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Rowing Articles
What Happens to Scholarships When Rowing Gets Cut?
In April 2010 the U.C. Davis women got the news: their NCAA rowing program was being cut. What does that mean to scholarship athletes, especially those from out-of-state? (The California Aggie, Dec. 7, 2010).
Losing Football Program Puts Women's Rowing at Risk
The San Diego State Aztec football team had yet another miserable losing season. They haven't been to a bowl game in a decade, and haven't won a bowl game in a very long time. They don't have their own stadium, and they lose several million dollars a year (the reverse of most football programs, which are considered revenue generators for the athletic department). Student fees are being increased to subsidize the football program, and with state college budget cuts looming, such tactics will be difficult to sustain. So despite having a new coach, a columnist of the San Diego Union-Tribune figures its time to pull the plug on the football program.
The article raises some interesting points, aside from the obvious ones. The first is that San Diego State continues to claim that it's football program makes a profit, even though it must be subsidized. But the article points out that there's a lot of smoke and mirrors going on in that bookeeping, of the type which would make a Hollywood movie mogul proud. In short, lots of expenses which primarily support the football program are shuffled off as "general expenses", and what should be general revenue is allocated as football revenue. The article hints that this is common among football colleges, which raises potential questions at a lot of programs.
The second point relates directly to rowing. As explained in the article, colleges within the California university system must meet a higher standard than under Title IX. Under a consent decree which arose from litigation in the early 1990's, California state colleges must have total athletci participation and scholarships which match the male/female proportion of students at the college.
"Put 120-odd athletes and 85 full scholarships on the men's side of the equation for football, and now you have to start allocating major resources to women's sports.
It is why SDSU has tripled its number of female athletes from 103 in 1993; why, according to CSU documents, it went from spending $918,000 on women's sports in '93 to a reported $13 million in 2007; why it dropped men's volleyball, which won the school's only NCAA Division I title; why it fields 12 women's teams all offering the NCAA maximum number of scholarships, and only six men's teams.
Why the Aztecs have a women's crew team with 67 athletes and 20 full scholarships."
So, as the analysis goes, if you drop football, you also get to drop rowing, and a bunch of other women's sports which are supported by the college primarily in order to maintain that equality.
Of course, this ignores the fact that the San Diego area has become a really strong rowing center on the West Coast of the U.S., with a major regatta held there every spring. The problem is, nobody's ever figured out how to make crew a revenue-producing sport. It's awfully hard to sell tickets to watch an event which either can be watched from anywhere along the course, or which isn't really visable to spectators at all. And it's never quite caught on as a TV event. Thus, it becomes vulnerable to those who don't know much about the sport, or who insist that only sports which can "pay their own way" are legitimate participants in a college athletic program. As one letter-writer to the paper said:
"...Of the many requirements for maintaining a football program at SDSU, the most absurd is the granting of 20 full scholarships to the women's crew team in order to maintain equality in the number of scholarships granted for male and female athletes. Aren't there only eight people in a boat during a crew race? Does that mean that third-string members of an athletic team that very few people know exists are getting full scholarships? These questions are not meant to denigrate the dedicated athletes on the women's crew team, but to highlight the indirect costs of fielding a football team at San Diego State.... ERIC DAHMS, M.D. San Diego "
Source: Readers React
As budgets tighten in tough economic times, potential rowing recruits should be prepared to ask a lot of tough questions about the future of the college rowing program. And you might need to check on how well the football program is doing, too.
Five-Year Student-Athletes Graduate, Then Compete
Many colleges awarding athletic scholarships strongly encourage their students to plan to be in school for the full five years of their NCAA athletic eligibility. This allows them to take a reduced course load each term while working hard at training for their sport. Others will "red-shirt" their first year, giving themselves more time to recover from high-school injuries or bring themselves up to the collegiate level. Some rowers have opted to spend their fifth year of college in studies abroad. But a few are being allowed to graduate at the end of their fourth year, even though they still have a couple of class requirements open. This allows them to concentrate on their sport their final year, with only one course per term to distract them from their training (Seattle P.I., June 9, 2006).
Everett Rowers Hitting Scholarship Gold
The Everett Rowing Association (located about 35 miles north of Seattle) must be doing something right. It is sending three boats to the 2006 U.S. Rowing Junior Invitational in Cincinnati, including the women's varsity eight, the men's lightweight eight, and the men's varsity four. Seven of the junior women rowers are returning to Nationals, having earned a silver medal in last year's competition.
Seven of the eight rowers on the women's varsity boat have full or partial rowing scholarships lined up for the fall (all of the seniors, the remaining rower is a junior). Six other Everett rowers have also received scholarship offers this year. In the past four years, 37 Everett rowers have received college scholarships. (Note: There is a nice picture of the Everett Jr. Women practicing on the Snohomish River - Click here.
"'In rowing,' Coach McGovern said, 'stories abound about kids that have been rowing for a year or two years and then get a full-ride college scholarship.' However, he stressed, 'they work hard for them. I've never seen anybody ease their way into a scholarship.' (Everett Herald, June 7, 2006).
This is a nice showing by a club which is decidedly not a "prep" or "ivy league" team. In the U.S. Pacific Northwest, rowing is mostly a club sport, not part of any particular school (there are a few exceptions to that rule). The Everett club draws rowers from a wide variety of high schools and backgrounds, and their parent's occupations have traditionally ranged from business owners and Boeing engineers to mechanics, welders, truck drivers, and other blue-collar trades. It makes a nice mix, the parents are very active and work together well, and the results speak for themselves.
NCAA Adopts Academic Reforms
The NCAA has adopted reforms intended to encourage the academic eligibility and graduation of student-athletes, including stiffer college entrance requirements which might effect scholarship athletes. (Seattle Times, April 30, 2004).
Luke Huard's Experiences Show Need for Caution re: Rowing Scholarships and Transfers
Luke Huard is a football player and youngest of three famous brothers from Puyallup High. But his football career ran aground at North Carolina due to coaching changes, injuries, and health problems, and the NCAA disqualified him after he transferred to a Div. II school. His story serves as a cautionary tale to those considering college rowing scholarships and especially those considering transfering schools (Seattle Times Nov. 8, 2002).
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