College rowing (United States)

Men's rowing

Collegiate men's rowing consists of two squads, a varsity and a freshman team. The varsity squad typically fields a Varsity Eight (8+), a Second Varsity or Junior Varsity Eight (8+) and a '"Freshman" (8+), but can also field additional Varsity or Frosh boats. The varsity eight is the most prestigious boat, and teams try to make it the fastest boat possible. Oarsmen who don't make the varsity eight are usually placed in the Second Varsity eight followed by the Third Varsity eight. The term 'Junior Varsity' as used in rowing is a historical misnomer. It is not a separate team or squad like a typical junior varsity team, but the substitutes for the varsity boat. Coaches often trade rowers between boats during the season trying to make the fastest Varsity 8 possible. Most major regattas use the term second varsity when referring to the second boat fielded by a college. Unlike most other sports freshmen are still considered to be their own squad on most competitive teams and work in a similar fashion to varsity with the Freshman 8+ being the priority boat for first years.

If a regatta has a point system for determining the overall champion, it is based on the showing of the Varsity 8, the Second Varsity 8, and the Freshman 8 plus other boats. The de facto national championship of Division I men's rowing is the Intercollegiate Rowing Association (IRA) Championships, which between 1995 and 2008 was located on the Cooper River in Camden, New Jersey, around the end of May or beginning of June. Beginning with the 2009 regatta in Sacramento, the IRA Championships will be held on the West Coast every four years.

Women's rowing

NCAA women's rowing is divided into three divisions with an official NCAA championship. Women rowers compete at the NCAA Rowing Championships in a Varsity 8, a Second Varsity 8, and a Varsity Four. Most teams also field one or more Novice Eights for novice rowers who have never competed at the collegiate level. Points are awarded for the overall championship based on the performance of those boats. Other head races and regattas such as Head of the Charles or the Pac-12 Championships allow a wide variety of competition in less-prominent boat classifications such as pair, sculls, and lightweight racing.

There has been spectacular growth in women's rowing over the past 25 years. In 1985, the FISA and Olympic course distance for women was increased from 1,000 meters to 2,000 meters (the same distance raced by men), marking progress in public perception of women's strength, endurance and competitive drive. Universities that have never had a men's team have added women's rowing to the athletic department and are providing funding and athletic scholarships for the expensive and demanding sport, contributing to a noticeable increase in the success and competitiveness of many collegiate women's rowing teams. This, in part, is to comply with Title IX; many of the football powers use women's rowing to help balance out the large number of scholarships awarded to male football players.

Lightweight rowing

In rowing, taller or heavier individuals have an advantage, thanks to the same physical principle that causes boats with more rowers to go faster. To allow average-sized rowers to best compete against their peers, the rowing governing boards set up a category for lightweight rowing. For men, the maximum weight is 160 lbs. For women, the weight limit is 130 lbs.

There are races for both men's and women's lightweight rowing. However, many of the smaller colleges have limited sized programs and simply field open weight boats, which include rowers who would qualify as lightweights. At many of the larger universities, where the competition to make a boat is intense, lightweight programs often don't exist, and if they do, they are typically underfunded club sports. This has not always been the case, however, as many lightweight programs have deteriorated or disappeared over time. This is especially apparent in the west, where California Lightweight Crew remains the sole program for men's lightweight rowing.

However, on the east coast, most Ivy League and EARC schools have excellent, well-funded men's lightweight teams; the lightweight men's events at Eastern Sprints and the Intercollegiate Rowing Association Championship (IRAs) are fiercely contested. Since the NCAA Rowing Championships does not have a lightweight event for women, a select number of these teams (e.g., University of Wisconsin) are eligible to compete at IRAs with the top men's programs.

Lightweight events have recently been added to the Olympics.

Freshman/novice rowing

Since rowing is such a technical sport, there is a separate category for novices (rowers with less than one year of experience). This is usually combined with freshman rowers, who may have rowed before in high school, but are in their first year in collegiate rowing. The Freshman squad is sometimes open only to college freshmen. However, people who start rowing after their freshman year normally join the novice team as well. The novice squad usually fields a freshman eight oared boat (8+), and if the team is big enough, a second eight, and/or a 4 oared boat (4+). In some collegiate conferences excluding the EARC and Intercollegiate Rowing Association (IRA), collegiate freshmen/novice can also compete as part of the varsity squad. At the 2012 IRA Steward's annual meeting it was voted to repeal the ban on freshmen competing as part of their varsity squad. In the league the term 'First Year Collegiate Rower' will now be used to describe Freshmen/Novice rowing.

Annual calendar

Rowing is one of the few collegiate sports where athletes practice year round and compete during both spring and fall. In addition many athletes train at various rowing clubs around the country during the summer.

Fall

In the fall, most schools focus on building technical proficiency and improving physical strength and endurance. This is typically accomplished through long steady practice pieces, with occasional shorter interval pieces. In the United States fall is also the season of head races which are typically between three and six kilometers. These longer races are part of the foundation for the spring season, building the rower's endurance and mental toughness. The largest fall race is the Head of the Charles Regatta held in Boston each October. This race includes rowers of all ages, abilities, and affiliations and features the best college crews in competition with Olympic-level athletes from the United States and other countries. The largest collegiate-only regatta in the fall is the Princeton Chase, typically in early November on Lake Carnegie in Princeton, New Jersey, and hosted by Princeton University. Also held in late fall, Rutgers hosts the Rutgers Fall Classic for collegiate first-year and novice crews on the Raritan River in New Brunswick, New Jersey.

Winter

This is an intense building period for the spring racing season. The training regimen consists primarily of long interval training, which gradually becomes shorter and more intense as the race season approaches. This is done on the water for schools below the snowline. And for some of the northern colleges that practice on lakes and rivers which are frozen during winter, these pieces are done using ergometers and, if the college is lucky enough to have them, rowperfect rowing simulators and indoor rowing tanks. Additionally, most schools, regardless of whether they have water to row on, do ergometer testing (all out maximum performance test), weights, stadium stairs and long runs. A few colleges and universities send their fastest rowers to the CRASH-B Sprints in Boston. This 2,000 meter race is held on ergometers and features separate events for collegiate athletes. Many northeastern colleges have a winter training trip to a warmer state such as Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Louisiana, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas during either winter break or spring break to give students extra time on the water while the local rivers and lakes are frozen.

Spring

Spring is the primary season for college rowing, and the majority of the schedule is composed of dual races. These 2,000-meter races take place between two, or sometimes three, schools. The winner of these races usually receive shirts from the losing teams.

There are also several large regattas, such as the Dad Vail Regatta, Eastern Sprints, Knecht Cup, and the San Diego Crew Classic which may be on the schedule. In this case, the teams compete in either flights, in which the winner is final, or a series of heats and semifinals before the winners move on to the finals. Sprint races begin with all teams lined up and started simultaneously, as opposed to the time trials in the fall.

Performing well in these races is the most important selection criteria for the various post season invitation rowing championships. If the crew is in a league, the dual race and regatta results will also typically be used in determining the team's seeding for the league championship. The Dad Vail Regatta is the largest and most prestigious for smaller schools and is held every May in Philadelphia.

The lightweight division becomes more prominent during the spring. Many head races lack separate categories for heavyweight/lightweight, but many spring races have a separate weight category for lighter rowers.

Men's

The Intercollegiate Rowing Association, known as the IRA, was founded by Cornell, Columbia, and Penn in 1894 and its first annual regatta was hosted on June 24, 1895. Today Navy and Syracuse are also members of the association. Each year these five schools choose whom to invite to the regatta and are responsible for its organization along with the ECAC. The IRA is the oldest college rowing championship in the United States.

Since the 1920s, when the West Coast crews, notably California and University of Washington began to attend and regularly win, most crews considered the Intercollegiate Rowing Association's championship to be a de facto national championship. Two important crews, Harvard and Yale, however, did not participate in the heavyweight divisions of the event. After losing to Cornell in 1897, Harvard and Yale chose to avoid the IRA, so as not to diminish the Harvard-Yale race. It soon became part of each school's tradition not to go. Beginning in 1973, Washington decided to skip the IRA because a change in schedule conflicted with its finals.

Even though rowing is the oldest intercollegiate sport, the men have always chosen not to join the NCAA. If they did, the NCAA would sponsor a championship, but it would also force the sport to abide by NCAA rules and mandates. Notwithstanding, collegiate crews generally abide by NCAA rules, and they also have to abide by athletic conference rules, which mirror the NCAA rules.

In 1982, a Harvard alumnus decided to remedy this perceived problem by establishing a heavyweight varsity National Collegiate Rowing Championship race in Cincinnati, Ohio. It paid for the winners of the Pac-10 Championship, the Eastern Sprints, the IRA and the Harvard-Yale race to attend. It was a finals only event and other crews could attend if they paid their own way and there was room in the field. The winner received an expense paid trip to the Henley Royal Regatta as a prize. After 1996, however, the race was discontinued.

Given Washington's return to the IRA in 1995 and the demise of the National Collegiate Rowing Championship, the IRA again was considered to be the national championship. In 2003, Harvard and Yale, after an absence of over one hundred years, decided to participate.

For men's rowing the Dad Vail Regatta in Philadelphia is considered the national championship for smaller college teams unable to compete at the IRA standard (similar to Division III or I-AA in other sports). It is the largest collegiate race in the nation.

Starting in 2008, club crews (non-Varsity programs) were no longer allowed to participate in the IRA Regatta. Unlike most collegiate sports, club-level crews regularly compete against Varsity programs and are often competitive.

Women's

Between 1971 and 1980, women's collegiate boats entered the National Women's Rowing Association National Championships (what is now the USRowing National Championships). The college boats raced against club boats, including boats from outside the United States. The best finishing US collegiate boat was deemed to be the National Champion.

The first women's collegiate championship was held in 1980 at Oak Ridge, Tennessee. This race was open solely to collegiate rowing teams.

Since 1997, the NCAA has hosted an invitational rowing championship for women. Unlike the former women's collegiate championship, the NCAA does not have a championship race for women's lightweight rowing. In response, the IRA hosts a women's lightweight event.

The NCAA currently hosts championships for Division I, Division II and Division III colleges, with Divisions II and III having been added in 2002.

NCAA Division I requires colleges to enter two eight-oared shells and one four-oared shell in the team championship. The championship is restricted to eleven conference champions (American, ACC, A10, Big Ten, Big 12, CAA, Ivy, MAAC, Pac-12, Patriot, and WCC) as automatic qualifiers and eleven at-large schools for a total of twenty-two teams. The at-large teams are selected by the NCAA Division I Women's Rowing Committee. The NCAA Division II championship consists of an eight-oared shells and four-oared shell competition . The Division III championship involved both varsity and second varsity eights competing in the same event until 2012. Beginning in 2013, the V-1 and V-2 boats compete in separate events.

American Athletic Conference

The American Athletic Conference is the legal successor of the original Big East Conference, founded in 1979, and retains the charter of the original Big East. The original conference split along football lines in 2013, with the seven non-FBS schools purchasing the "Big East" name and joining with three other schools to form a new Big East. This new conference did not have enough rowing schools to sponsor that sport; one of those schools, Villanova, became a rowing-only affiliate of The American. Villanova rowing would eventually join the CAA, already home to the school's football team, starting with the 2015–16 season.

Two of the schools that reorganized as The American, Louisville and Rutgers, spent only the 2013–14 school year in that conference; they respectively joined the ACC and Big Ten in July 2014. Tulsa joined from Conference USA at the same time. The American announced in March 2014 that California State University, Sacramento (more commonly called Sacramento State) and San Diego State University would join as associate members for women's rowing only, beginning in the 2014–15 season. The University of South Florida announced in 2016 that the NCAA has approved its request to start a Division I women's rowing team which it hopes to be ready for the 2018-19 school year. The rowing team will be based at the USF Sarasota-Manatee Campus and compete in the American Athletic Conference. USF is an all-sports member of the American.

Atlantic Coast Conference

The Atlantic Coast Conference first held a rowing championship in 2000 with Clemson, Duke, North Carolina, and Virginia participating. The 2005 conference realignment cycle brought two rowing schools into the ACC, with Miami and Boston College respectively joining for the 2005 and 2006 seasons. Further realignment in the early 2010s brought three more rowing schools into the conference. Notre Dame and Syracuse joined the ACC in 2013, with Louisville joining the following year.

Atlantic 10 Conference

The Atlantic 10 Conference (A10) first held a rowing championship in 1996 with 10 schools participating. Today, nine schools participate.

Big Ten Conference

The Big Ten Conference hosted its first Big Ten Women's Rowing Championship in 1997. Currently 7 schools compete in both the Championship Regatta and annual "Double Duals" races consisting of contests between 2-3 Big Ten competitors. The Big Ten is one of the dominant conferences in women's collegiate rowing, with at least one school being selected to compete at the NCAA Rowing Championships every year since its inception.

The Big Ten rowing league expanded to eight members in 2014 when Rutgers joined the conference.

Big 12 Conference

The history of Big 12 Conference women's rowing is intertwined with the rowing history of Conference USA (C-USA).

The Big 12 contested its first rowing championship in 2008 (2007–08 school year), initially with Kansas, Kansas State, and Texas. Oklahoma joined the following year. In July 2012, West Virginia joined the conference for all sports, bringing the number of rowing schools to five.

In the meantime, C-USA held its first rowing championship in 2010 (2009–10 school year). The Big 12 and C-USA agreed that the four Big 12 schools that then sponsored the sport would also participate in the C-USA championship. These schools were joined by the three full C-USA members that sponsored the sport (SMU, Tulsa, and UCF) and two Southeastern Conference members (Alabama and Tennessee). Alabama did not participate in the 2011 C-USA tournament because of the massive tornado that hit its home city of Tuscaloosa. West Virginia joined the Big 12 in 2012, also joining C-USA women's rowing at that time. Also in 2012, Old Dominion moved five of its sports, including women's rowing, from the CAA to C-USA in advance of that school's 2013 entry into full C-USA membership.

As a result of the 2013 split of the original Big East Conference, SMU and UCF both left C-USA for that league's football-sponsoring offshoot, the American Athletic Conference, in 2013, and Tulsa made the same move a year later. C-USA added two new rowing affiliates for the 2013–14 season in Sacramento State and San Diego State, but both left after that season for The American. The rapid turnover in rowing membership presumably led the Big 12 to take over the C-USA women's rowing league, with the three remaining C-USA rowing schools (Alabama, Old Dominion, Tennessee) becoming Big 12 affiliates.

Colonial Athletic Association

The Colonial Athletic Association began official sponsorship of women's rowing as the conference's 23rd sport in March 2009. Previously, the conference championships were held unofficially as the Kerr Cup, hosted by Drexel University. The first CAA women's rowing championship was conducted on April 18, 2009 in Philadelphia with races in the Varsity 4+, Second Varsity 8+, and Varsity 8+. The event was conducted in conjunction with the Kerr Cup on the Schuylkill River along historic Boathouse Row. In 2010 and 2011 George Mason University hosted the CAA Rowing Championships at Sandy Run Regional Park on the Occoquan Reservoir and will serve as host again in 2012. Three full CAA members currently sponsor women's rowing at the intercollegiate level — the University of Delaware, Drexel University, and Northeastern University; they are joined by three associate members, the University at Buffalo, Eastern Michigan University, and Villanova University .

Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference

The Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC) is a college athletic conference which operates in the northeastern United States. The conference championships are held during the end of April at Lake Mercer in West Windsor New Jersey.

In the summer of 2002 the Marist men's varsity eight boat advanced to the semifinals of the Temple Challenge Cup at the Henley Royal Regatta.

West Coast Conference

The West Coast Conference first held a women's rowing championship in 1997 with five of the league's eight members at that time participating—Gonzaga, Loyola Marymount, Saint Mary's, San Diego, and Santa Clara. Creighton became a WCC associate member starting with the 2011 championship, and longtime WCC member Portland added a varsity rowing team the following season.

Eastern Colleges Athletic Conference/Metro League

The ECAC/Metro League is a women's rowing conference.

The participating schools are: Buffalo, Colgate, Delaware, Fordham, UMass, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Villanova, and West Virginia. Most of these schools have dual conference memberships in rowing.

American Collegiate Rowing Association

Established in 2008 by Gregg Hartsuff under the General Not for Profit Association Act of 1986, the American Collegiate Rowing Association (ACRA) is made up of collegiate rowing teams that are not sponsored by the NCAA. Considered the Club National Championship, the ACRA regatta is split into six regions: the Mid-Atlantic region, the Great Lakes region, the Plains region, the Northeast region, the South region, and the West Coast region.

Eastern Association of Rowing Colleges

The Eastern Association of Rowing Colleges (EARC) was formed in 1946. It is composed of the Ivy League schools plus other select universities. Each year the EARC schools race at the Eastern Sprints regatta on Lake Quinsigamond in Massachusetts, which, for the men, is generally considered the most important race of the year aside from the IRA.

The EARC men's lightweight team which attains the highest points for the Freshman 8+, Second Varsity 8+ (JV), and First Varsity 8+ are awarded the Jope Cup.

On the women's side, the conference is called the Eastern Association of Women's Rowing Colleges (EAWRC). The Women's Eastern Sprints, held on the Cooper River in Camden, New Jersey, are highly competitive, on a similar level of competitiveness as the Aramark Central Region Championships and Pac-12 Championships.

The Eastern Sprints also serve as the Ivy League Championship, with the best placed boat from an Ivy League school being crowned Ivy League Champion.

Mid-Atlantic Rowing Conference

Prior to the formation of the Mid-Atlantic Rowing Conference, the nine charter member schools — Bryn Mawr College, Franklin & Marshall College, Johns Hopkins University, Marietta College, the University of Mary Washington, North Park University, Richard Stockton College, Rutgers University–Camden, and Washington College — enjoyed an affiliation due to their annual competition at the Mid-Atlantic Division III Rowing Championships, formerly the Atlantic Collegiate League Sprints Championships. In late 2008, the rowing programs at the nine schools expressed a common desire to formalize their association in order to enhance the student-athlete experience for their rowers. From that desire, the Mid-Atlantic Rowing Conference was born in January 2009 and the Mid-Atlantic Division III Rowing Championships became the Mid-Atlantic Rowing Conference Championships. Later in 2009, Johns Hopkins announced it would end its varsity rowing programs after the 2008-09 academic year.

Northwest Collegiate Rowing Conference

The Northwest Collegiate Rowing Conference consists of seven NCAA Division II and III member schools in USRowing's Northwest region. The Conference hosts two major regattas each year. The NCRC Invite takes place during late-March on Vancouver Lake, Washington and has welcomed non-conference members from California, Oregon, and Washington. Conference championships are annually held the third weekend of April at the Cascade Sprints Regatta on Lake Stevens, Washington.

Western Intercollegiate Rowing Association

The Western Intercollegiate Rowing Association (WIRA) is an American collegiate conference that sponsors men's and women's rowing.

Olympic medals won by U.S. collegiate boats

Up until the 1968 Summer Olympics, the United States had a trial system to pick the boats that would represent the United States in the Olympics. The top boats in the country, both collegiate and club, would participate in the Olympic Trials after the end of the collegiate calendar.

With the exception of 1964, a college boat won every Olympics Trials in the eight oared boat (8+) from 1920 through 1968. And in an amazing streak, all of the boats from 1920 through 1956 won gold medals. College boats also have had some success in the four man events (4+) and (4-) and the pair (2-).

Beginning in 1972, the United States has chosen its eight from a national selection camp. Numerous college athletes have made Olympic boats, but they were not specifically representing their University either at the camp, or at the Olympic trials for some of the smaller boats.

Below is a list of college boats that represented the United States at the Olympics:

Olympic gold medals

Other Olympic eight-man boats

Coxed fours (4+)

Coxless fours (4-)

Coxless pairs (2-)