It’s an unusually wet and dreary Tuesday morning. Half
past five. While most of the UCLA campus is still fast asleep, the
UCLA men’s rowing team pulls itself out of bed to go practice
on the waters at Marina Del Rey. The rowers gather at the top of
Bruin Walk before the sun has even risen, a schedule they’ve
gotten used to by now, only to realize that practice has been
canceled due to rain. Nobody was upset. It didn’t bother them
that they woke up so early in the morning, only to crawl back into
bed minutes later. The coaches and players could have called the
practice off, but they held out hope that maybe the rain would let
up and they could get out onto the water. In fact, the only thing
the guys might have been angry about was not getting to practice.
But as far as the weather went, they just shrugged it off.
“If you love something, you’re going to put in the
time, the hours,” coach Erinn McMahan said. “When
people ask about the early hours and the commitments, they
don’t realize that it’s nothing.”
“We’re happy to put in the time.” This seems to
completely encompass the spirit of the UCLA men’s rowing
team, a program with a history of being knocked down only to pull
itself up by its boot straps. No matter how undervalued or
underappreciated the rowing team is, the players and coaches never
seem to let it get to them.
A surprising tradition Few might realize it,
but the UCLA rowing team has its roots embedded in a pretty fertile
tradition in Westwood. The program was founded in 1933. The birth
of the rowing team was inspired by the 1932 Olympic Games, held in
Los Angeles, which featured Olympic rowing teams from around the
globe. UCLA set a precedent for the other southern universities by
establishing crew. The Bruins chose the Long Beach Marine Stadium,
used during the 1932 Olympic games, as their home course. Over the
next 60 years, the UCLA men’s rowing team experienced its
share of poignant moments and won a few conference titles. But in
1990, both the men’s and women’s rowing teams were
dropped from the athletic department. In the last 15 years, it has
been a steady crawl back for the members of the program, as
they’ve tried to re-establish UCLA in the college rowing
world. “When I came here, I wanted to help put UCLA rowing
back on the map because I always thought it was sad to have a
program that was once great and then struggling to even
exist,” said McMahan, who rowed at UC Santa Barbara from
1992-1995 and became the UCLA coach in 1997. In 1995, the
women’s rowing team was brought back into the UCLA athletic
department in compliance with Title IX. McMahan harbors no hard
feelings; rather, the men’s and women’s team hold a
mutually respectful relationship. The women’s team even lets
the men’s team use its UCLA-funded equipment when not in use.
“We really are thankful to have a women’s rowing team
that is so competitive because it really pushes us to work
harder,” McMahan said. “There’s no bad blood
between us.” As it stands now, the UCLA men’s rowing
team is a club sport that works feverishly to bring in new recruits
each fall. While the club is not as prominent as it was in the
past, it is gaining momentum. The team hopes to have a full team
““ counting varsity, junior varsity and novice ““ of over
100 rowers. The popularity of the team seems to be fueled by its
recent success, as the team was able to garner votes for the top 25
national rankings last year and beat Cal ““ a perennial rowing
powerhouse.
Underdogs Still, the rowing team seems to be
overlooked, surrounded by an athletic department that has won more
NCAA titles than any other school in the nation. “We
don’t really worry about any of the attention,” said
Dave Hampton, a fourth-year physiological science student who has
been on the team for his entire college career. “Actually, we
get motivated by the underdog role. We’re this club team that
plays other Pac-10 schools with fully funded programs and we hold
our own.” “We like to fly in under the radar; it suits
us.” The growth of the team hasn’t always been easy, as
the recruitment process usually involves getting students who have
almost no background in rowing and getting them to compete against
nationally ranked and well-funded programs. With a new batch of
recruits each year who have never rowed in their life, the coaching
staff and veteran rowers must teach the basics of the sport as they
compete on a national level. “The new people come on the team
and we have to stress technique more than anything,” said
Justin Prince, a fourth-year political science student,
“because strength and speed aren’t nearly as important
as team chemistry and skill.” As a team struggling to finance
itself and needing all the experience it can get, UCLA men’s
rowing decides to gain a competitive edge by training twice a day.
They row in the early morning hours and lift weights in the
afternoon three times a week. But nobody is complaining.
“When we get out onto the water, moving fast and working in
unison, I know it’s worth it,” Prince said.