As rowers, we are faced with a paradox. By creating year-round, live-in rowing camps to boost our chances of winning more medals at the Olympics, we have imperiled the fun of rowing, the participation of clubs in elite rowing, and the future of our sport. Those who control funds have evolved to a position that thwarts the development and excellence of all but a select few elite athletes, in the process abandoning club and university programs. It is a situation of our own making, and it is time we reevaluate the decision that led us here.
Though the rowing population increases every year in the United States, and grassroots regatta numbers are up, in my 38-year involvement with rowing (seven Olympiads, six Pan-Am Games, many world championships, and thirty-one U.S. teams) I have never been more concerned. Club teams are shriveling, and the quality of life for our best rowers and scullers is being diminished as they retreat into a secluded four to eight years of camp training, surfacing only for races.
In 1969 the membership of our then national governing body (NGB), now the U.S. Rowing Association (USRA), voted to create a centralized camp system for the eight-oared crew in the belief that it would improve America's declining results international competition. Prior medal-winning U.S. crews had been picked from college or club trials and for the most part stayed intact. Under the new approach, the cream of U.S. club and college summer programs were brought together under centralized management. Soon thereafter, the camps began to take on a life of their own. They demanded more money, and a special relationship with the USRA. The role of the clubs and colleges began to diminish.
As the camps gained strength, they broadened their scope to include training other team boats, and eventually even the double, pair and single sculls. For 15 years the camps sent athletes back to their home clubs if they did not qualify for the final eight-oared crew. At first the camps tried to keep their end of the bargain and helped clubs where they could. But that changed. The camps then created 4-6 week instant clubs elsewhere for their "released" athletes. The USRA reached abroad for the most successful coaches money could buy, and identified training center sites remote from American rowing and rowers and subject to relocation every few years (currently, the three designated centers are in Chattanooga, TN, Augusta, GA and San Diego, CA). The camp coaches began to insist that rowers commit exclusively to rowing (no jobs or school) year-round, year-in and year-out, as was common in the Eastern Bloc countries where the camp systems was born.
Thus began the erosion of club elite rowing programs which continues to this day. By capturing the "lion's share" of resources for training elite athletes the camps ensured themselves a powerful advantage. By expanding their reach to all size boats, the camps left no niche for other players. Then, adding insult to injury, the camps began, several years ago, to further "load the deck" against the few scrappy club rowing programs that continued to challenge camp rowers. Openly raiding the club's best athletes in advance of trials, scheduling trials at times and in places inconvenient for club participation, changing trial rules to suit their needs and imposing a seven-day race time sequence (not a problem for subsidized camp athletes, but terrible for working club rowers) and often having mini camps within the regatta trials to help camps win, the camps have all but destroyed the chances of club rowers to win places on the U.S. national team.
Twenty clubs have give up elite rowing programs in the last fifteen years. Eight more have closed all but the smallest doors, or picked a single discipline such as masters, social, or high school rowing for their new focus. In 1968, more than three-quarters of the entries in the Olympic trials were university summer teams. By 1976, only eight of the seventeen major university programs that rowed in the summer competitions entered the Olympic trials. As the chances to win over the camp crews dwindled, and they camps selected the best athletes from every university and club, the small-boat entries dropped. The last two intact university crews to race in the Olympic Games were from the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard in 1968.
The United States Olympic Committee (USOC) and USRA have poured millions of dollars into the various camp teams' budgets over the past seven years. The USOC reacts to donors and media sponsors who want medals over the short term, so it seems reasonable to fund a system that the USRA says will win medals. Camps have highly paid coaches, the best of shells, a massive sweep center, two other sculling centers, food, rooms, and travel money for off-season training and participation in the best of European circuit regattas. Sponsorship for the teams, media recognition, and support money for the athletes also accrue to the camp system.
Clubs, on the other hand, have help only from themselves, old and reused shells, little or no money, frequent loss of their best athletes to camp recruiters, and mostly unpaid must learn to work together for the good of our sport, our young athletes, and our nation's desire to win medals in international competition. We few clubs still developing rowers are the Mohegan. We can reach our time-valued goals and survive only by undoing the exclusive atmosphere fostered by our present national governing body and the camps we have allowed to be created. We must restore equal support and opportunity to the member clubs, which are the extended families (from youth to veterans) within our rowing community. Camps and clubs can get along-but our leadership has to want it to happen and demand that it is enforced to the letter of the intent as it once was.
Clubs are the magic goose. She lays golden eggs and raises them to be winners. Who will follow, if the valued goose is thoughtlessly left to die? I am saddened to wonder if, like the real Mohegan, we will ourselves dwindle and disappear.
Editors Note: The selection procedures for elite athletes in the United States has gone through a number of changes since the beginning of America's participation in rowing in the 1900 Olympics. In the early part of the Century, selection of Olympic team boats was made at the national championships run by the National Association of Amateur Oarsmen (NAAO). College crews that normally broke up after the semester would stay together and test themselves against other crews for the right to represent America at the Olympics. From 1920 to 1956, the U.S. had a virtual lock on the eights race, winning the gold medal every time with a college crew. However, the post World War II dominance of Russian and German crews in the World Championships and the Henley races, along with U.S. losses in the 1960 and 1968 Olympic eights race, led many in the rowing community to look for a new approach to competing with countries that were marshaling government resources and fielding true national teams. Thus, in 1969, the NAAO, now called the United States Rowing Association (USRA), elected to develop a limited central camp system that would build a national eight-oared crew to represent the U.S. Since that time the USRA has hired national team coaches to focus on the eight and other selected boats. Currently, the U.S. has three national team coaches hired from abroad and three national training centers (Augusta, GA, Chattanooga, TN and San Diego, CA) where at least 100 athletes train full-time, year-round to compete for spaces in all the team boats. The selection for representation at the World Championships and Olympics is currently held at a trials race which is open for any individual, club or camp to enter. The article is a perspective on this process for selecting U.S. athletes for international competition.
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