All for One
Men’s crew pulls for a national championship this week
On Thursday, May 31, the Boston University men’s crew team travels to Camden, N.J., where the Terriers will race in the 99th National Intercollegiate Rowing Association Championships, held on Cooper River. Head coach Rodney Pratt is looking for victory in a sport that he says becomes more competitive every year.
“Each year,” says Pratt, now in his 17th year at BU, “we have to bring in better people just to stay in the same place. When I first came here, we used to just recruit students who were here on campus, but if we did that now, we would never get the high-caliber athletes we need to compete.”
To stay in the game, Pratt now literally searches the world for talent, scouting the junior world championships for likely recruits. The tactic seems to be working. In recent years, his team has routinely placed among the top 15 collegiate teams nationally, finishing in sixth place in 2004 and in fourth place in 2005.
At the 2007 EARC (Eastern Association of Rowing Colleges) Eastern Sprints, held on Worcester’s Lake Quinsigamond on May 13, all four seeded Boston University men’s crew boats finished at or above their seeding, and the varsity eight team finished second in the Petite Final to place eighth overall.
To see what it takes to row on a top collegiate team, watch the slide show above.