When the varsity eight boat of the Virginia men's club rowing team picked up its oars and prepared to race George Washington at the Rivanna Reservoir Saturday, the Cavaliers were not expected to win. The Colonials, after all, field a varsity squad, whereas Virginia men's rowing is a club. The Colonials get varsity funding and give varsity scholarships to varsity athletes. They get varsity gear and eat varsity food.
Yet, as the Cavaliers do time and again, they overcame their varsity counterparts. In a 2,000-meter sprint between the two teams' varsity eight boats, Virginia edged George Washington with a time of 5:58.9 to the Colonials 5:58.0.
"It was rough, because we had the outside of the turn," Virginia men's novice coach Bryce Fletcher said. "They started up, and then the other boat got ahead [at the turn], and then the varsity guys basically just upped the rating ... they just dug down and ripped it all the way to the finish line."
On closer look, however, Virginia's win against George Washington is, surprisingly, not an upset in the true sense of the word. The Cavaliers are currently ranked in the top 20 according to several polls, Fletcher said, and the team routinely outclasses varsity teams from other schools. In its only bout this season with Georgetown's varsity squad March 22, the Cavaliers took down the Hoyas by 1.8 seconds. Nevertheless, the Cavaliers' club status keeps them off the radar of most schools that boast a varsity program, relegating them to underdog status whenever they hit the water.
The team loves it.
"We do a lot with what we have, but the fact of the matter is, we go into every single race as the underdog," Fletcher said. "The neat part is that we win some of them. Particularly with the varsity boats, we win a lot."
Though the athletes take great pride in succeeding as a club program, the club status of Virginia men's rowing is not voluntary. Fletcher said the women's team is a varsity program whereas the men's team is clubbed because of Title IX; the athletic department turned the women's team into a varsity squad to balance men's and women's athletics. As such, Virginia must overcome a multitude of obstacles to remain competitive with other varsity programs.
"People are kind of hard-wired to believe that if you work hard and you want something, you'll get it," Fletcher said. "The truth of the matter is, sometimes you want it more, you work harder, you do this that and the other, and it's still not enough ... it's incredibly frustrating [to not be a varsity team]."
The lack of funding is by far the greatest obstacle that challenges Virginia's efforts to remain competitive with the rowing elite. Because Virginia's club team does not get the financial backing that varsity teams do, the team must seek funding from other sources. Senior Sebastian Von Marschall said the team participates in numerous fundraisers, including one called "Rental Rowers," in which athletes are hired by University faculty to do manual labor.
In addition, Virginia coach Will Oliver and assistant coach Bryce Fletcher, former teammates on the varsity eight and graduates from the classes of 2003 and 2006, respectively, are not afforded the luxury of luring top rowers to Virginia; they cannot offer money or recruit rowers to fill specific slots on the roster, Fletcher said.
Though Virginia is able to recruit in a limited capacity, Oliver and Fletcher do not see most of the athletes until they come out for the team. In addition to the varsity eight boat, Virginia also fields a junior varsity boat and the rest of the team members fill several novice boats. Team members are initially put in these novice boats and must work their way into the junior varsity and varsity lineups.
Virginia's limited recruiting focuses on young men who are already part of the University community, Fletcher said. Varsity teams "have full recruiting power; they have the ability to pull in some of the best rowers in the country," he added, noting "we're pulling people from campus."
Though the funding and recruiting capacity of the team are not typical of a varsity sport, the rowers show the commitment and work ethic of varsity athletes and then some. The team members get up at the crack of dawn for often grueling workouts six days a week, three hours a day, Fletcher said, which include weight training and running stairs. Among the tougher exercises, Fletcher noted, are the weekly winter workouts, when all team members are timed running up and down every stair of University Hall. In addition, he said, the athletes are required to work out on their own time.
"A 2,000-meter race is basically the equivalent of doing a hang clean with 95 pounds of weight 220 times as fast as you can," Fletcher said. "It requires the strength of wrestling, it requires the endurance of track and running, it requires the grace and the balance of gymnastics and the flexibility as well ... This sport requires athletes in the truest sense of the word."
With the competitors exhausting themselves physically, emotionally and competitively, what makes the sport worth it? It may be cliché, but Fletcher said the motivation is without a doubt the sense that the team members are all in it together.
The team is "a fairly homogenous group," Von Marschall said. "It takes a certain kind of person to be waking up at 5:30 ... I think the reason we get along so well is because we have so much in common."
Teams in every sport speak of the importance of camaraderie, team chemistry and unity, making this sentiment seem rather jaded. As Fletcher emphasized, however, a sense of togetherness is perhaps more important in rowing than any other sport.
"It's a great motivation for everybody to lead by example," Von Marschall said. "There's a lot of pressure on everybody to make sure that everyone else gets better ... everybody has to be on the same page for the team to be successful"
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