UM wins second straight B10 Rowing Championship
INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. – Michigan won its second consecutive Big Ten title and seventh overall at the 2021 Big Ten Rowing Championships Sunday at the Indianapolis Rowing Center at Eagle Creek Park. The Wolverines recorded 191 team points, marking the second-highest team total in Big Ten Championships history and just one point shy of a perfect score after winning six of the seven races.
https://bigten.org/news/2021/5/16/womens-rowing-michigan-wins-2021-big-ten-rowing-championships.aspx
Per an earlier post on mgoblog, this sets a new modern era record of 8 conference titles in a single school year with the B10 Baseball Championship still yet to be decided.
Awesome! OSU had won something like 7 in a row before Michigan's back to back titles. Big Ten rowing goes through streaks with 1 or 2 programs getting a great recruiting class that builds and builds. If you get a good freshman 8 mixed between high school rowers and high level athletes from other sports that couldn't quite make the track/volleyball/swimming team, that turns into a good 2nd Varsity 8 as sophomores/juniors and a good 1V as juniors/seniors. Can't hide a slower 4 seat like you can an iffy CB2 on a football field so you need top level athletes throughout the program to win conference titles. Even down to your 3rd priority boat.
OSU had been a thorn in the side of the program for most of the last decade, even as Michigan was consistently in the top 10 nationally. Now just need to take the next step and take out the Washington and UVAs of the world to win a NC.
Also, really surprised to see Rutgers' V8 coming in 2nd. Rutgers was around to save other Big Ten coaches' jobs because at least they didn't come in last every race. That's what Rutgers was for.
Washington and Texas look very strong again this year. It will be interesting to see how competitive we are against those two at the NCAAs.
Yeah, I haven't been tracking results as much this year as I did when I was still coaching/in the rowing community, but cmax (projected splits between V8s given H2H results) isn't a thing this year, probably due to the restricted travel/cross conference races. Without that I don't really know how much of a gap exists between the #2 and #6 V8s this year, though it's usually a gap that cannot be made up in any timeline short of a few months.
Regardless, I both hate and love Washington rowing. They have amazing facilities, water, and even access to a seaplane: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryIrYC3Qd-s (2:30 if you want to skip to it).
This may be new information to most people but Keith Jackson (yes that Keith Jackson) lived in Seattle and rowing was his favorite sport. Looking down on Lake Washington and seeing the mountains in the distance was something he cherished.
Not only did Keith Jackson love rowing, but he called the race between the Huskies and the Soviets from Moscow in 1958, when he was a young sportscaster for Seattle's KOMO TV. The Huskies upset the Soviet crews including the one that had beaten them at the Henley Royal Regatta, just two weeks earlier. He always maintained that this was the highlight of his broadcasting career, with the irony being that he was a Washington State alumnus.
Video of the race and his call: https://vimeo.com/251000747?ref=tw-v-share
A short version of how the UW crew ended up in Moscow at the height of the Cold War: https://www.seattletimes.com/sports/uw-crews-cold-war-win-is-still-worth-a-toast/
Congrats to Coach Rothstein, his staff and all team members for their dominant performance on the unusually calm waters of Eagle creek yesterday morning. Viewed all the races on Big 10 Network+ and all of M's winning crews got out in front early and stayed there.
It's past time for rowing to be considered for network coverage. If poker can be on TV, so can crew.
Best wishes as you move on to Sarasota in a few weeks!
MSU has regressed since AD Beekman unceremoniously canned former coach Matt Weise a few years ago. Beekman doesn't yet know what he doesn't know...
Row Blue!
MSU has regresses since AD Beekman unceremoniously canned former coach Matt Weise a few years ago. Beekman doesn't yet know what he doesn't know...
MSU had completely collapsed under Weise. They won B2B Big Ten Titles in the late 2000s (produced an Olympian or 2 in that time) and kind of stuck around the middle of the pack for another 2-3 seasons before dropping all the way to *last place or close to it (Rutgers was there to bail them out of coming in actual last). All of that before he was let go.
I knew some girls who rowed for Weise and let's just say he stuck around as long as he did because of those 2 BTTs and women's rowing is a sport no one cares about. They also had athletes who were treated and abused by Nassar while Weise was the coach so it's a little closer to home for me.
He quietly attended some of the Nassar hearings to provide support to some of his team members and was essentially fired after doing this. Beekman was a complete DB in handling his situation. DB does not stand for Dave Brandon but that could be a synonym in some ways for what I am expressing.
His crews were not as successful toward the end (like many MSU coaches as teams and the years go by) but the crews I saw yesterday were DFL in every event and all rowed like inexperienced novices.
Sarasota, FL (where the NCAA rowing championships will be held in a few weeks) has built an internationally used rowing venue. Well worth a visit for crew enthusiasts.
After watching Oxford Blues as a kid, I wanted to go to school at Oxford and join the rowing team. I never did either. Just thought I'd share that with everyone.
Great job, Ladies!
Me too!!!
But I got my chance... Sophomore year at UofM was on the Men's crew team.
So happy I followed through with it!
PS: I was a senior '92-'93.
GO BLUE!!!
That's awesome! Kudos to you, my man.
Funny thing, I also saw Oxford Blues and wanted to go to school there. Got lucky and was able to do so. I love A2 but with all due respect, there is nothing like Oxford University and the city of dreaming spires. But that’s a good thing, Michigan and Ann Arbor are unique and wonderful in their own ways without trying too hard to be an imitation of anywhere else, unlike some of the Ivies with their overdone appropriation of some of the stylings of British universities that comes across as inauthentic.
Row the boat?
We're a Rowing School!
We are a top Women's Sport School. Go Blue, women!
Congrats ladies!
Warde Manuel = ? ?