Interview

RDU Crew, a new rowing program started by HS students

What were you doing in the 11th Grade?

photo by Adam Geringer

Brand new rowing clubs pop at regular intervals these days. Usually it takes them a few years to become something of note and unfortunately (more often than not) many don’t survive long enough to have their story told. About a week ago we received an email from a brand new club program that was forming in Raleigh, North Carolina. What caught our eye about this club wasn’t the fact that they were trying to start a club or how they were trying to do it, but who was trying to start this team.



We began a correspondence with the team president and founding member of RDU crew Adam Geringer. Geringer stands out somewhat among club founders not because of the effort that went into the club’s formation, but because he is in the 11th grade



Named after the airport that owns the lake where the rowers train (Raleigh-Durham International, with the three-letter airport code RDU), the club currently has eight members, and all have in some way helped RDU Crew become an actual thing. We talked to Geringer about the inspiration for and process of starting a club, how things are going, and how they plan to keep it going in the future.



What was the inspiration to start a club?

About two years ago my mother insisted that I try rowing at a local rowing club. I attended a rowing summer camp and had a blast! I rowed for that club the following year as a novice and loved it. I loved rowing so much that my life soon began to revolve around it.



Once I joined the varsity squad the following fall however, things began to change for me. I wasn’t finding the sport as fulfilling as I once did. By time the 2014 Head of the Hooch rolled around, myself and a few of my teammates were not planning on coming back the following season. We all knew because of our summer rowing experience that we truly enjoy the sport, but felt as though we needed something different. A different rowing experience that was closer to home.



While my teammates and I waited for the winds to die down at this year’s Hooch, I posted on Reddit asking about starting a new rowing club. Within an hour, I was talking to the coach at Skyline Crew in Michigan and he was telling me about the steps necessary to start a new club.



Were any resources (coaches, equipment, launches, a place to row, etc.) already available when you started the club or was it simply an idea?

When we started, we had people… that was it. The first step was to identify a more central location to row. I lived the closest to the lake that I used to row on, but it was still a 25 minute drive. Most of my friends were driving about an hour to practice, five days a week. I pulled out a map and looked around. Location was really key for us. I looked at the inside of the Triangle (row2k note: Research Triangle: NC State, Chapel Hill, and Duke) and found Lake Crabtree. It was located in the heart of the Triangle, right next to the airport. Lake Crabtree was within 15 minutes of everyone!



I then posted a row2k classified ad searching for a coach. The ad lead to a dialogue with Coach Hill, who is a former coach for UNC Chapel Hill. He, along with Coach Gabrielle Wall, compose the current coaching staff. We are diligently searching for additional coaches to help the program grow and to reduce the strain on the current coaches who are volunteering their time.



The park manager of Lake Crabtree has been fantastic to work with. Lake Crabtree has never hosted a rowing club before. The manager loved the idea of a rowing club ever since it was presented to him. He has provided us with storage and has worked to ensure that our needs are met at the lake.



Finally, we started soliciting many clubs from across the state to see if we could pick up any boats to jumpstart our program. When I spoke with the coach at High Point, he informed me that Asheville Rowing Club had been great to work with when his program was getting started a few years ago. I got in contact with Asheville and within about a week, we secured funding for the boats and our new fleet was delivered to Raleigh.



The part that stood out about your club is the fact that it was founded by a group of teenagers. Was the age a limiting factor early on? Were you taken seriously? If you weren’t, is this still a challenge?

The age factor has been a serious one. It has truly been a double-edged sword. At first, no one even thought we had the motivation to do it. My own parents initially dismissed our idea. "I knew you could, I just didn't think you would," was by far the most common response when I told people that we had started a team.



On the flip side, the fact that we are young is great because it is an interesting story. I mean, you responded to us because we are young. Our age is also the reason we have gotten so many adults from the community to help us form the corporation, write about us, etc. Never the less, adults not taking the club, or the idea, seriously has been very detrimental at times.



What is your plan for sustaining the club? I would assume most of the founders would move on to college soon. How will the club sustain itself going into the future? Are you planning on forming a masters rowing program or will the club remain a junior team?

Sustainability for the club after we graduate has been an issue since day one. We have been looking into many options and my favorite is the idea that we start a master's program to keep the youth team alive. Masters clubs are much less fluid than youth programs because most of their members join for many years. Additionally there isn't a need for recruiting all the time. I have seen a handful of scullers out on the lake from time to time, so I know there is enough of a rowing presence to sustain at least a master's program. I mostly just want to see rowing on Lake Crabtree be a success and for it to continue well into the future.



Is there anything else you would like to add?

I would like to finish off by stating that a major contributing factor to our success, so-far, has been the internet. It has made this team possible. I posted on r/rowing, and received invaluable guidance through it. The contact information of other clubs and coaches has only been made accessible to me through the internet. While the internet played a major roll in the formation of this team, it is also important to pay homage to the rest of the clubs, teams, and the coaches in the area and throughout the US who have guided us, mentored us, and helped us.