row2k Features
The Birth of a Boat Club
March 6, 2014
Amanda Milad, row2k

Pensacola Rowing Club on the bayou

Lieutenant Commander Brendan O'Brien teaches two types of people: Navy pilots and rowers.

A pilot instructor and the Director of Crew Resource Management (CRM) for the US Navy (sorry coaches, CRM isn't a program for organizing boats and oars), O'Brien began his rowing career at West Side Rowing Club in Buffalo, New York, but did not continue when he went off to Syracuse University. "I saw the Syracuse crew guys, 6'4' 220, and here I am 5'10"; I wasn’t small enough to cox or big enough to row."

O'Brien got back in the boat when his wife got him a membership to Norfolk Rowing Club in 2001, but the demands of work and two deployments got in the way of him really picking up the sport again. The O'Briens moved a couple more times before settling down in Pensacola, and the water began to call out as Brendan drove past glass-like bayous and thought of his days as a rower. There was only one thing getting in the way of him getting back in the boat: there was no rowing in Pensacola.

"There was not 'no rowing per-se,'" he said. "There was zilch. Maybe somebody going out in a bayou in a single, but even that was rare."

He couldn't stop thinking about rowing and wishing there was a club he could join. He had some experience planning events - working for events from the Atlanta Olympics to Presidential Inaugurations - and thought he could put his organizational skills to work starting a club.

"In the fall of 2012 I got sick of whining. My oldest boy was a freshman at Catholic High school in Pensacola, and I watched him go from 5'8' to 6'1 and grow into this long-lean swimmer/rower body, and thought it was a good time to put something together."

O'Brien's goal was scholastic rowing, and he thought it was a good place to start - until he started talking to the school. "Turns out if it isn't football or baseball, it doesn't happen in Pensacola."

Progress Made

While his brain was churning with ideas with no place to put them, he joined the Florida Scholastic Rowing Association and started to watch the message boards to find out who's who on the Florida rowing scene. O'Brien got in touch with a few folks who were running clubs in other parts of the state and began to pick their brains. They were responsive and helpful, sharing their knowledge of clubs with him, but once he started asking about borrowing equipment, the emails stopped.

Just when he thought he was back at square one, O'Brien did a Google search of 'Pensacola Rowing,' a search term he looked up a few times a year to make sure there was nothing under his nose. There never had been helpful results before – but this time was different. It was January 2013, and O'Brien found a link to the Southern Racing Association. He got in touch with two guys, Bob Ozburn and Philippe Gonzalez, both rowers living in Pensacola who had been talking about starting a club.

The three men got together to talk about the real possibility of starting a club. Gonzalez had started a club in France years ago, and could lend his experience to the Pensacola community. The three men worked with the city to find a suitable space for the club, and the City of Pensacola donated space on the Bayou Texar.

Soon word spread about the guys starting a rowing club, and as it did, a latent rowing community emerged.

"The unique part of being a Navy town is that we get half the Academy rowing team down here, so we had five or six athletes from the women's team, a couple guys from Coast Guard Academy, and some folks who had rowed in college," O'Brien recalls.

In Business

The rowers got together and planned Pensacola's very first Learn To Row day, to be held in July 2013. Jen Figueroa at Gainesville Area Rowing stepped up and helped coordinate boats from her club and neighboring clubs to loan to the guys at Pensacola, loaded them up on a trailer and drove them out for Pensacola's first Learn To Row Day.

That very first Learn to Row Day attracted over 70 people, from young teens to middle-aged aspiring rowers. Despite wind, rain and high tides, the event went on, and Pensacola Rowing Club was officially in business.

The club has continued regular Learn to Row events, but they also added rowing classes for people who really want to dive into the sport on a more regular basis. The beginner's class leads to the intermediate class, and now folks who began rowing just a few months ago are going out for leisurely Saturday rows with their more experienced teammates.

Goals

Pensacola Rowing Club is still incredibly young, but O'Brien can see its future potential more clearly now that the club has been operating for a few months. What were once lofty goals are becoming realistic, and more long-term goals are in place for the growth of the club.

"We're putting a structure in place to work on expanding our boathouse, and we are building a boathouse with the help of the city," he said. "We have another committee looking at university rowing. The University of West Florida has just been awarded D1 football team, so as such they will need a countering women's program.

As for the scholastic program that O'Brien hopes to start? That will have to wait a while, but as the program grows, he is enthusiastic that the youth of Pensacola will soon be rowing.



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