philly. Villanova often puts out lightweight boats so there may be another opportunity to race. Lehigh may just as well camp out along the Schuylkill because the following week is the Murphy Cup. The Murphy Cup usually has a good field of light fours.
April Fool's Day brings the rivalry race against Lafayette. In 2004 a light eight was contested while in 2005 only a light four was raced. Whatever is raced this year, Lehigh needs to win it if they hope to play any national role.
The following week is the Knecht Cup in Camden. The Knecht Cup has become one of the premier lightweight women's events, but Lehigh hasn't raced it recently. If they have a serious light boat, this is chance to find out what it's made of. The next race with lightweight possibilities is a dual with Bucknell. Bucknell wasn't a factor last year, but they are getting serious about lightweights so maybe they'll have a varsity boat to pit against Lehigh. If so, this will be a key race for Lehigh. The Patriot League Championship follows. This may or may not have a lightweight race so it probably won't be a highlight. Next come Dad Vails and IRAs to end the season.
Early races are just that - early races. They are important for training, less important for results. The Knecht Cup will be big, but still a bit early. The Bucknell race is late enough, however, that if both crews are racing lightweight eights, this will be a key match-up and can provide some good momentum entering the championship season. Of course, if Lehigh doesn't actually race a lightweight eight this year - NEVER MIND! [Update: Lehigh has confirmed that they will be racing lightweights this spring.]
Next up is the University of Central Florida.
When I first saw this article in the Columbia Spectator, I thought, "Uh oh, here we go again." When I read it, though, I found it to be a fairly reasonable look at weight issues in lightweight rowing. Columbia only has men's lightweight crew, but for the most part the issues are similar. The author took the time to interview Columbia's trainer and lightweight coach, which added to the depth of the information.
Because Columbia has wrestling, it was included in the article along with lightweight crew. This, I think, unfairly suggests that the weight issues in the two sports are similar. In wrestling, because it has multiple weight classes, every athlete is dropping weight. In rowing, with one weight limit, many athletes (most?) don't have to lose any weight at all or are simply monitoring their weight.
Columbia's head trainer draws an important but rarely made distinction between eating disorders and disordered eating. Eating disorders among female lightweight rowers are no more common than they are among the general college age population (I owe you backup for that statement). Meanwhile, disordered eating, which I've never seen actually defined in the many studies that discuss it among athletes, is sometimes found to be prevalent among female athletes (more backup required). In the absence of a definition of that term, I am left to believe that anyone on a diet is guilty of disordered eating. Do you know any college age woman not on a diet? That doesn't make the practice healthy, it just makes it not the result of lightweight rowing. In fact, because lightweight rowers actually have to perform athletically, their diets are generally better than the binge diets to which most college women succumb. "Disordered eating" is the term seen when a researcher has just finished another inconclusive study on female athletes and eating disorders, but intuitively believes there must be a positive correlation - Didn't see any eating disorders, but did see a lot of disordered eating (women on diets).
An interesting claim made in the article is that lightweight rowing is particularly at risk because it is not regulated by the NCAA. Given the NCAA's effect on rowing so far... Actually, the NCAA could be a force for good here if it required programs or leagues to develop their own weight monitoring plans. Unfortunately the NCAA's modus operandi is to require an NCAA developed plan which would undoubtedly be less than satisfactory. Incidentally, as mentioned in the article, most (probably all) varsity lightweight programs have such a plan. In my experience, those schools with serious lightweight women's crews monitor the heck out of them. Health "problems" are uncovered and corrected in lightweights that no doubt exist in 95% of the student population (e.g. slight anemia, slight dehydration). In the case of lightweight women's rowing, though, we see how the NCAA has chosen to address any perceived problems - pretend it doesn't exist and maybe it will go away.
I think that the overall impression the article gives, however, is fairly accurate. Lightweight rowing, like every other sport, can cause health problems if not properly implemented and left in the hands of uneducated coaches and administrators, but it rarely is. Rather, nearly all serious lightweight programs are in the hands of capable coaches, trainers, and administrators who understand that the sport is for lightweights, not wannabe lightweights, and that the way to win is to maintain strength and health while rowing better than your opponents. The answer to any problems isn't found in fewer programs, but rather in more focused programs.
(I've promised a review of health studies of lightweight women rowers and it is coming.)
A few months back I began discussing the first of three reasons given me by the head coach of a women’s heavyweight program at an Ivy League school for why there aren’t more lightweight programs. The first reason covered was a lack of resources. The second reason given, which I’ll discuss now, was that many schools have “close-to lightweights rowing in priority boats.”
The argument here is that pulling lightweights into their own program would slow down the heavy boats. The major heavyweight schools, those that hope to win the NCAAs each year, generally don’t have lightweights in their priority boats. Of course, there are a few exceptions that prove the rule (Kok atVirginia and Peters at Columbia), but the recruiting scavenger hunt that heavyweight coaches conduct each year just doesn’t result in lightweights. This argument, therefore, does not apply to the major heavyweight programs and they are back to claiming poverty.
So what about the smaller schools? There is no question that there are lightweights rowing in heavyweight boats at Dad Vail schools and some of the smaller Division I schools. These schools need to take a hard look at the size of women they can recruit (this is mostly on-campus recruiting), the success they’ve had as heavyweights, and the likelihood that they can recruit ever larger girls, and then decide where they can have the most success. Why get knocked out in the semis of the Dad Vail heavy eight when with some focus you might be able to win the light eight (see Dayton)? And, the Dad Vail winner always has a good shot at making the IRA final. The Dad Vail heavyweight winner is sitting at home during NCAAs while the lightweight winner is racing for the national championship at IRAs. Do they compare? There will always be heavyweight programs that race lightweight when it turns out that they have enough for a boat. Why aren’t there lightweight programs that race heavyweight when they have enough heavies for a boat? Villanova seemed to spend a couple of years doing that and they won the lightweight national championship at IRAs. Then they started to concentrate on heavyweights and now they occasionally bounce in and out of the Dad Vail medals. Once they stopped focusing on lightweights, they gave up their chance to win a national championship. Can lightweights be that hard to find on college campuses? We’ve already seen that a typical lightweight falls into the national average size for college age women.
Programs that think pulling lightweights into their own boats would hurt their heavy eights should reassess their programs. They might realize that trying to boat a heavy eight every year is eliminating their chance to win the lightweight national championship. I understand that the heavyweights are seen as more glamorous (racing wise, I mean) than the lightweights, but I also know that winning an IRA medal is more glamorous than sitting at home hitting the refresh button on your computer during NCAAs.
In a press release announcing heavyweight coach Lori Dauphiny's talk at the NCAA press conference announcing the location of the heavyweight national championships, Princeton describes the IRAs as the "national championships for both men's crew and women's lightweight crew." It's nice to see someone describe the IRAs as the lightweight national championship. I wonder if Princeton's proud heritage of national championship lightweight crews has anything to do with that? Speaking of which, why aren't the NCAA championships referred to as the women's heavyweight national championship, because that is what they are?
Dayton took note of its ranking in the recently released A10 poll. The ranking is a team ranking, not a boat ranking (I'm still not sure I get that), so it does not address lightweights specifically. Dayton's release notes that the lightweight 8+ was ranked as high as 13th nationally in 2005. No poll is done at the end of the season and I had Dayton at number 6 at year end.
Among lightweights this year, my guess is that the A10 will come down to a battle between Dayton and URI, although St. Joe's has the capacity to put out a fast 8+. Nonetheless, with 6 rowers returning from last year's 8+, I think Dayton is the boat to beat in the A10.
In one of my earlier scoops (you heard it here first), I discussed the Pac-10's proposal to make men's rowing an NCAA sport with an NCAA championship. Well, here's the proposal.
This is all about some Pac-10 men worrying that their competition has more scholarships. The proposal does not mention lightweight men (or women, of course) so it's not clear what happens to them. If there is a NCAA championship regatta for heavyweight men, lightweight women would not be able to race there. According to the NCAA's separate but equal doctrine, the sexes and weights may not mix. The potential for damage to lightweight rowing is great here - I wonder if lightweight coaches have focused on it?
If the NCAA wants a model for a sport that treats women and men the same, maybe they should look at rowing. Both sexes compete in exactly the same manner, using exactly the same equipment, and train exactly the same way. In some events, they even compete together (mixed boats). What is more equal than that? Why does the NCAA (and now the Pac-10 men) want to tear this apart?
Stanford's recruiting announcement for lightweights includes a FAQ that I think makes a couple of interesting points.
First it notes that over half of the current lightweight team learned to row in college. The number of experienced rowers is no doubt inflated by recent recruiting success because it was certainly lower a few years ago. Nonetheless, a few years ago Stanford was still placing in the top five at IRAs. This shows the importance of focusing on a lightweight program versus worrying about whether you have experience. Any national championship lightweight eight has rowers who never rowed before college. Even the experienced rowers simply found out that they love the sport early. If they made it to college not having rowed before, they would still have made the boat.
Another interesting point is that Stanford crew has one of the highest GPAs of all varsity teams on campus. This is generally true among all colleges and most (all?) of the more stringent academic institutions look to the crew programs to raise the overall varsity sport GPA.
In a release announcing its participation in the Windemere Cup Regatta, UCF also announced that its lightweights would skip the Dad Vail Regatta to race in the Pacific Coast Rowing Championships. There is no mention whether the lightweights will race in Seattle. Coach Leeanne Crain previously coached at the University of San Diego and understandably has a soft spot for West Coast rowing.
This is a bittersweet announcement. On the one hand it further depletes an already small lightweight eight field at the Vails. Maybe UCF thinks it's no great loss missing the Vails since it can race the top east coast lightweights at IRAs. On the other hand, last year's Vails was a bad race for UCF and you might think they'd want to regain some respect. The reality, though, is that it might be tough to take the heavyweights to the west coast and not take the lightweights.
On the plus side, this brings some good competition to the west coast. Lightweight rowing can be a bit sparse there, so UCF's appearance is a boost for the regatta. UCF almost beat Stanford at last year's IRAs so the PCRC race should be a good one.
Thinking about how many schools race lightweight women’s boats brings to mind a series of posts that appeared on the Rowers’ World message boards back in November. Several people were lamenting the low number of serious men’s lightweight programs and made some comments that are often applied to both men’s and women’s lightweight rowing. The gist of the discussion was that “lightweight rowing is a dying animal” and that only the Sprints schools have any real interest in perpetuating it.
The arguments seem to be, 1) USRowing doesn’t support lightweight rowing, 2) there are few Olympic lightweight events, 3) only the Sprints schools are competitive at the collegiate level and anyone else who tries to race them gets smoked. These same arguments are often applied to women’s lightweights so let’s forget about the men right now and just concern ourselves with women.
I think it’s true that USRowing doesn’t support lightweight rowing, but I also think this will change. Some of this change will come more quickly because with the USOC emphasis on medal count, USRowing must emphasize small boats. In a quantitative world a lightweight 2x gold counts as much as an 8+ gold. We see the national team already emphasizing small boats and those coaches will love whichever boat offers the best chance of medaling, lightweight or not. Secondly, I believe that FISA will begin to emphasize lightweight rowing more. Given that the Olympic lightweight events constantly seem to be in danger of elimination, this may sound crazy, but the recent vote on the elimination of all of rowing has made FISA understand that the sport needs to become more popular around the world. What’s the best way to do that? More lightweight events so even nations with athletes of smaller stature can compete. If lightweight rowing becomes more prominent internationally, it will be encouraged at the collegiate level.
I continue to believe that the argument that there is no point in boating a lightweight 8+ because you’ll just get smoked by the Sprints schools is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Schools put together half hearted light eights, send them to IRAs, and then wonder why they bothered when they don’t come close to the top tier. Well guess what – those schools that get their lightweight butts handed to them at IRAs would also get their heavyweight butts handed to them by Sprints schools. I say would because their heavyweights don’t even get invited to the NCAAs (the poor stepsister to the IRAs for heavyweight women). The priority boat in these programs (ECAC and Dad Vail schools) is the heavy eight and still they would get hammered by the Sprints schools. So what exactly is the point here? In fact, only in lightweight events can these schools get anywhere near a national championship (other than breaking into Div I and Div II as the heavies do).
This is where we usually hear the argument that putting together a lightweight 8+ would pull rowers from the heavy 8+, making that boat slower. This is undoubtedly true, but why would coaches prefer to win Dad Vail or ECAC than win the light eight at IRAs? If they think it’s more prestigious to win the heavy eight at Dad Vail than the light eight at IRA, there’s a serious image problem. In fact, we all know that there is a serious image problem with lightweight rowing, and it’s a problem propagated by certain coaches, athletic administrators, and doctors. These people want us to believe that women can’t control their weight without becoming anorexic or bulimic. This greatest of rowing canards creates tremendous pressure against lightweights and keeps the IRA champions from getting their proper due. If Wisconsin’s lights were celebrated as much as Cal’s heavies last year, if lightweight results counted in team points at major regattas, if Rowing News talked about the Wisco Era as they talk about the Harvard Era, schools might actually aspire to race lightweights. (Wisconsin gets it.) In the process they would give more rowers a chance to compete at a higher level of excellence and win more races.
