The NC State club rowing team’s fall season is in full swing following this weekend’s High Point Autumn Rowing Festival. State won three gold medals along with four silvers and one bronze at the event. This regatta comes just one week after the team’s first competition of the season at the Tail of the Tiger Regatta in Clemson, South Carolina, where they won four silver medals and one bronze medal.
The fall regattas consist of 5-kilometer races down a river. This is different than the regattas in the spring, which are 2-kilometer sprints on flat water. In both cases there are a number of different divisions of races. These divisions include men’s and women’s boats of one, two, four or eight people, as well as a mixed division with men and women racing in the same boat.
The most common race type is the boats of eight, which include eight rowers and one coxswain. The coxswain is in charge of steering the boat and instructing the rowers what to do. The coxswain, as well as makinges sure the boat is going straight and that the rowers are rowing together at the correct pace.
“During races the coxswain is the motivator,” head coach James Broemer said. “They keep everybody focused on what they are doing and they give them their position in the race. If the boat gets gold the tradition is you throw your coxswain in the river.”
The coxswain is an important member of the team during races but also plays a vital role in practices. The team practices for two hours every day during the week, and also on Saturday mornings when it is not competing. With all this time devoted to practicing, it is important that the coxswains along with the head coach are there to make sure the team is doing everything the right way.
“Usually it’s like an assistant coach position in a way because if I can’t watch the boat during practice, they do the drills, they fix everybody and work with technique,” Broemer said about his coxswains.
The regattas are a way for the team to prove its skill and compete with other college teams from all over the Southeast. The team travels all around the area for these regattas, and has even gone as far as Philadelphia and Boston to compete in the past. The trips are about the competition, but also offer an opportunity for the team to bond and grow closer together according to the club’s president, Harold Slaughter, a junior studying computer science.
“My favorite part about rowing is definitely the regattas,” Slaughter said. “It’s a great time for team bonding. We all travel up there together, and you really get to meet people on the team. The team is very tight knit. We all know each other very well.”
The team enjoys the time it spends together, but also takes its competition seriously. The members put in hours of hard work at practice for an entire semester, to race only four or five times. However, when they do get to race, the competition and glory of winning drive them to continue to work at the sport.
“It’s really good crossing the finish line and knowing that you’ve beaten other boats,” Slaughter said. “It’s a lot of fun.”
The team won’t get another opportunity to enjoy that glory for a while, as the next event the club is participating in is the Head of the Hooch Regatta in Chattahoochee, Tennessee in early November. The Head of the Hooch Regatta is one of the largest in Southeast, with teams from over 200 organizations participating. Until then the State team will continue to practice and work hard in preparation for this big event.
State hopes to co-host its own regatta with UNC in the spring at Lake Wheeler in Raleigh. For more information about what it takes to join the club rowing team, or just more information about the team in general, visit wolfpackrowing.com. The team can also be found on Twitter, @NCStateCrew, and on Instagram, @ncstaterowing.
