National Rowing Foundation

At

San Diego Crew Classic

The 2010 San Diego Crew Classic was a fun event for the National Team and National Rowing Foundation. Martha Shumaker welcomed us with open arms, as she always does, and asked what can the SDCC do for us. With the help of Marcus McElhenney, we were able to organize a 2k duel with Cal and a 500m dash with National Team Alumni. The boat we sent to race was filled with the oarsmen training in San Diego, at the Arco Olympic Training Center. The line up was as follows Marcus McElhenney, Silas Stafford, Henrik Rummel, Dan Walsh, Steve Coppola, Scott Gualt, Warren Anderson, Elliot Hovey, and Matt Wheeler.

The duel with Cal was fun and a great row for both crews while the 500m dash against the Alumni was a bit more one sided. The Alumni boat included some familiar names like Chris Swan, Adam Holland, Bob Kaehler, Sebastian Bea, Peter Sharis, Curt Browder, John Brown, and Ted Murphy.

Along with the racing, the organizers of the SDCC invited us to come mingle in the extremely polished Stewards Tent. There we talked about our presence in the San Diego Community, gave our thanks for being involved in the event, and you could even see some Olympic and Worlds medals being passed around. Ann Hill who puts on the Stewards Tent was a great host and was even willing to feed a bunch of National Team men.

The excitement kept going after we finished racing at the National Rowing Foundation Alumni Tent. Last year we had our tent in the vendor area where we distrubited NRF educational material and let people know what our mission is. Though we had success, we decided to do what rowers do best, eat and tell stories. With the help of Sean Jenkins, VP of shore operations, we had a post race party. Sean was able to get the catering company BBC to donate a catered lunch for the guys that raced, along with any NRF Alumni and friends at the Classic. It was a good opportunity for Alumni to meet coach Tim McLaren and the current group of guys. It was also good for the guys to thank this great group of people for there support of the National Team and ask what we could do in return.

The Crew Classic didn’t end with the weekend either! We were soon invited to a barbeque that was co-hosted by John and Sue Major and Peter and Susan Mallory. The event took place at the Major’s beautiful home, and was filled with rowers and rowing enthusiasts who are willing and able to help our National Team. We talked mostly about how our American system is different than all of our competing nations and how we need to think differently about athlete support. Aside from all the boring formal talk we also had a chance to learn about our sports rich history from the people that created it. It was great to know that even though things change, rowers are the same from generation to generation. The day was such a hit that there is already talk about the next one!

It is great to see our relationship with the Crew Classic come so far in just one year and I look forward to nurturing it for the years to come. So next April make sure you plan a trip to sunny San Diego and get some spring racing in on Mission Bay.