Rich Hidy, Sports Editor

At one of the premiere NCAA athletic institutions in the country, not everyone can earn a scholarship to participate in a sport. The University of Notre Dame men’s club crew team is one of the best ways for typical Notre Dame students to continue or even begin intense athletic competition at an extremely high level.

“As a team and a club, we are very much concerned with ‘leaving a legacy’, so to speak, and I think that this is one of the most unique aspects of the club.  It is not often that you get to help build something like this,” junior rower Gabe Griggs said.

The sport accepts undergraduates from anywhere on campus, and although it is not a varsity sport, the crew team trains year round and competes against varsity and club programs across the country. Only the top collegiate rowing teams in the country such as Washington and Wisconsin are funded with scholarships for rowers. The volunteers on teams like Notre Dame are preferably tall, lean, athletic, and eager to work on a daily basis.

“The Notre Dame Men’s Rowing Team is special because it brings together a group of motivated and talented students who are committed to training and competing at the regional and national levels with other club and varsity crews in the country,” sophomore coxswain Christina Gutierrez said. “What is especially remarkable is that almost all of our team members had no experience with rowing prior to coming to ND, and certainly no one on the team was recruited to row here from high school because we are a club team. Given our strenuous, year-long training schedule, I think the intensity and commitment that the rowers bring say a lot about the character and dedication of people we have on the team.”

The crew team prepares for two seasons of competition throughout the year. The fall season, which concluded in late October, featured tournaments in Massachusetts and Iowa, among other places. The Irish finished 6th at the Head of Charles Regatta in Cambridge, Massachusetts against many teams that recruit premier rowers who have been rowing for years. The spring season is the culmination of all the hard work put in throughout the fall and winter’s weight and endurance conditioning, and the teams race to stop the clock as soon as possible in the 2 kilometer sprint events.

“I think our team has the potential to accomplish a lot this year if we continue sticking to our training, under the guidance of our coach, but it will certainly not be easy to beat some of the varsity crews out there that have more team members, bigger budgets, and better facilities than we do,” Gutierrez said. The Irish have to be creative in order to put together the best team that allows them to have a chance at finishing high at tournaments.

“The men’s crew team is obviously different from a varsity sport in that we are a club team.  While some may view this as a disadvantage, I tend to enjoy this aspect of the team. We are not only the athletes, but we also have direct influence over the direction of the program,” Griggs said.

“Furthermore, each member of the team is choosing to be on the team — considering how much work we put in, this is not a light decision — and this enthusiasm for the sport and the program is very present,” he continued.

Head Coach Phil Brunner, a Notre Dame graduate who rowed for four years in South Bend, knows how to facilitate a tight-knit community of club members all working towards the same goal. The members of the crew team need to learn how to manage their time with the rigors of a Notre Dame education alongside the physical and time-consuming commitments of the rowing team.

“The education of mind, body and spirit is a real thing, not some abstract cliche, and a great deal of this education comes outside the classroom, Griggs said. “If you want to achieve excellence from a personal standpoint, you have to grind, grind and grind.

The crew team has 8 practices a week, including two morning lifts. Rowers can also choose to attend two optional practices, bringing their weekly total up to 10.

“I love being a part of the team because it provides me a group of friends outside of the friends in my dorm and the friends I have from classes or other clubs, Gutierrez said. “We practice six days a week and so we spend a lot of time together as a team not only at practice, but also at daily dining hall dinners, as well as on the road trips we take to different regattas throughout the year.”

The spring slate begins on March 23 when the Irish travel to Indianapolis for the Purdue Dual Regatta. The season runs all the way through late May when the academic year is already concluded with the final ACRA National Championships in Georgia.

“We are very confident in the work that we have put in on the water, on the ergs [rowing machines] and in the weight room,” Griggs said. “And, in the vein of the ‘one game at a time’ mentality, I do not have any concrete expectations with regards to how we will place in our races.  I do know that we are putting in more work than we ever have before as a team, from top to bottom.”

Spring team travelling includes stops in Tennessee and Philadelphia for tournaments against different university sponsors from all regions of the United States. The team is split up into three categories: novices, varsity rowers, and coxswains.

“Because of how substantial our work is, we are especially proud to be a part of something that is greater than ourselves.  This is especially apt when you consider that a boat cannot be carried by a single person, it takes all nine people in a boat to win the grand finals. This certainly contributes to a closeness within the team,” Griggs said.

Novices are made up of young rowers entering their first experience with the sport and trying to learn the “ins” and “outs” in order to represent the team in large stage venues,  where 8 varsity rowers represent each boat. The coxswains are central to the entire operating process of the team. Most of the coxswains are females who control the rest of the rowers from the front of the boat.

“As a coxswain, it is my job to lead the boat by calling out the different commands necessary during a race and steering through the course, and so it requires a lot of trust from the rowers,” Gutierrez explained. “I think having so many practices weekly allows us more time to get to know one another so that that sense of trust becomes even stronger. I also lead yoga with the team a few times a week, which I feel fortunate to have the opportunity to do, knowing that I may not have the opportunity if I wasn’t a part of the team.”

Rowing is not just a sport at Notre Dame that anyone can volunteer for; it can truly be considered a way of life for these student-athletes.

“If you want to achieve excellence as a team, you have to learn to deal with people, compromise and check your ego at the door.  These are tangible, real life lessons that I learn everyday,” Griggs said.

These lessons learned through competition in the sport will benefit the rowers after graduation and in the rest of their lives.

Rich Hidy is a First Year of Studies student. He knows about sports of all sorts. For further discussion about any and all things sports, he can be contacted at rhidy@nd.edu.