Splits, light- and heavyweights, regattas; this is crew. Some of us see it as a “cult”, while others don’t view it as an athletic sport at all. No matter what the discussion many of us talk about it non-stop and talk about one of the recent changes has been roaming the halls even before the season started on Nov. 23. The girls team experienced a huge hit, since many good rowers quit. Many rowers believe that this will have devastating effects on the rest of the team.
Junior Camille Calderon is one of the rowers, who quit this year. “The commitment is too much and I didn’t think the money and time was worth it anymore”, she said. With practices in the winter as well as in the spring, she is not the only one, who has that opinion. Junior Kelley Carstons, who is one of the ten juniors that stopped doing crew, made her decision based on very similar factors. “It was too big of a time commitment. I want to focus on clubs, grades, and SAT prep”, she said.
Many returning rowers, such as sophomore Min Choe fear this reality. “It will definitely be difficult to make up for the athletes we lost”, Choe said.
Senior captain Alex Zele has mixed feelings. “Having so many people quit lowers team morale and more people may quit because of this”, she said. “ No one wants to loos friends, teammates, and strong athletes […] It just means that we have to try harder to be competitive this year”.
Having said that, the varsity girls coach Nick Johnson is confident about the season. “There is always a turnover rate that crew deals with every year”, he said, “The team will still excel this spring”. Furthermore, he has very high hopes for the upcoming season even after so many quit. “Putting all of our boats in the finals at the state championship is a serious goal”, Johnson said. Last year, with 5 senior rowers (Myriam Assadi, Alexia Bertholon, Allie Meade, Tani O’Neill, Lani Taylor) on the 1st Varsity boat made it to petit-finals. Johnson is hoping to up the game of the team and get impressive results this spring season.
