Sarasota Scullers/Philly/Sean M.
DanielN711
I apologize for my Uncle Bob's boldness on his posting yesterday. He has
been out of the rowing for over 20 years last rowing in the 1972 Munich
Olympics in the Israeli 2+. He has enjoyed his retirement in Sarasota and
watching the Sarasota Scullers blossom into a nationally competitive
"club."
I will attempt to clear up a number of rumors and misconceptions that I
hear about the Sarasota Scullers and Riverview crew. Riverview is not a
club, it is a High School. Rowing began in Sarasota four years ago when
Peter deManio founded the Riverview High School Crew. They quickly rose to
prominence in the Florida rowing scene and competed at the Royal Henley,
albeit unsuccessfully, in their second year. Last year a few(4-5) kids
from three other schools asked if they could be part of the program. This
pissed off the rest of Florida as Riverview continued it's dominence. In
the fall of 1994 the Florida Scholastic Rowing Association voted that
clubs(composite crews) could not compete the Florida State Championships,
only school boats. As a result we began recruitng kids from the three
other schools so that we could boat at least a four from Sarasota,
Cardinal Mooney(Catholic), and Venice High Schools. In the men's program,
we now have 10 Sarasota High rowers, 9 Cardinal Mooney, 4 Venice, and 22
Riverview rowers. As a club we can boat five 8s, usually entered as 2Vs,
2JVs, and a 3rd. So far this spring we have raced only one regatta as a
club taking 1&2 in the V8s, JV8s, V4s and JV4s. In our brush races with
the Princeton and Yale Freshman 8s both V8s raced and both were
competitive.
Our top club 8, is made of rowers from three schools; 3 from Sarasota, 2
from Cardinal Mooney, and 3 and a cox from Riverview. No one on the top V8
has rowed for longer than 18 months. Only one rower is over 18. The pool
of students our top 8 is drawn from is less than 3000 students(1500 boys),
not much larger than the average big city public school. While our school
8s are not as competive on a national level, one of three school 8s will
win the Florida State Championships.
The only national regattas that we can attend as a club eight is the San
Diego Crew Classic and the newly formed Junior Invitational in Cincinatti
on June 10, I believe. If the Stotesbury Cup allowed club 8s we would be
there. If the Nationals(NJ) allowed clubs we would be there. We are going
to attend Nationals in smaller boats, Cardinal Mooney in a 2-, Sarasota
High in a 4+, and Riverview in a junior 8. I will bet money that we win
all three races.
Since we are prohibited from ever racing the Philly and New England
schools you will never see that we have the faster boat, unless those
schools are willing to attend Cincinatti.
Sean, as the most active poster and supposedly the best cox in the country
I will put you to a challenge. After the Scholastic Nationals Men's V8,
we, the Sarasota Scullers V8, will be waiting at the starting line. We
will race the crews that win Stotes and Nationals for the real natinal
championship. Or if you are uncomfortable racing a club, put together any
8 American-born high school rowers(Philly or beyond) and bring that boat
to the line and we will race.
Sean, remember one other thing, if we raced and practiced on the
Schuylkill, then you would be faster.
Daniel Newman
Sarasota High School '95
Sarasota Scullers V8
Michael Hartman
The fact of the matter is that you (The Sarasota Scullers) are in
fact drawing rowers from multiple schools. Furthermore, 3000 (1500) is
an unbelieveably huge number of students. There are private universities
that don't have that many students!
I am noticing a trend of odd-ball rowing 'clubs/colleges' etc
spewing out challenges to other crews. Well, there are regattas out there.
If you are not allowed to enter them because you violate their rules,
that should tell you something.
Follow the rules, or take up a different sport. Baseball could probably
use ya.
-Michael Hartman
Douglas Gibbs
Scullers but I do have a group of friends from Kingston Ont. that just
came back from rowing at Sarasota last week. They said the people there
were great and lacked the snobby attitude that students at Tampa have.
I was hoping that maybe I could get some info on who to contact
at S.S. in regards to visiting the club for a week with a couple of
eights next year in March and possibly in Febuary? Any help would be great!
Scott Atwood Freed
out if you race these guys. They are extraordinarilly fast. As a former
member of a southern team who routinely got my ass kicked in the 8+ buy
these guys, I say to you that, should you have the spine to race
Sarasota, you will lose and lose big. I would be interested to find out
what comes of this challenge. Go Sarasota. Do the South proud. Have an
enjoyable ass kicking all you northern crews.
Scott Freed
Atlanta Juniors '94
Steve Smith's Student 8
Had to jump in to this one, on behalf of club rowers everywhere. "Composite
crew" HS rowing gives a lot of kids an opportunity to row that they otherwise
wouldn't have. In California, almost all of the crews are "composite"
(nine out of twelve, I think?) and the high schools hold their own quite
well against the supposedly "cheating" club crews. It's a shame that the good
East Coast high school crews don't see fit to race the clubs; I wish they had
enough confidence in their own ability to take up the challenge. Not everyone
goes to a private high school with enough generous alums to support a crew
program, and in some parts of the country rowing isn't a big enough sport to
have a crew at any high school, private or not. That's why club crews exist.
In any event, in my experience the "club crew advantage" isn't nearly as big
as the high school crews think it is. At high schools with strong crews,
crew is a presitigous sport that gets a shot at recruiting the best athletes
in the school. As I noted before, in the parts of the country that club crews
come from, crew isn't well-known or prestigious at all -- we have to compete
with the football, basketball, and volleyball teams for athletes, and those
other teams are a much bigger "draw" to the best athletes. We *have* to
recruit from several schools to get the same athlete pool that top high
school crews have.
Robert Eikel
San Diego Junior Crew '93 <-- a club crew, in case you haven't figured :)