Men's Rowing - Locks up 4th Consecutive National Title
The Michigan Men's Rowing Team locked up their 4th consecutive American Collegiate Rowing Association Team National Championship today at Lake Lanier, in Gainseville, Georgia.
They took silver in the First Varsity Eight, losing only to UVA by 0.8 seconds.
Gold in the Second Varsity Eight, besting UVA by 4 seconds.
Bronze in the First Novice Eight, losing only to Purdue and Virginia.
Bronze, also, in the Second Novice Eight.
Gold in the Mens' Varsity Lightweight Four.
Gold in the Men's Novice Lightweight Four.
Gold in the Men's Pair.
Overall, a pretty tremendous performance by the Maize and Blue.
A STROKE of genius on their part! *rimshot*
Congrats to the boys in blue, and thanks for making it a little more great to be a Michigan Wolverine!
I always thought about this with 1901-1904, and with that D3 Squash school (can't remember it right now but it's the longest winning streak in NCAA history). What would it be like to be the best in the nation for all four years of college? That's just insane.
Well this is against other clubs... I think the OP should have noted that. They have been trying to get varsity status for a while now, but with lax getting the bump it should be a while if it happens. Still, congats to them it's a tremendous accomplishment.
Ah, that makes a little more sense. I was trying to figure out where the Ivy's were. Either way, like you said, they're competiting on a level playing field and beat every team in the country in their "division". Pretty awesome anyway.
In a interview yesterday with A.A.Com that he is looking to expand the number of student athletes and grow the athletic dept. Im guessing Mens Rowing may be going Div 1 Varsity sooner than later.Hi interview was all about growing and expanding UM athletics and its brand name
Being a 4-time National Champion probably came in handy in bars; at least, before Prohibition eliminated the tradition of drinking alcoholic beverages from American culture.
Well 1919-1904=15 years of working the Ann Arbor saloons.
Hopefully they followed the old Chef adage..."Meaningless sex is fun for twenty or thirty years, but after that, it starts to get old."
Great achievement, for sure, but important to qualify it as a Club National Title. Along those lines, Men's Rowing is certainly deserving of being next in line to get upgraded from Club port to Varsity sport.
I know it is at the club level, but congrats to the rowers. It is an amazing accomplishment to win any championship for 4 straight years.
If I had known I wouldnt drove up its about 30min drive for me
...something about collegiate Men's Rowing please tell opine about the levels of competition. The NCAA site doesn't even list a championship for Men's Rowing.
BTW, today the Michigan Women's Rowing team finished 13th at the NCAA championships. Brown won the national championship while MSU finished 7th, Wisconsin 9th and OSU 10th.
Michigan's 1st Varsity Eight finished 6th in the Petite Final (12th overall); 2nd Varsity Eight finished 5th in the Petite Final (11th overall); and the 1st Varsity Four finished 5th in the Petite Final (11th overall).
Final Team Standings
1. Brown# 85 2. Stanford 85 3. California 83 4. Princeton 72 5. Southern Cal 72 6. Virginia 69 7. Michigan State 55 8. Washington 54 9. Wisconsin 44 10. Ohio State 44 11. Yale 42 12. Washington State 39 13. MICHIGAN 33 14. Harvard 17 15. Clemson 12 16. Dartmouth 10
Men's rowing isn't governed by the NCAA. The de facto national championship is run by the Intercollegiate Rowing Association (IRA). Michigan competed in it for years, but got kicked out a few years ago when club teams were banned (in large part due to Michigan's ssuccess against varsity programs). The general feeling is that men's rowing will try to reorganize as an NCAA sport with the idea being that ADs will feel better about it that way or something. Nobody knows exactly what shape it will take and this general uncertainty hasn't helped the Michigan men in their quest to secure varsity status.
...useful info.
Ok, most of that is accurate, but to say club teams were kicked out largely because of Michigan's success is a bit of a reach. Michigan was one of the few club teams who could show up to IRA's and put up a respectable showing, but by and large, getting to the 3rd level finals (and maybe the Petites in a good year) was all you could expect from the Blue. Several years ago they had a 1F get silver (which actually is a huge accomplishment), but that's about it as far as really making an impact at IRA's. I'm clearly not a board member on the IRA committee, but I'd guess club teams were excluded more so because, honestly, it was a bit of a waste of time and money for most of them to show up. There wasn't much to be gained by having UCLA, Purdue, and Minnesota spend thousands of dollars traveling to IRA's, just so they could duke it out in the 4th level finals. It was more productive for them to have their own championship, hence, the birth of the ACRA. Michigan happened to be a club team, so they got lumped in with the rest.
I'm not saying this to disrespect the rowers, who I have a lot of respect for. They bust their asses and are talented athletes. I'm just setting the record straight. Washington/Harvard/Cal/Princeton/Stanford/Cornell/Brown are not worried about losing to Michigan. Michigan rowing is clearly not a tomato can, and the big schools can't "blow off" Michigan, but at the end of the day, they're beating Michigan 95% of the time. Again, it should be pointed out that those programs have waaaay more funding than Michigan's, so I recognize that Michigan is operating at a distinct disadvantage when compared to those with full varsity funding. Sure, it makes for a nice narrative and cool sounding story, but to say those schools are banning Michigan for being too fast is simply inaccurate.
And I do agree with you, it's not right that Michigan isn't allowed in IRA's unless they go full varsity, because they've shown that they can race with the big schools and put up respectable showings. I'm just explaining that it's likely for a different reason than you seem to think.
Now, if the athletic department would step up and give Michigan men's rowing full varsity funding, then we might have a different story on our hands....
p.s. Also should be noted that the club team at Michigan has produced a couple of national team members (Tom Peszek most recently, and there was a lightweight about 10 years ago whose name I can't recall)
The men's team finished in the top 12 in 1V five out of the ten years they were able to compete at IRA. And I don't know how it's a waste of time for them to show up when they regularly beat EARC schools. Should MIT and Columbia not be allowed to compete just because they never make it past the 3rd level finals?
Clearly, you failed to actually read and comprehend my entire post before you replied. It's ok, it happens - It was long, you didn't want to take the time to read it.
I'll admit it - you lost me at "3rd level finals was all you could expect out of blue". Which is just factually incorrect.
No. I'm sorry, it's not even a slight embellishment. I was on the team when this shit down. Part of the justification Rutgers' AD gave for cutting men's rowing was that club teams (principally Michigan) were competing at the highest level and in fact outplacing Rutgers on a fairly regular basis. Why fund the team when they're theoretically capable of better results with no funding at all? Rutgers losing its varsity status sent a massive shockwave through the sport. This was Rutgers' oldest sport, a founding member of EARC, they even had a pair that won Olympic gold back in the day.
Michigan's 1v had, at one time or another, beaten every school in the country at a championship regatta except Cal, Harvard, Washington and Northeastern. Michigan made petites at IRAs, and thus bested half the field, a total of 5 times. A lot of schools were very nervous about what happened to Rutgers happening to them- I remember Syracuse in particular- and pressured other teams to kick out club teams. I'm not saying this was the only motivation... Washington, Cal and OrSU have wanted to make it an NCAA sport for a while and kicking out clubs was seen as a step in that direction, but Michigan's success was a major, major factor. This was all very, very contentious and reported on numerous times in Rowing News and other places if you don't want to take my word for it.
This post was originally for MGoShoe, but now I see that there are many informative posts on the subject as well. Here it goes anway:
The IRA (first held in 1895), while currently the national championship for men's intercollegiate rowing, has not always been so. In fact, for most of the history of men's intercollegiate rowing (the oldest intercollegiate sport in America; a sport established with and still trying to maintain the ideals of "amateur" intercollegiate sports) there has not been a true national championship (sounds familiar....). This was due to the scheduling of the IRA and how it conflicted with the academic schedules of the University of Washington and the University of California and of the scheduling of the Harvard - Yale race, all four traditional collegiate rowing powers. Washington and Cal competed at the IRA from the 1920s to the early 1970s, and then returned in 1995. Harvard and Yale stopped competing in the IRA around 1898 (yes, 1898), and did not return until 2003, over 100 years later.
There was an alternative to the IRA started in 1982 and held in Cincinnati. It was the first time that men's rowing had a real national championship, as this event was held in mid-June, after Washington had finished their Spring Quarter, and after the Harvard - Yale race. This race continued until the west coast programs decided to return to the IRA in 1996.
While Harvard and Yale have always had the ability to control the scheduling of their event, the fact they did not really encapsulates the problems that the sport has inflicted upon itself for so many years. The rowing coaches, stewards, and alumni of the core men's programs (Washington, Cal, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Wisconsin, Navy, Syracuse, Brown, etc.) have for so long operated in a bubble. In fact, the only reason men's rowing survived through difficult economic times and the massive growth of the NCAA is due to the fact that these programs have very affluent and influential alumni (not uncommon to see rowing alumni serving as university regents) and that many of these programs, while supported financially by their respective athletic departments, have separate endowments to back them.
Men's intercollegiate rowing always has attempted to maintain its "amateur" status:
1) Freshman rowing squads (as all/most intercollegiate sports were at one point).
2) Non-scholarship status (until recently...): There was a long standing "gentlemen's agreement" between the big public institution rowing powers (Washington, Cal, Wisconsin, and in some part UCLA) and the Ivy League programs (non-athletic scholarship conference) to not offer rowing scholarships. In the late 1970's/early 1980s several programs began to offer rowing scholarships (namely Syracuse, Temple, and the Florida Institute of Technology (D2 program), and maybe a few others), and while they could attract several standout rowers to their programs, they could never achieve enough boat speed to win a national championship. In the mid-1980s to early 1990s, Steve Gladstone (one of the premier collegiate rowing coaches) had immense success at Brown University by recruiting and enrolling foreign national team athletes. While Brown is a non-athletic scholarship institution, they do (as all Ivy League teams) have "financial-aid packages". In order to compete with this boat speed, other programs began to recruit internationally (it is very common now to see several foreigners manning seats in the top eight in the power programs). Gladstone later returned to Cal in 1996* (he had coached there in the 1970's), bringing the same system AND scholarships (and success), thereby in essence breaking open the non-scholarship issue, with Washington following suit by adding scholarships in 1997 (and others as well).
* Trivia: Gladstone also served as the Athletic Director at Cal during part of his stint, and hired Jeff Tedford (current Cal football coach). Gladstone is now currently in his first year at Yale, and looks to be turning that program around after some slow years.
With women's rowing being designated an "emerging sport" by the NCAA for Title IX reasons, the women's side of the sport, less entrenched by the control of the traditional Ivy League/Eastern powers, has flourished and surpassed the numbers (and arguably the visibility and the viability) of men's rowing. The first NCAA women's championship was in 1997, and it includes a D1 (about 90 schools), D2 (about 25 schools), and D3 (about 60 schools) championship. Women's rowing, especially at the D1 level, is truly a "national" sport, with many conferences represented (for example, Oklahoma and Alabama have D1 programs now; Texas has had one for a while, and is THE sleeping giant of the entire country, in my opinion).
Men's intercollegiate rowing has taken note of the success of the women's side of the sport, with some realizing that the future, if there is to be growth, involves NCAA affiliation and integration. The big public institutions are backing this, with the Ivy League programs seemingly less inclined to release their grip. It will be very interesting to see how it plays out. Here's hoping that the "powers that be" do the right thing for the good of the entire sport, and not just for their own program/league.
"Why fund the team when they're theoretically capable of better results with no funding at all?"
I will buy that argument, because that makes sense. I just see the "Michigan isn't allowed in IRA's because they're too fast" argument thrown up too glibly and without proper explanation. It makes it sound like they can roll with Cal/Harvard/Washington/Princeton/Brown, which is not the case. And let's be honest, 90% of the time, the fastest crew in the nation is going to be from one of those 5 schools (and no, I did not row for any of those 5 schools, nor do I claim to be a particularly talented rower). So yeah, if we're really getting down to who makes sense to invite to IRA's and the only thing we truly care about is determining the fastest V8 in the country, the most sensible thing to do would be only to invite the top-3 from Pac-10's, the grand finalists from the Eastern Sprints, and maybe include the ACRA champions.
To another poster - I agree, MIT-types showing up at IRA's is kind of pointless. With their speed, it would be more appropriate for them to race at Dad Vails and/or ACRA.
I'll concede that Michigan can't compete with the schools you listed year in and out and that it's unrealistic to expect UM to compete for a NC as a club team. I also have no problem with the desire to make the IRA a more elite competition but you're brushing over the fact that this wasn't a motivation. As it was, club teams had to apply, just like any other school, for spots and would be accepted only if they had one of the 24 best resumes. Excluding clubs made the field less elite because the clubs that had petite or 3rd level speed got replaced by varsity teams that otherwise wouldn't have made the field at all.
I think we're finally on the same page. I was unaware that the Rutgers situation had such a large impact on how things went down, thank you for bringing that up. It's an explanation that makes a lot of sense, and one that I hadn't considered before.
It wasn't the elite rowing schools like Harvard/Yale/Cal/Wisconsin/Washington that wanted Michigan gone, it was the likes of Navy, Columbia, Rutgers, Cuse, MIT etc. The elite teams didn't care. The teams that Michigan could be beat, and beat some regularly were worried about their status given budget crunches and title 9.
Further Gregg turned down the Penn head coaching job a couple years before this went down, and its not a stretch to say they were bitter about it.
Also, club teams didn't HAVE to go. In your first post you make it sound like club teams were losing money so they didn't want to go. They spend just as much to travel to ACRA, so that isn't really a valid argument. By and large, it was not the club teams' decisions to leave IRAs.
Michigan still duals Wisconsin every year. Clark (wisco coach) and Gregg are pretty solid friends. In fact, Clark and Gladstone (Cal AD) are huge supporters of Michigan rowing going varsity. The fact that rowing is expensive, isn't a spectator sport, and the women are already varsity (can't have a title 9 date to the dance like LAX did), really hurts their chances of going varsity.
EDIT: Also, the OP made it quite clear this was the ACRA national championship, not the IRA. I'm not sure what the fuss is over the post. There is no NCAA in mens rowing.
Yeah, we cleared that up, and I understand now that it was more of the "mid-tier" IRA schools that wanted Michigan out. Totally makes sense. We're on the same page there.
On the money thing - I was simply implying that it didn't make sense for the 1V from Minnesota or Purdue to spend a bunch of money to go race against the 1V from Washington. We know how that's gonna play out - Washington will win, by a lot. It's the competitive equivalent of Elon going to play against Florida. But this is not football - Purdue will not get $500k for agreeing to get smoked by Washington.
ACRA makes sense because it's schools like Minnesota competing against other schools with similar resources, and hence is a more level playing field. How they place compared to other club programs is maybe a more relevant measuring stick than how they place compared to a school that can build a multimillion dollar rowing facility and recruit U23 national team members from Europe and Canada (eg. the Cal dynasty of the early 2000's). Now if you polled the kids at those teams, I'm sure a lot of them would say they want to take a crack at the Washingtons and Cals and Harvards, and they could probably put together a decent argument along the lines of "We busted our asses, now give us a shot!". But why it isn't happening? We go back to the mid-tier IRA school argument. (the more we talk about this, the more the IRA sounds a lot like the BCS to me).
Michigan, of course, is a unique case. They're good enough so that measuring themselves against schools like Washington is a worthwhile activity. Will they beat Washington? Probably not, and only if something really crazy happens, but I do agree that they should have the right to see how they stack up. I've already said I think Michigan deserves a shot at IRA's (reread my original post). In my original post, I was just trying to provide some sort of explanation other than "Michigan is too fast", which seemed like it glossed over a lot of important points.
Moving on...
Congrats on winning the team title (again) Michigan.
As I alluded to in my post above, men's intercollegiate rowing is fraught with problems, primarily poor structure and organization that hinders growth. Indeed, as mentioned by you, it is very much like the BCS with its exclusion of certain programs.
For me, it was always laughable that a program like Temple University, a D1 program with a boathouse on the Schuylkill River, located in an area with loads of high school/junior rowing, and having rowing scholarships (i.e. all of the necessary resources), always was content to compete at the Dad Vail and dominate clubs, D2, and D3 teams (for a lot of years; not so much recently), and then have the gall to call themselves "national champions".
This is just one more example of what is the disorganization (most of it based on Eastern programs-biased "tradition") currently and continually undermining the credibility and future growth of the sport, both in the eyes of the public, and most importantly, the eyes of intercollegiate athletic departments.
....illuminating discussion. I was sure that there were some experts from among the MGoBlogerati and you did not disappoint.
Thanks for all of the info on the politics of Men's Collegiate Rowing.
Congrats to both the men and the women. The women in particular had an absolutely outstanding year. I'm curious if they made substantial changes to their training program or if they have especially good athletes this year because their coaching staff is the same and they really made quite a jump. The men really picked it up after a slow start this season. Gregg (HC) will be disappointed that first boat come in 3rd after winning Dad Vails against the same competition, but overall he must be happy to keep the team points trophy which has still never left Michigan hands. The high school program I'm coaching for will be sending a very talented rower with multiple Stotesbury golds his way this fall. I'll be excited to follow his progress.
....here.