Geneseo Club Rowing: Join the crew!
Photo Courtesy of Geneseo Rowing
Geneseo Club Rowing is a dedicated group of students who train on Lake Conesus and compete against collegiate teams across the region in rowing competitions.
As you may know, Geneseo has many clubs on campus, and a lot of those are club sports. One club sport that you may be unfamiliar with is rowing. Along with many other niche clubs, Geneseo Club Rowing is small, but has many dedicated athletes. I was able to sit down with the e-board for the club and talk about what rowing is, how they run their practices, and why more people should join the team!
In order to understand what the team is all about, it is important that you first know how rowing works. To start, you need to fill a boat with rowers. There can be one, two, four, or eight people in a single boat. Geneseo’s team strictly rows in four- and eight-person boats. Any given boat has four and eight rowers, respectively, with a coxswain who directs the rowers on how to steer the boat and ensures their strokes are all at the same rate. The objective of rowing is to finish with the fastest time. During the fall races, boats are spread out from one another and start at different times. This differs from the spring races, where the boats are lined up equally and the first to finish wins. The team’s e-board consists of Captain and Coach Aydan Weese, President and Treasurer Brynne Wolcott, Vice President Sarah Leberman, Student Association Representative Charlotte Coker, and Public Relations Manager, Historian, and Secretary Willow Roof.
The team has attended two regattas so far this season. The first was the Mohawk Fall Classic Regatta on Sept. 27, and the most recent was the 23rd Annual Busfield Regatta on Oct. 3. The team has been training very hard this season to perform well at the regattas. Being the first few races of the season, the team is working toward better race times while also having a blast. The team’s regatta this season was the first regatta ever for everyone on the team, which consists of freshmen and sophomores. They are able to race against teams from all over, including other club teams like Binghamton University and the University of Buffalo’s crew clubs, as well as Division III teams like Nazareth, and even Division I teams like the University of Albany.
To prepare for these regattas, the team trains hard all week. For most of the week, the club’s morning routine consists of waking up around 5 a.m. to meet and drive to Lake Conesus, where they practice for about two hours before heading back to campus. On the days they do not practice on the lake, the team practices in Schrader Hall, which has ergometer machines, or ergs for short. These machines are specialized for rowing and measure how much work and power you generate with each movement.
The e-board all got into rowing for various reasons, such as hearing about it through alumni, wanting to stay fit after injury, or even just joining the team on a whim. This goes to show that all sorts of people are welcome to join the team. Coach Ayden was speaking fondly of the team and said, “I’m very proud of everyone’s performance all the time. I’ve learned to care about the rowers not just as rowers, but as people, and just seeing their progress has always made me very happy, especially at the regatta.”
Additionally, the e-board members want to thank the alumni for helping out with the team, including Lucas Ogden, Pete Leblond, and Patty Fennell. Fun fact: the crew boats are all named after the team’s alumni donors!
If you are interested in club rowing, they are looking for athletes to join their little crew family. Follow the crew team on Instagram @crewclubgeneseo and reach out if interested!