Women's Team Update from Kris Sanford

Hello All and Happy Holidays!

We are winding down our fall season with 8 hour weeks. A few years ago the NCAA enacted a new rule that said you could not practice during the last week of class or the week of finals if you were out of season and so Monday is our last practice until we meet again in Florida. It is a little nerve racking not seeing people for 5 weeks, but I think we have reached a point on the team that most people understand the importance of maintaining the fitness level during this time in order to be able to jump ahead this January.

This fall has been great. Our big challenge was having Alicea out on maternity leave, but with the help of volunteer coaches, we still managed to give the attention to details where it was needed.

We have a great group of freshmen – both walk ons and recruits. The walk – ons are the best athletic group we have had in many years. There are a lot of big tall kids walking around with smiles on their face and it is exciting to watch the development. In a 2k erg test this past week, 3 of the top 5 finishers were freshmen. We had a few of our top varsity kids out with sickness and injury, but I thought it was a very good showing for the youngsters.

The varsity has been a pleasure to coach this fall. Alicea, Pete and I have made a very conscious effort to make some big changes this fall in work load, what kind of work we do, and expectations and the team has handled it very well. They have worked out hard twice a day throughout the week plus our Saturday rows and they have seen improvement both individually and as a team.

The other change we are in the process of making is in equipment. We have recently put in an order for 2 new Vespoli 8’s. Those people who know me and my loyalty to Pocock may be surprised! I still love the Pocock – I just believe that sometimes you need to make a change for the sake of change. We test rowed the Vespoli, Hudson and Resolute. We time trialed each boat and there was less than a 1 second difference between each boat! So do I think one boat is faster than another? No!! But the important thing is that the team thinks the boat is faster and that makes it faster. They are excited to try something different. Vespoli was generous enough to give us a good deal on both boats plus very flexible terms so that we do not have to pay for both this year. Please consider taking part in our fall fund drive as all money will go toward paying off our $60,000 boat bill! With these purchases, I am very pleased to say that we have taken care of an equipment problem in our program and all NCAA race boats will be within a year old.

Another major change this fall came from the NCAA. They voted to add automatic qualifiers for the NCAA championships which is huge for us. Beginning in 2011, our way into the NCAA championships will be to win the Big East Championship. I am afraid and sad to say that I think we will see the Eastern Sprints eventually go away as it is my belief that conferences will change their championships to the Sprints weekend. The sprints is the oldest league in the country and for a sport like rowing that is still new enough to not have a lot of tradition, it is sad to see it go. The thought behind the AQ system (which all other team sports use to get into their championship) is that it will help to grow the sport by seeing greater resources go toward current smaller teams. If Athletic Departments see a direct avenue to get to the NCAA, most will jump at the chance to make their team good enough to get there. So it is an exciting time for rowing!

As you can see, we have a lot of momentum going. The team sees it and is excited about it and it shows in their commitment to the team. Before you know it, spring will be around the corner and we will be on the race course again. We hope to see you on the shores!

Have a great holiday and please stay in touch!

Sincerely,

Kris