Rowers during the Cow Island Classic Regatta. photo/Kevin Morris
Pulling Together
The banks of the mighty Androscoggin weren’t exactly teeming with fans on a September Saturday as the Maine Coast Rowing Association hosted the Cow Island Classic Regatta. Friends and family turned out to support the rowers, and a few locals wandered down to enjoy the spectacle on a warm and sunny fall day. But compared to any high school football game in Maine, the crowd was sparse.
Maybe that’s not surprising. Just the word regatta conjures a whole prep-school, elitist image, doesn’t it?
Dave Spraker, who’s been coaching the MCRA for three years, wants to smash that image. He says the club is working hard to change rowing’s reputation as an elitist sport. They face some daunting obstacles, but they’re used to pulling against the current.
The first myth MCRA is trying to debunk is that the sport is only for people in peak athletic condition. Spraker, who has 40 years of coaching experience at the high school, college and club levels, told me he’s worked with all types of rowers. He recalled some beginners struggling with their weight who were looking for a physical activity to improve their health, and he recalled their expressions of pure joy as they mastered the basics — losing pounds while gaining confidence.
The myth that rowing is prohibitively expense is a little tougher to dispel, but the club is working on that, too. To draw in youth rowers, MCRA underwrites the cost of membership and will work with a family to determine how much, if anything, they can contribute. No young rower is turned away. The price of membership is comparable to that of other club sports, but the actual cost, including gear, is roughly twice what a family might pay for other activities. To offset the expense, the club hosts frequent fundraisers and has launched a corporate sponsorship program. Lee Auto Malls was the first company aboard.
Maine Coast Rowing seems to be winning their struggle against the tag of elitism. In the three years Spraker’s been directing the effort, the association has doubled its membership and its revenue. Youth members come from an area that stretches from Yarmouth to Lewiston to Augusta to Waldoboro, so word of the sport is spreading in many schools. As in other club sports, the athletes enjoy making friends from other schools in other towns. And some have begun to establish rowing interest clubs at their schools. A middle-school program is next on Spraker’s development list.
The older rowers are as enthusiastic as the juniors. MCRA board member Micah Malloy began rowing three years ago as an empty nester. “All three kids move out and I said to myself, You gotta do something,” he said. Malloy enrolled in the Learn to Row program for adults, a three-part course that includes sculling (both oars) and sweeping (single-side rowing in a four- or eight-person boat). He’s now part of the masters competitive team. Although competition is not required of masters-level rowers, the club encourages it.
Jaki Ellis, another MCRA board member, started rowing in a single-person ocean scull 45 years ago, but fulfilled a retirement goal 10 years ago by beginning to row crew. Echoing Spraker’s observation that every practice is an adventure since the rowers are out on Merrymeeting Bay, she described the bald eagles sitting on the bridge at 6 a.m., watching the rowers pass beneath.
If you’ve tried to share a pool lane or gym space with high school kids, you probably felt irritated or crowded at some point. Granted, the Androscoggin is wide, but the absence of friction between masters rowers and their younger teammates was still impressive to behold.
“The youth team is fabulous,” Ellis told me before her race. “The youth energy is just so great. It invigorates us older folks.”
The crowd won’t be so sparse when the MCRA travels to Cambridge this month, where 11,000 rowers in 3,700 boats will compete in the Head of the Charles, the world’s largest three-day regatta. Maybe the eagles will make the trip down, too.
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