The row less taken
UW crew asserts its force — quietly
Here’s a bit of trivium that is all too trivial: Name the sport that most recently won a national championship at UW–Madison. In fact, it’s the same sport that has earned more national championships than hockey, basketball and football combined.
Stumped?
How about the sport that has produced 20 Olympians since 1968? The sport that in 1997 won the first-ever national trophy for combined excellence by men’s and women’s teams — and did it by earning almost twice as many points as the second-place competitor?
 The women’s crew team takes advantage of a rare break in Wisconsin’s stormy spring weather to prepare for the team’s biggest home-water race of the year, the Midwest Regatta, which paddles onto Lake Wingra April 25. |
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Midwest Rowing Regatta April 25, Lake Wingra Take in the men’s and women’s crew teams in action this Saturday at the Midwest Rowing Regatta. Finals will run from about 1-6 p.m. |
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See also: A rowing legend moves on If Mary Lockyer Browning feels a chill while coaching the women’s crew team this year, she can attribute it to the enormous shadow she’s standing in.
Browning, in her fourth year at Wisconsin and her first as varsity coach, has the unenviable task of succeeding an institution: Sue Ela, head coach for the past 20 years and a former national coach of the year. |
If you failed to answer “crew,” you’re not alone. Rowing teams have been bringing home trophies for nearly 100 years without jostling the slumbering attentions of Madison sports fans. And that’s a shame, because UW rowing is one of the most remarkable athletic dynasties around.
“It’s a simple sport. There’s no scoring or judges. There’s one finish line,” says Chris Clark, coach of the UW men’s team. “People have no idea how fun it can be to watch.”
You’ll have that chance next weekend, as the men and women compete in the Midwest Rowing Regatta on Lake Wingra. Fifty teams, a cross- section of men’s and women’s boats from around the Midwest, will compete in the event, with races slated all day on April 25. Finals will run from about 1-6 p.m.
It’s a meet that Wisconsin has dominated, winning 11 of 15 races last year and commanding rowing’s prestige title — the varsity eight boat race — since the 1970s. But the gap is narrowing.
The women’s varsity eight boat, which has won the Midwest every year since 1974, will have to knock off Michigan, which beat Wisconsin and finished second in the first major race of the season. “Michigan is just plain fast. It will be a heck of a race,” says Mary Lockyer Browning, who has taken over as coach of the women’s team from Sue Ela, who retired this year after coaching since 1979.
The men, Clark says, will face challenges from improving clubs such as Ohio State, Purdue and Michigan. “We used to win these races by 35-40 seconds,” he says. “Now we’re fighting off the barbarians.”
The Midwest regatta is one of the few opportunities to see UW’s crew juggernaut on Madison waters. In May, both men and women head to season-ending races on the East and West coasts, capped by rowing’s national championship regatta at the end of the month.
At that regatta, both men’s and women’s teams will aim for their second straight points title, awarded to the team with the best overall performance in all the meet’s races, and the two teams will try to defend last year’s combined-points trophy.
Those accomplishments are chapters in an already unlikely success story. Wisconsin is far from the ivy-entwined center of the rowing world, where East Coast teams load their boats with foreign Olympians. And the weather in Madison for the year-round training rowing requires … well, it’s not exactly rower-friendly.
Rowers practice amid whipping winds and icy waters, and when winter turns their rowing lanes into speedskating tracks, they hit the rowing machines. “They go borderline insane,” says Clark. “It’s cold, it’s dark, it’s brutal. There’s no respite.”
But Clark and Browning say Wisconsin rowers, many of whom come to the athletic department never having picked up an oar, seem to relish the discomfort.
“People in Wisconsin know what it’s like to work hard. It’s a toughness,” Browning says.
“They handle harsh conditions better than others because they’re used to living in them,” Clark adds. “They just don’t seem to have the limits that regular college athletes do.”
Best viewing for the Midwest races is from Vilas Park beach, which affords a direct view of the finish line. Stop by Wingra Park to see teams prepare and launch boats.