A Newsletter for MIT Crew Alumni

Winter 2009-2010

Director’s MessageBy Tony Kilbridge

As regular readers of STB know, we at MIT crew have been work-ing hard to build the program into a competitive force in Division I rowing, with increasing success. At the same time we realize that we need to work harder at com-municating with our supporters. There are about 140 athletes now on the team, but there are almost four thousand living crew alumni, plus hundreds of crew parents and friends, most of whom are inter-ested in the crews’ fortunes.

This past June, while in Sacra-mento for the IRA National Cham-pionships, I met Bill Hartrick, an MIT rower from the class of 1954, who had come to watch the races. It was an unexpected pleasure to meet Bill; he had a lively interest in the current state of college rowing and in how MIT crew is making its way in a competitive environ-ment very different from when he rowed for Tech. We had rented a large tent on the race course for our supporters to use, which remained mostly empty during the regatta; Bill and a handful of parents were the only occupants. Later, Bill sent an email to the MIT Crew Alumni

Director’s Message 1

Season Reviews:

Heavyweight Men 2

Lightweight Men 3

Openweight Women 4

Lightweight Women 5

Patriot League 6

Rusty Callow Award 6

Florida Training 7

Communication 8

Association decrying the lack of alumni support at the IRA. Bill’s message was reprinted in the most recent MITCAA bulletin:www.mitcrew.org/MITCAA/16_MITCAA_oct_2009.pdf

While I was too busy to give it much thought in California, I real-ized after reading Bill’s email that he had a good point, and that MIT had fewer supporters at the IRA regatta than almost any other team. It also occurred to me that this was partly my fault. We at MIT crew need to do a better job of reaching out to our supporters and provid-ing them with the information they need to sustain their interest in the crew. To that end, we are making some changes in how we commu-nicate, which are outlined on page eight of this issue.

My hope is that these measures will help create greater involvement with the crew among our far-flung supporters. I assume that many alumni would like to come to our races, but don’t know where and when they are happening, and that those who can’t attend might send encouraging emails to the team, if they knew their messages would be welcome. Believe me, your sup-port, either in person or otherwise, is not only welcome, but crucial

to our overall goal of making MIT crew into a thriving institution. In addition to the morale boost your presence on race day would give our athletes, it would help them realize that they are part of a long and proud tradition, and that the MIT crew family is much larger than just the current team.

I hope you enjoy this issue of STB. As always, if you have questions or comments, feel free to email me at coachk@mit.edu, or call 617-253-1826.

Please see p.8 for more details

Squaring the blade

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season reviewHeavyweight MenBy Tony Kilbridge

Having graduated most of its var-sity boat last June, the mission for MIT’s heavyweight crew this fall was to develop new oarsmen, to learn how to race and to establish a team identity. The crew made progress toward these goals this fall, though the learning process included some ups and downs.

The crew’s first race was the New Hampshire Cham-pionships, on the Merrimac River in Hooksett. This head race is run on a beautiful stretch of river in southern New Hampshire the weekend before the Head of the Charles. Unfortunate-ly, the competition in the college 8’s category was light this year. Tech won easily over Middlebury, rowing in a very strong tailwind.

The next Sunday, the Engineers tried to defend their top half finish from 2008 in the Championship 8’s at the Head of the Charles. The weather was terrible; it was windy and snowing hard as MIT launched. Whether because of cold or inex-perience, the crew raced poorly,

finishing 33rd. Fortunately, the Princeton Chase afforded a chance at redemption, as many of the top college crews faced off on Lake Carnegie, the weekend following the Charles. This time, Tech raced more to form (though their rate was a bit low), finishing 20th of 40.

Though the Tech heavies usually finish their fall season at the Foot of the Charles, this year, with only one coxswain and nagging injuries to some key athletes, we opted to skip that race and spend more time developing his young crew. Hope-fully, MIT will return to the Foot

next year.

While this fall’s results were not as strong as those from a year ago, I am optimistic. Every one of these guys buys into what we are doing and is commit-ted to making the crew go fast. If they can stay healthy and keep working hard,

we should be moving well in the spring.

The team has now moved indoors, and will take to the water next in Cocoa Beach, Florida, for winter training.

Sat. April 3 Alumni Cup vs. Columbia and Holy Cross New York, NY

Fri.-Sat. April 9-10 George Washington Invitational Washington, D.C.

Sat. April 17 Compton Cup vs. Harvard and Princeton Home

Sat. May 1 Cochrane Cup vs. Wisconsin and Dartmouth Home

Sun. May 2 Jablonic Cup vs. Wisconsin and BU Home

Sun. May 16 EARC Sprints Worcester, MA

Thu.-Sat. June 3-5 IRA National Championships (by invitation) Cherry Hill, NJ

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season reviewLightweight MenBy Ted Benford

There were a number of highlights for the men’s lightweight crew both on and off the water during the fall of 2009. Over the alumni weekend the program celebrated the announcement of the Richard J. Resch ‘61 Freshman Coach position for the men’s freshmen lightweight crew. The commit-ment Dick has made to men’s lightweight crew is paying significant dividends for the program and we are tremen-dously grateful to him for his support. Dick and Gary Zwart both gave moving testimonials to the significant role light-weight crew played in their lives during their time at MIT. The coaches also continue to be inspired by the participation and giving to the Garrit Zwart fund. Coach Hilton and I want to thank our alumni for their considerable support of our program and we continue to strive to create the most successful and compelling experi-ence we can for the current light-weight oarsmen of MIT.

The team added another spring race to its schedule at the annual EARC head coaches meeting to include the University of Delaware light-weight men’s crew as our last race two weekends before the EARC Sprints. This should be the last addition to the schedule since the creation of the Penn/St. Joes race two years ago. Check the schedule for specific race dates - the team would be excited to see our alumni at any of our 2010 races!

Returning to the team this fall were several varsity oarsmen who trained and raced at summer re-gattas including Rico Suarez who finished second in the lightweight intermediate eight at the Canadian Henley. The varsity chose to select two captains for 2009-10, both of whom are creating a positive en-

vironment for the squad. They are returning senior Nick Murlo, who led the team last year, and Rico Suarez a promising junior.

The program had a productive fall training and racing program. The depth of the varsity squad has remained at last year’s level but the team experienced an increase in the depth of the freshmen squad to three eights through the fall rac-ing season. The overall speed and

athleticism of the varsity and freshman oarsmen has im-proved and our fall results re-flect increases in speed across the program. The most nota-ble successes this fall include: our freshman crew finishing 16th in the club eight at the Head of the Charles, solid per-formances for the varsity and

freshman crews at the Princeton Chase, and a good showing for our freshmen at the Foot of the Charles, where they raced in even lineups. Now that the holidays are upon us, fall rowing is a lingering memory as the crews have moved inside and are preparing for the winter train-ing camp in Cocoa Beach.

Sat. April 3 vs. Pennsylvania and Dartmouth Home

Sat. April 10 Joy Cup vs. Yale and Georgetown Home

Sat. April 17 Biglin Bowl vs. Harvard and Dartmouth Hanover, NH

Sat. April 24 Geiger Cup vs. Columbia and Cornell Ithaca, NY

Sat. May 1 vs. Delaware Home

Sun. May 16 EARC Sprints Worcester, MA

Thu.-Sat. June 3-5 IRA National Championships (by invitation) Cherry Hill, NJ

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season reviewOpenweight WomenBy Holly Metcalf

This past fall was a bit of a struggle for the openweight women, as we dealt with an onslaught of illness and injury as well as the continued growing pains of being a young and developing squad. Even so, our race results were generally encouraging, and we expect to im-prove quite a lot head-ing into the spring.

The extreme youth of the team is evident in the fact that our varsity eight was composed of eight sophomores and one freshman. Our only two upper-class rowers raced in the second eight.

The Head of the Charles was the squad’s first race, and it proved to be more competitive than ever since the implementation of a broader automatic-qualification system. Senior Melodie Kao stroked the club eight to a respect-able 25th place in the field of 41.

The championship eight race on Sunday became very exciting as a powerful cold front moved in with strong winds that turned the heavy rain into dense snow. Taking full advantage of the Pierce Boathouse we were able to do an extended land warm-up and launch right into the starting queue. The crew rose above the dreadful conditions and

rowed hard over the entire course, beating out Boston College and Boston University as well as two international crews to finish 23rd out of 32.

At the Princeton Chase the crew suffered a broken footstretcher only a mile into the course, but still

earned 25th of 55 entries in the var-sity race. Our recruited freshmen came in 10th of 16.

The novice eight did not have a great race at Dartmouth, but rallied the next week to finish 10th of 26 in the Foot of the Charles, ahead of the top entries from UMass, Rutgers, New Hampshire, Rhode

Island, and Boston College. In the same regatta the varsity fours earned a disappoint-ing 26th and 41st of 46 entries.

The team is motivated to achieve greater suc-cess this spring, and has been working very hard so far this winter.

Finally, we just recently learned that we will be able to join the Pa-triot League, the winner of which will be eligible for automatic quali-fication to the NCAA Champion-ship in coming years. Other crews in this conference are: Bucknell, Colgate, Holy Cross, Lehigh, and Navy.

Sat. April 3 vs. Holy Cross, UMass, UNH, and Williams Worcester, MA

Fri.-Sat. April 9-10 George Washington Invitational Washington, D.C.

Sat. April 17 vs. Bucknell Lewisburg, PA

Sun. April 25 Patriot League Championship Cherry Hill, NJ

Sat. May 1 Beanpot vs. BC, BU, Northeastern, and Radcliffe Home

Sun. May 16 EAWRC Sprints Cherry Hill, NJ

Fri.-Sun. May 28-30 NCAA National Championship (by invitation) Sacramento, CA

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season reviewLightweight WomenBy Claire Martin-Doyle

After a long summer break, MIT lightweight women’s crew returned in September to 5:15pm practice, post-sets, and erg testing at Pierce Boathouse. We began our fall season with the “Back To School Challenge,” a multi-discipline event composed of a 6K erg, timed run, push-up and pull-up test, and 1500 meter time trial in singles and pairs. We were also thrilled to welcome six freshman re-cruits to the varsity team this year, who are making great contributions to both our boat speed and our positive team dynamic.

In September we hosted over twenty of our top prospec-tive student-athletes to campus. The prospective student-athletes observed varsity practice, attended classes, and spent the night on campus with a current rower. Our recruiting weekends were a great

opportunity for us to showcase our rowing program and all that MIT has to offer.

On the academic front, this fall four of our student-athletes received awards for being named as Colle-giate Rowing Coaches Association

Scholar-Athletes. Our award win-ners last year were: Kathryn Schu-macher ‘09, Xuefeng Chen ‘10, Hilda Buss ‘11, and Man-Yan Lam ’11. In total, ten student-athletes on the varsity crew achieved a 3.5 or higher GPA last year - a true testa-

ment to our belief that both athletic and academic excellence can be achieved in parallel.

In October, we opened the fall sea-son at the New Hampshire Cham-pionships where the varsity eight raced a strong field in the open-

weight event to finish elev-enth. Their final time put the crew just 7% off the winning time posted by the Radcliffe openweight “A” entry.

The following weekend, we had three crews race over Saturday and Sunday in the Head of the Charles: the club four, the lightweight four and the lightweight eight. In the club four, senior coxswain Mindy Du led her crew of Hannah Sieber, Lizzy Wei, Soraya Shehata and Marie

McGraw to a guaranteed entry in the 2010 event by finishing 23rd out of 54 boats. The lightweight four and eight both raced amid the snowflakes on Sunday where they

Sat. March 27 vs. Princeton Princeton, NJ

Sat. April 3 Murphy Cup Philadelphia, PA

Sat.-Sun. April 10-11 Knecht Cup Cherry Hill, NJ

Sat. April 17 vs. Buffalo Home

Sun. April 18 vs. Stanford Home

Sat. May 1 Muri Cup vs. Radcliffe and Wisconsin Home

Sun. May 16 EAWRC Sprints Cherry Hill, NJ

Thu.-Sat. June 3-5 IRA National Championships (by invitation) Cherry Hill, NJ

Continued on p.8

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ANNOUNCEMENTSOpenweightWomen Join thePatriot LeagueBy Tony Kilbridge

This February MIT accepted an invitation for its women’s open-weight crew to join the Patriot League. MIT joins Division I schools Bucknell, Colgate, Holy Cross, Navy and Lehigh as the rowing members of the Patriot League, and will compete at the Patriot League championships on April 25 in Cherry Hill, New Jer-sey. The Patriot League does not dictate its members’ competitive schedules, other than requiring at-tendance at the conference cham-pionship, so MIT’s openweight women will continue to race at the

Eastern Sprints and against EAWRC schools dur-ing the regular season.

Joining the Patriot League will allow MIT women’s crew to adapt to changes that are happening in the structure of women’s row-ing before those changes leave the program behind. Specifically, our best chance of being invited

to the NCAA championship is to secure auto-matic qualifica-tion by winning a conference champion-ship. Because the EAWRC is

not an NCAA-recognized confer-ence, the future of that organization and its championship regatta is in doubt. Patriot League member-ship will provide MIT crew with a competitive home in an established Division I conference, and the op-portunity to qualify for the NCAA national championship.

Varsity Heavies Win Rusty Callow AwardBy Tony Kilbridge

MIT’s 2009 varsity heavyweight crew has been awarded the Russell S. Callow Memorial Award, which is presented each year by the East-ern Association of Rowing Colleg-es to the crew that, in the previous year, best personified the virtues of “spirit, courage and unity.” The winner of the award is determined by vote of the head coaches of the EARC at their annual meeting. It has been awarded annually since 1963.

Rusty Callow was a legendary row-ing coach, whose career spanned the first half of the 20th century.

Rusty coached for many years at Washington, the University of Pennsylvania, and Navy. Among

his many accomplishments, his 1952 Navy crew won gold at the Olympic games.

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FLORIDA TRAININGReflections of the Lightweight WomenBy Marie McGraw ’12& Xuefeng Chen ’10

January 11, 2010:

So far we have had 12 practices in Cocoa Beach, as Coach Amelia keeps count and reminds us before every practice. Unfortunately, we’ve hit some record low tem-peratures and the winds have been strong. It can be frustrating, but maybe this weather is a blessing in disguise: it simulates rowing on the Charles quite well; it deters us from swimming in the ocean just across the street from the hotel, thus eliminating chances of jellyfish stings; we are covered in cloth-ing, so we have less of a chance of sunburns; the dolphins and mana-tees have migrated from our row-ing site to warmer areas, such as the side of the causeway that takes us to and from practice (some of us pretended to race some dolphins on our run back to the hotel from our launch site); and we are forced to row harder to try to get warm and shake off the chills that accompany the wet launches.

Most of us can be seen trying to stay warm in between practices: throwing wet spandex into the dryers, cranking up the heat in our rooms, or sticking our feet in the hot tub. As cold as it is here, at least we can row—the Charles River is frozen, and it’s well below freezing in Boston. Our rowing has been getting better and our hands tougher every day. The varsity rowers have been refining their technical skills, sometimes in small boats; and the novice rowers have been learning the racing start and practicing them at face-melting speed. The water has been rough but our rowing has been mostly smooth.

In addition to rowing hard, the team took a trip to the local mall on our day off to see some movies (Avatar and Sherlock Holmes re-ceived generally positive reviews, while Nine was not as popular), and then came back to work on the ever-celebrated annual skit night. I would say that we the lightweight women came up with the best skit we have ever done. We should all just become comedy writers. Unfortunately, the cold weather has limited our off-duty options

to mainly huddling in our rooms and watching TV (America’s Next Top Model, What Not to Wear, Food Network, and the Weather Channel are popular choices, while we decided that Jersey Shore was not for us and was best left for the lightweight men). When we have been bold or hungry enough to brave the elements, we tend to head to the grocery store or other local businesses, such as Ron Jon’s Surf Shop, the Thai restaurant, and our favorite ice cream parlor, Tutti Frutti. We have not yet made it over to the newly renovated Dino-saur Store and Museum, but we are hoping to get over there tomorrow. It’s been too cold for the beach, although a few determined souls went for a walk on the beach on our day off.

Tomorrow is our last day of prac-tice, and although we will not miss wading in the cold water early in the morning, it is still warmer here than almost anywhere else. All of us will be sad to leave the training trip behind, but we will bring our improved rowing skills, our photos, and piles of stinky spandex back with us.

Varsity Heavyweight MenFreshmen Heavyweight Men

Varsity Lightweight MenFreshmen Lightweight Men

Varsity Openweight WomenNovice Openweight Women

Varsity Lightweight WomenNovice Lightweight Women

Tony KilbridgeEvan Thews-Wassell

Ted BenfordAndrew Hilton

Holly MetcalfAaron Benson

Claire Martin-DoyleAmelia Booth

Edited by Aaron BensonPhotos by DSPics, Ted Benford, Aaron Benson, & Tony Kilbridge 8

finished 11th and 12th in very competitive fields. For the first year in our tenure the varsity eight defeated perennial lightweight powerhouse, Riverside Boat Club.

Later in the fall, the novice had their first race in Dartmouth at the Green Monster where the crew rowed a strong race in their first-ever rowing contest. Despite the frigid temperatures, the crew rowed hard and was in great spirits after the race.

To conclude the season, the team turned in an impressive performance at the Foot of the Charles Regatta. The varsity “A” four of coxswain Man-Yan Lam, Meredith Lis, Hilda Buss, Clare Flanagan and Melody Kuna came in second among the lightweight varsity four competitors, finishing in a time of 15:17.9 and placing thirty-second overall in the mixed openweight and lightweight field.

The second varsity eight finished second among the lightweight crews, conceding the top spot to Radcliffe by just one second over the 2.3-mile course. Senior coxswain Minna Du led her crew through difficult steering conditions as the crew ahead of Tech caught a crab that ejected a rower from the boat. Despite the adverse situation, Du maintained her cool and kept her crew on track to turn in a solid performance. In the novice eight, the crew went through the line eagerly and from there raced aggressively to beat some of their openweight counterparts from across the region.

The week after the Foot, we moved indoors and began our winter training season. We depart for our winter training trip to Cocoa Beach, FL on December 29th, a trip where we look forward to increasing our training load and focusing solely on rowing. From there, we look towards our first competition on Saturday, March 27th against Princeton.

Here is an outline of how we intend to improve our communica-tion relating to MIT Crew:

• Starting with this issue, we will publish Squaring the Blade twice a year - once in the winter, recapping the fall season, and once in the summer, reviewing the spring races. The most re-cent issue can be found here:www.mitcrew.org/STB/STBfall2009.pdf

• We have created a new web site, on which we will post quick updates, blogs, news clips, photos and video, all relating to the crew. The link to this site is: mitrowing.tumblr.com

• This new site will complement, not replace, our official site for race recaps, schedules, and rosters, which can be found here:www.mitathletics.com

• The parents of our current athletes have established a Face-book page, where they can communicate with one another, and post photos, etc. The link to that site is here:www.facebook.com/pages/PARENTS-OF-MIT-CREW/188097991012?ref=search&sid=789839310.735405564..1

• The MITCAA continues to maintain an excellent site for crew alumni, with information about the current team and about crew alumni events. That site can be found here:www.mitcrew.org/

• I will send periodic email updates to our alumni and parent lists. These will be short, with links to any longer items of inter-est.

Lightweight WomenContinued from p.5

Plan for Improved CommunicationBy Tony Kilbridge