Both crew teams are ready to row

By Jackson Morgus

Santa Clara's two rowing teams are primed to start the action on the water, having finished a grueling training season. The women will see action in their first race of the season when they take on Sacramento State on Mar. 6.

The men's team will resume racing action on Mar. 5 when they take on Stanford and Sacramento State. They completed a fall schedule of four races and will now go into the important spring portion having learned about their team and made adjustments over the four month break between races.

Both teams have high hopes heading in, having gone through months of training to get to race day.

The men's team had a four-race schedule in October and November, but their season will be judged on the seven races that they have this spring.

"The fall season is a lot more informal," said senior Captain Timothy Huss. "You have a lot longer races, and interpreting the results directly isn't that useful."

More important to the team is taking what they learned in the fall portion of their schedule and putting that towards being a better team in the spring.

"You expose both team problems and individual problems in those longer races, so I think everyone knew what they needed to work on," said Huss. "We feel like we made really big strides in the fall season and in the training that we have had since then."

The team is optimistic that they can put that knowledge to work in the spring, and Head Coach Wieslaw Kujda shares that optimism.

"This is one of the strongest teams I have ever coached here at Santa Clara," Kujda said.

That strength will be needed for the team, whose goals include a trip to the National Championships, a race in New Jersey this June that pits the top-24 crews in the nation against one and other for the national championship.

However, the team has a lot of work to do before they will start to think about nationals. They have a number of head-to-head races, then the San Diego Crew Classic, which will draw many of the top collegiate boats in the Western United States.

"We're trying not to publicize our goals too much, since there is a lot of uncertainty, as with any season," said Huss, "but we're looking at an outside shot at the IRAs (the national championships)."

As for the training season, both the men's and the women's teams have heard similar messages.

"There are three components to a winning team in rowing," said Kujda, "perfect technique, strength and endurance. Training is directed towards improving strength and endurance."

Women's Head Coach Anne Kennedy agrees.

"Technique is in the power. You can have the prettiest stroke in the world, but if you don't have the power it doesn't mean anything," said Kennedy, who enters her first year as the women's head coach.

The women's team also opens up in March, but unlike the men, they have yet to see race action this season. That means that they have had a long, grinding training season that has gone on since the beginning of the year without interruption. To cope with that, Kennedy has brought a particular philosophy to long practices on the erg and on the water: why not now.

"If you are not going to do it now, then you'll never do it," explained Kennedy. "Basically my theory is that the way that you practice and the way that you train is going to be the way that you perform on race day whether you like it or not. I have tried to instill that realization and ownership that we need to give our best effort every day during training."

The attitude that every practice needs to be taken seriously has rubbed off on Kennedy's team.

"We look at it like 'if I'm not going to put the work in now, I'm never going to do it,'" said senior Captain Gabrielle Alexander.

Like their male counterparts, the women's crew expects much success in 2010.

"We'll race in San Diego with some of the best crews in the country," said Kennedy. "I would love to see them shine down there."

Early wake up calls, long training sessions and demanding coaches are commonplace for the college rower.

For Santa Clara men's crew, it has been the only reality since November, and for Santa Clara women's crew, it has been the only reality this year. Both teams will be fired up and ready to add racing and hopefully winning to that reality for the rest of the 2010 school year.

Contact Jackson Morgus at jmorgus@scu.edu or (408) 551-1918.

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