The whole crew

Wednesday, January 13, 1999

The whole crew

ROWING: Team hopes to make a splash this year after recent
slump

By Audrey Jing

Daily Bruin Contributor

When race time comes for the UCLA men’s varsity crew team, it’s
all about shirts. The goal is to keep the one on your back and
leave your competitors without theirs.

In the sport of rowing, the shirts of the losing team members
are awarded to the winners. This is the shirt exchange, one of the
oldest collegiate athletic traditions. While a sweaty piece of
fabric may not be an ideal prize for most people, for a rower who
knows the hard work that goes into getting or losing that shirt, it
carries its weight in gold.

"There’s nothing more demoralizing than giving up an article of
clothing, but there’s nothing more thrilling than getting one,"
varsity rower Kane Schaller said.

Behind the shirts of the Bruin crew team lie the determination
and sacrifice of 50 athletes dedicated to keeping 67 years of UCLA
rowing tradition alive.

Established in 1932, UCLA rowing gained intercollegiate status
in 1963 and promptly established itself as a national powerhouse.
After being dropped by the athletic department in 1990, however,
crew has struggled with drops in team membership and lack of
funding.

UCLA crew has not won a Pac-10 championship since the women’s
team won back to back titles in 1990 and 1991. In addition, the
Bruins have not sent a boat to the national championships since the
men’s bronze medal finish in 1990. Retention of both varsity and
novice rowers has also been a problem for the Bruins in past
years.

Under the guidance of men’s varsity coach Erinn McMahan, women’s
varsity coach Eva Taylor, men’s novice coach Doug Miller, and
women’s novice coach Susanna Leng, this year’s team seems to be
back on the track toward success.

UCLA has added depth with both a men’s and a women’s varsity
boat and the largest novice class in five years. The men’s varsity
team will race a full eight-man boat for the first time in four
years.

"I would definitely call this a rebuilding year," McMahan said.
"To be successful, we’ve got to have a big team. We’ve definitely
grown from year to year. We’re getting there – it’s a process."

This rebuilding road is by no means easy. A successful crew
program relies directly on the commitment and drive of both
athletes and coaches. For the Bruins, being a rower means waking up
before the crack of dawn for 5:30 a.m. practice in Marina Del Rey.
It means spending hours running stairs at Drake Stadium, as well as
rowing on ergometers and lifting weights in the teams’ workout
room, nicknamed "the dungeon."

And add to that $60 monthly dues required of every rower on the
team. Since crew receives little funding from the university, it is
monetarily fueled by team dues, corporate sponsors, private
donations and fund-raising activities. There are no scholarships
and marketing for these athletes – just extreme dedication and lots
of heart.

"I don’t think you can be a good rower unless you are
excessively dedicated to whatever it is you decided to row for,"
Taylor said.

"You have to be dedicated to that goal because this is not an
easy sport. You have to pay for it, you have to get up at five in
the morning, and you have to put your body through hell. This is
not for the weak of heart by any stretch of the imagination."

All factors considered, why do these rowers do it?

"It’s hard to describe to someone who’s never rowed before,"
Schaller said. "It’s hard, it hurts, it’s really, tiring and you
wake up at god-awful hours in the morning. But there’s a real
catch. When you’re rowing with eight guys who really want it and
are really pushing it, there’s nothing like that feeling — that
feeling of just flying across the water. Absolutely nothing like
it."

Crew is a sport of give and take. The time and effort a rower
puts into training and races are by no means wasted. Many emerge
from their crew experience with confidence and a heightened sense
of personal development.

"It taught me how much more I have to give than I always thought
I did," Schaller said. "It teaches me to reach beyond myself and
break through a lot of mental barriers. It’s made a huge impact on
my life."

Rowers also learn the value of teamwork. The ultimate goal in
rowing, making the boat go faster, can only be achieved when all
members of a boat are working together as a synchronized unit.

A rower sees only the person in front of him or her and must
have faith that his or her seven teammates are all pulling their
shares. As varsity rower Brendan Raher puts it, it is "the ultimate
sign of trust."

"A rower rows for his team," Raher said. "It’s so awesome to see
eight people working together so hard to make a boat move."

The UCLA rowers will put their teamwork and dedication to work
once the spring racing season starts. Their season will include
appearances at the San Diego Crew Classic in March, the
second-largest regatta in the United States, and the Pac-10/West
Coast Intercollegiate Rowing Association Championships in May.

"Team-wise, we have a good chance of being one of the top
schools on the West Coast," McMahan said.

For now, the Bruins are concentrating on shaping their
relatively young rowers into a team. Providing leadership are
rowers such as senior Bobbie Seminoff, who earned a spot at the
Nation’s Cup camp, a program designed to find potential rowers for
the 2004 Olympic team.

"Our goal is to row as one," senior Mindy Fontius said.
"Hopefully we’ll keep improving and hit our peak at the end of the
season."

With determination, leadership and dedication, the UCLA crew
team has the building blocks for success. Hopefully, they’ll add
some shirts to that.

JAMIE SCANLON-JACOBS/Daily Bruin Senior Staff

(From left) Rowers Byron Go, Dan Vozenilek and Josh Silberman
brave the cold in Marina Del Rey for usual predawn practices.

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