Racing This Weekend - March 17-18

UCF heads back to Winter Park one last time for the Rollins Tri-Meet on Saturday. The Golden Knights will race a four and an eight and take on Rollins, Jacksonville, Georgia, and Nova Southeastern. This could be some good racing, particularly in fours, as Georgia has a victory at SERCS and Nova was last year's Dad Vail winner (but are they racing lights this year?).

The Jesuit Invitational is Saturday cancelled. but I've been unable to learn if there will be any lightweight events. Last year Georgetown raced St. Joe's, but the Hawks tell me they aren't racing lights this year.

Lehigh is scheduled to race LaSalle in Philadelphia. LaSalle will, on occasion, put out a lightweight boat so this dual may include a lightweight event. Lehigh is scheduled to Race Villanova on Sunday, although Villanova has the race listed as Saturday.

The Augusta Invitational is scheduled for Saturday as well, and Auburn is looking for competition as the lone entrant in the light four. This regatta had a three boat light fours race last year.


On Sunday, the Spring Regatta at Long Beach has a decent field of four light eights - LMU, CU, UCSD, and Cal State Univ Long Beach (I'm not quite sure who "CU" is). UCSD lights took the heavy four at Sacramento State, now they'll get their chance in the eight. This should be a good race as LMU makes its debut in the big boat.

Finally, on Sunday Chapman races UC Irvine. Both teams put out light boats previously this season, with Chapman entered in the Crew Classic.

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.

More on UCF Last Weekend

A reader makes a good point, and one which I completely missed, when (s)he comments that in beating the Villanova heavies at the Rollins Invitational, UCF beat a crew that beat Radcliffe, Georgetown, and MIT at the Princeton Chase. Now, before I hear all of the reasons why this doesn't matter, I'll give you a few myself. UCF probably has had a lot more water time than Villanova, since I assume Villanova is in Florida on its spring break trip. Villanova is also probably some time away from determining their optimal lineup. Radcliffe has done poorly the last couple of years at the Chase, making that race a poor indicator of their spring speed. I'm sure you can all think of another reason or two as well.

Despite all of the caveats, we're still left with the inescapable fact that UCF beat the same team that beat Radcliffe, Georgetown, and MIT in the fall. It may prove nothing, or it may be a harbinger of things to come. Either way, Windermere is looking like a lot more fun.

Southeast Regional Collegiate Sprints

SERCS were run last Saturday on Langley Pond in Burnettown, SC. SERCS are hosted by the University of Georgia and the Dawgs didn't disappoint as they took the first two places in a four boat lightweight four race. UGA A was 11 seconds ahead of UGA B, which was 15 seconds ahead of Clemson, which was followed by Auburn 8 seconds later. Georgia was a Dad Vail finalist last year and it looks like they're planning to return to the finals again this year.

FITD Readers' Poll

I've calculated the results of the FITD Readers' Poll and here is the pre-season ranking of lightweight varsity eights as determined by you (first place votes in parentheses):

1. Princeton (47) 1,110 points
   
2. Wisconsin (34) 1,092
   
3. Radcliffe (20) 988
   
4. Georgetown (12) 843
   
5. UCF 606
   
6. MIT (3) 596
   
7. Bucknell (12) 582
   
8. Stanford (3) 414
   
9. California (1) 193
   
10. Ohio State 189

I need to explain my methodology, but it was pretty simple - each first place vote a team received was worth ten points, each second place vote was worth nine points, and so on to one point for each tenth place vote. The points were then added up. In the end, I decided to accept ballots that voted for at least the first five places. The next time I do this I'll either just have a five place ballot or I'll throw out all incomplete votes. Of the 134 valid ballots received, only 5 voted for less than ten places. I didn't keep count of the ballots discarded (those voting for less than five places or repeating a team in more than one place), but I would estimate the number to be around 30. A quick look over the ballots showed that there were no duplicates among the valid submissions, a sign that multiple voting was hopefully kept to a minimum.

I thought this poll went extremely well, and by that I mean that I think people voted honestly, rather than simply voted for their own team. A look at the first place votes suggests that UCF should win the honesty award, although all of the discarded ballots may have had the Golden Knights first! I think the requirement to vote for all ten places helped force you to really think about your votes, and cut down on the easy "vote for myself" shenanigans. I know it's hard to make educated guesses for all places, and particularly with teams you don't know or don't race. Nonetheless, I think when I do this again half-way through the season, I'll probably keep the requirement to vote for ten places.

This poll shows just how close Princeton and Wisconsin are considered to be, with another serious battle occurring among MIT, UCF, and Bucknell for 5th, 6th, and 7th. I'll make my own case for the top ten in a week or so, but it's awfully hard to argue with this one. Don't forget the Head of the Charles poll. That was a simple one vote, "Who will win" poll, that was subject to all sorts of multiple voting abuse. Despite all of that, it almost nailed the actual results right on. In any case, it looks like you think Princeton is the team to beat. In three short weeks Bucknell gets to test that hypothesis.

Racing - March 10-11

A lot of teams were in action for the first time this weekend, with perhaps the biggest races occurring in Sacramento at the Sacramento State Invitational. The heavyweight V8 event was a seven boat race which included both the Stanford and Cal lightweights. Stanford finished third, 11 seconds off of the winning Sacramento State heavies, and just 0.6 seconds behind the second place St, Mary's heavies. Cal was seventh, 29 seconds behind Stanford. I don't know how fast the Sacramento State heavies might be, but beating 3 heavy boats, rowing one even, and beating Cal, has to make Stanford pretty satisfied with their first race. This could be a fast Cardinal boat this year which would make Windermere an interesting race. Cal, meanwhile, is glad this is just their first race and happy to know how much faster they need to be.

The lightweight four race in Sacramento was won by Stanford by just more than a second over St. Mary's. Humboldt State was third, followed by Santa Clara, Cal, Sonoma State, and Mills College.

Staying on the West Coast, the LMU lights raced the UCLA freshmen, losing by 27 and 18 seconds to the two Bruin boats.

At the Rollins Invitational UCF was back in action, beating heavy eights from Villanova and Rollins, but losing to Nova Southeastern heavies by 3 seconds. UCF also raced a light four in the heavyweight B four race, losing to Nova Southeastern by less than a second and beating Villanova by 22 seconds.

The Keuper Cup in Fellsmere Florida ran a light four race which was won by Florida Tech, 33 seconds ahead of Temple and 59 seconds ahead of Embry-Riddle. Interesting to see Temple race a lightweight boat.

Back to California we go where a light four from UCSD beat its own heavy four as well as one from UC Irvine. In the novice four, a Long Beach State light four beat a heavy four from UC Irvine as well as both light and heavy fours from UCSD.

Lehigh and Bucknell also raced this weekend, but they raced heavyweight teams and it's not clear if the lightweights raced as unit or which boat they might have been. Bucknell, of course, has made a habit of racing its lights as the 2V, but a look at the roster would suggest that the 2V they just raced against Alabama was a mixed weight boat.

Some Not Reviewed

Because the season previews are done on last year's top ten, some crews that are worthy of pre-season notice are inevitably left out. In particular, no West Coast crews were previewed. While this reflects the down year those crews had last year, it's probably not indicative of their performance this year. I find it hard to believe that Stanford will be kept out of the top 10 for long (or ever again?), and I think it's about time for Cal to break into the group. The problem for Cal, however, is that they can never really get ranked without traveling to IRAs, a trip that is quite an expense for a club team. When the IRAs move west I'm sure we'll see Cal race, as well as a few other crews, such as LMU. Stanford, Cal, and LMU really make up the West Coast lightweight contingent and are often unfairly overlooked. In the case of Cal and LMU it's very difficult to know where they stand with regard to the East Coast schools because they so infrequently race each other. When they do, such as at Windermere, it's early in the season and they're unlikely to be in top form. Even Cal's trip to Boston this year left questions since they were involved in a collision and were unable to show their true speed. The Bears do have the IRAs on their schedule this year, so perhaps we'll see them in Camden.

Another program that has pretty faithfully raced lightweight boats is Marist. Marist will be at Knecht and they also have the IRAs on their schedule. The Red Foxes have been fighting through a spate of injuries all fall and winter, a situation that could imperil the light eight. Marist would like to race a fast eight at IRAs and they finished as high as 8th in 2001, so they do have some history at the big race. I'll cross my fingers for some quick healing Red Foxes.

Also a quick update on St. Joe's. The Hawks will not be racing lightweights this year. A disappointment, but even when they start the season with a light boat they often fall away as time goes on. I do think that one of these years we'll see them put out a strong boat for an entire season.

Racing This Weekend

On Saturday, Bucknell races Alabama and Lehigh races St. Joe's, LaSalle, and Delaware. It's possible that there will be a lightweight race at one or both of those events, but I would guess that's unlikely.

In South Carolina the Southeast Regional Collegiate Sprints will be held with a five boat light four race. Auburn, Chattanooga, Clemson, and two Georgia boats will battle it out. This will be a nice early look at Georgia who often races lightweights at Dad Vails. Several members of the lightweight four crews will also race in heavy eights.

Stanford and Cal will be racing at the Sacramento State Invitational. They'll race a lot of heavyweight boats in addition to each other, although there is usually a good group of light fours racing as well.

[Update: UCF is back in action at Rollins, racing the heavies from Villanova, Nova Southeastern, and Rollins.]

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.

Race Last Weekend

Chapman and Mills squared off in light fours in Newport Beach, CA last Saturday, with Chapman taking the win by a wide margin. I can't say I've ever heard of these schools racing lightweights before, but you just never know who will turn up...

Submit Your Pre-Season Ranking Ballot

Don't forget to submit your pre-season ranking in the form on the right side-bar. I know it's a pain to rank boats all the way down to number 10, but hopefully it will make you think about your votes while scaring away those random voters who really don't know much about women's lightweights.

Remember that you need to vote for a crew in every position for your vote to be counted. This poll will remain up until the end of the week, at which time I'll post the results.

Thanks for taking the time to vote!

Metro Cup Results

UCF opened it's season yesterday with wins over Rollins in the novice eight, V4, and V8. Rollins won the novice four. The closest race was the V4 which [pitted a Rollins heavyweight boat against] also had the most experienced UCF rowers. It looks like the Rollins four will be worth watching. This race gets new UCF head coach Andy Derrick off to a good start. [Thanks for the clarifying comments.]

In a Friday press release announcing this weekend's lineups and a recap of last year, UCF again ignores the lightweights' fine season to focus on the heavyweights. A look at the lineups shows that the giant sucking sound heard in Orlando earlier this year was the heavyweight team pulling lightweights into their boats (as noted earlier by a reader). I certainly hope the UCF lights aren't about to be Villanovaed (Villanova won the lightweight national championship in 1998, focused on heavies shortly thereafter, and has never impacted the national scene in either category again). It looks like most of the lightweights were in boats other than the V8, which makes a casual observer wonder if they're there mainly to fill out seats for seat racing. (I know, those rowers are capable of making the boat, and one or two no doubt will, but...) I wonder what Coach Derrick could do if he was able to make use of every lightweight on the UCF team for an entire season. Could he win a national championship?

2007 Season Preview - University of Wisconsin

Over the past three years, the Wisconsin Badgers have been masters of the peak. The metaphorical peak, of course, but also the physical peak. In the last three Knecht Cups, they've never finished better than second (2005), yet they've won two of the last three Eastern Sprints and, of course, they've been national champions the last three years in a row. Better than any other crew, it seems, Wisconsin understands that the goal is to win IRAs and the rest of the season exists to serve that goal (well, almost). While undefeated national champions can be awesome, even transcendent, there is nothing quite so exciting as standing at the finish line at Sprints and IRAs wondering if the Badgers will peak at the right time again this year. But now, Wisconsin crossing the line first at the end of the season is no longer a surprise, in fact it's expected. We live in the Age of Wisconsin.

The Badgers begin the defense of their third national championship on April 7th at the Indiana Championships. This race is listed as tentative and while the heavyweights race Indiana and Notre Dame that day, I don't know who the lights might race (Purdue?). Whomever it is, this race will serve as a tuneup for the Knecht Cup which comes a week later. On April 21st Wisconsin beats up on some heavyweight crews on home water at the Midwest Rowing Championships. A week later comes the Best New Race of the Year, which is now expected to be in Indianapolis, against Georgetown, Stanford, and Ohio State. In mid-May are Sprints, followed by IRAs at the end of May.

There is no California trip for the Badgers this year and I'm a bit surprised because I thought they had been alternating the Crew Classic with Windermere. With Windermere and Knecht on the same weekend, they've decided to skip the trip west and head east instead. [Update: See comments for the explanation]

With only three rowers coming back from last year's IRA boat, this year we'll see if the Badgers are rebuilding or reloading. Also new this year is head coach Erik Miller. It's a pretty difficult job taking over a program that just won its third national championship, but the excellent athletes at Wisconsin coupled with the support of the University will help make the transition a smooth one.

In last year's preview I spent some time explaining why I think a strong Wisconsin program is good for lightweight women's rowing. I won't go through it all again, but I will reiterate that "As an exception to the Football Theorem, the Badgers’ program provides hope that one day the theorem will no longer hold." (Football Theorem: the size of a school's women rowers is directly proportional to the prominence of its football program.) Wisconsin has brought a refreshing, Midwestern, Big 10 style to the sport of lightweight women's rowing and has provided a worthy opponent for the rest of the lightweight league (too worthy for many!). The Badgers must like those targets on their backs because they're wearing them again this year. Last year was one of the most exciting years in lightweight women's rowing in a long time, and Wisconsin did their part. I'm sure they'll do it again this year.

And as to the rebuild or reload question - I'd bet on reload.
(Calendar updated)



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Rowing News Ignores Lightweights Again

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

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

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

2007 Season Preview - Georgetown University

In 2001 Georgetown entered the IRAs for the first time and didn't make the petites. In 2002 they made the petites but finished second to last. Two-thousand-three brought a leap forward to a fourth place finish and a medal seemed to be within the Hoyas' grasp. But 2004 brought another fourth place, followed by the same in 2005. The bronze medal was tantalizingly close, less than three seconds away in 2005, yet never gave Georgetown the satisfaction of resting around their necks. Then came 2006. Last season the Hoyas said "No thank you" to bronze, took silver, and finished second in the nation for their best season ever. It was a breakthrough season as a program that previously competed for the attention of the heavyweight coach, got its own head coach and showed the league what a little focus can do. Coach Jim O'Conner focused the mind, focused the body, and focused the leg drive, while removing the ghosts of the number four.

But, all that was last year. This year brings opportunity. The opportunity to prove that Georgetown isn't simply squatting on the awards dock, but actually purchased real estate. The opportunity to prove that they are a force and pity the poor crew that lines up against them. That opportunity presents itself in 2 and a half weeks on March 17th at the Jesuit Invitational. Last year the Hoyas spanked St. Joe's, and there's a reasonable chance the Hawks will be back along with Holy Cross (who raced a light eight in the fall) and perhaps Loyola. It should be nice way to open the season for Georgetown, although not necessarily an easy way, as St. Joe's (at least) can have the personnel to create some speed.

On the 31st Radcliffe comes to town for the Class of 2004 Cup. No hype is needed for this race between last year's number 2 and number 3 teams. (This is the same day as the Bucknell, Georgetown, MIT, Penn race in Philadelphia. It's really a shame to see these schools load up a trailer and not bring the lightweights along. As great as the Radcliffe race will be, I'm sure it could have been rescheduled so the Philadelphia race could've included three top lightweight crews. Maybe the coaches could've talked about this one ahead of time?)

On April 6th is the George Washington Invitational. This is on home water so the lights will no doubt be racing, but it's not clear if they'll race other lightweights or only heavyweights. The next week is Knecht, followed a week later by a visit from Princeton. Since Princeton will miss Knecht, this will be the Hoyas' first look at the Tigers.

On April 28th Georgetown heads west to Ohio for what I'll call the Best New Race of the Year. [Update: A reader informs me that this race has been moved to Indianapolis.] In a race hosted by Ohio State, Georgetown will take on the Buckeyes, Stanford, and Wisconsin. To some, this may look like just another in-season race. To me, it's another sign of the growing strength of the women's lightweight league (no, I'm not referring to a real league, I'm just tired of using "category" or "sport," so I'm going to use "league"). The fact that four lightweight crews, three of whom are from west of the Pennsylvania border, can get together for a meaningful race outside of the east coast, shows how far we've come from the dark ages of the early 90s. This is a coup for Ohio State and they should be congratulated for stepping up and organizing this race (interestingly enough, this race is not on OSU's schedule, so perhaps it is still in the forming stages?). Kudos also, to the visiting crews for making the trip, with Stanford winning the award for farthest distance traveled. Mid-May brings Eastern Sprints, with IRAs following at the end of the month.

Georgetown starts the season with momentum and confidence. Winning the silver last year out of the reps had to renew the Hoyas' faith in themselves. Five athletes and the coxswain return from that boat, bringing enough big race experience to spread around. Last year came pretty close to being the "Year of the Hoya," but for that, they need to take one more step - win the gold. (Calendar updated)


Below is Georgetown's start at the HOCR (Coach alert - includes a slow motion look):




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It's On!

Doing its best imitation of Major League Baseball, the spring season seems to arrive earlier and earlier every year. This year we're underway as of February 24th. The Stetson Sprints were held Saturday in DeLand, Florida, the result of a heroic effort by Stetson University to stage the races, much less to actually race in them. The Sprints also saw the first lightweight race of the spring season as the University of Florida defeated Embry Riddle by 22 seconds in the light four event.

Lightweights at C.R.A.S.H.-B.

It's that time of year when the ultimate collegiate team sport becomes an individual sport - C.R.A.S.H.-B. For one weekend in February it doesn't matter if you sky at the catch, rush up the slide, lean to port, or miss water. It only matters how quickly you can spin a flywheel to a theoretical 2,000 meters. And some of you can do it quite well.

Before we look at the results, it's worth remembering that C.R.A.S.H.-B.s are another event that makes up its own lightweight category, in this case the ever popular winter weight of 135 pounds. It makes me wonder if lightweights are really bears, who need to pile on the blubber for a winter hibernation. Sorry, I just don't get it.

C.R.A.S.H.-B.s are always notable for how few rowers from the top lightweight programs appear at the top of the results. Mostly this is because not many teams send representatives, but we also see lightweights from mainly heavyweight teams performing well.

If you haven't voted in the readers' poll yet, you might want to consider that of the top three college lightweight finishers, two were from Marist (pulling a 7:29.8 and a 7:30.6). Marist almost always puts out lightweight boats at some point during the season but has yet to make an impact at the IRA level (although they've raced there twice in the past 9 years). They raced a light eight in Boston last fall and didn't look particularly fast, although I understand the crew was a bit injury depleted. Maybe this is the spring for Marist to make a move?

The top collegiate lightweight, pulling a 7:27.3, was from Dartmouth, with the fourth from Brown and the fifth from Trinity. At sixth and seventh were rowers from URI (7:34.2) and MIT (7:35.1), with another MIT rower (7:38.6) at 11th. Am I going out on a limb to suggest that if it wasn't for MIT's fall performance we'd all be quite surprised to see MIT athletes in this territory?

Several of the names at the top of the list were also seen at USRowing Nationals and Canadian Henley over the summer, suggesting that they just might know how to row on the water as well.

Also, if I can grossly generalize, a quick look at last year's results shows that a year-to-year improvement of about 5 seconds is a reasonable expectation.

The good thing about C.R.A.S.H.-B.s is that, although there are still 2ks ahead for most of you, it's just about time to get on the water.

And if you go to school in Florida... it's on!

Reader Rankings

I've posted a poll for a pre-season ranking of V8s in the sidebar. After looking high and low without success for a ready-made widget that would do what I want, I finally had to break down and use a form builder to create this. As a result, it doesn't have all the features I would like, but it will allow us to get a ranking that reflects your votes.

These things will never be scientific, but I'd really like to see what you think the final ranking of V8s will be at the end of the season. Use the drop-down boxes to select a crew for each position (there are 15 choices), First through Tenth. The results will go into a database and will be available at the end of the poll which I expect to be in about two weeks. Please vote once for who you really think will finish in each position, not just for your own crew.

If this seems to work I'll run it again midway through the season.

More Respect for Wisconsin

I've noted here before that Wisconsin gets the respect it's due, not just from the University, but also from the local news media. This was seen once again in an article last Thursday in the Wisconsin State Journal. The paper was discussing the Wisconsin's women's hockey team's chances for a second consecutive NCAA championship, and noted that the Wisco lightweight women are one of only two Wisconsin teams to ever win back-to-back championships. Interestingly enough, the paper described them as NCAA championships. We all know that there is no NCAA championship for lightweights, etc., etc., but the point here is that in a world where people have trouble understanding a national championship that isn't sponsored by the NCAA, the Wisconsin women's achievement is taken as seriously as those that are. It's this kind of atmosphere that contributed to the Badgers' ability to win the last three national championships.

I'll bet there aren't too many nitwits like Jordan Bice searching for his manhood around the Wisconsin boathouse. (I will not link to my post on Bice.)