How do recap a weekend with 17 major college championships, 5 State or Youth Region championships, and more NEIRA races than you can shake a stick at?
Well, you start with the most important thing and, no, the most that was not the 10 new records at Men's Sprints or even the 12 D1 and D3 AQs on the Women's side.
Nope, it was...
Mother's Day, Of Course
Many Crew Mom's do have to spend part or all of Mother's Day weekend at the race course each year, but we saw plenty of rowers remembering to make the day special for mom, too.
At Vails, that meant a parade of both medalists and moms on the stage:
The folks running the Vails medal stand were great about inviting moms--and a few dads, too--up to "re-do" the medal ceremony after the athletes had already gotten their hardware, and a ton of teams took them up on it. You can see the sequences starting at these links for the guys from LaSalle, Fairfield, Fordham, Temple, William and Mary, and Jacksonville--and the women from Stockton and Temple joined in, too.
Out at Pac-12's, a lot of the women had ‘mom’ or their mom’s name written on their arms, shoulders, etc., and we saw plenty of bouquets getting carried around the regattas, especially on Sunday.
Medal Dock Life
The Medal Dock Selfie was alive and well at the NIRC:
And giving out the awards in Worcester next to a stack of kayaks was odd, but colorful:
But also a bit distracting, we guess:, as you can see in the sequence starting here, where the Princeton Lightweights were given the HWT's Rowe Cup instead of the Jope Cup, but proceeded to celebrate with it all the same in all the photos.
And one thing that we get a lot of once folks start hopping out of boats to grab hardware? Cool socks--and here are a few favorites from the last two weeks, plus some colorful track bite guards:
Your Weekly Dose of Chaos
From the 'Things Can Get Tangled' Department:
And Start Line Shenanigans
For the record, all the starboards in this crew were in on the horn thing, but the two man? Not so much.
NCAA Seeding Chaos Shenanigans
If you follow the NCAA seedings by boat class, were watching closely yesterday afternoon, and were mightily confused, don’t worry, you were not alone – our inboxes and texts blew up with questions about what was going on.
As best we could follow along, the NCAA published incorrect seedings and incorrect lane assignments, then fixed the lane assignments online, then fixed the seedings online; so there was a triple lag in trying to figure out what was going on (everything off, then just lanes off against seedings, then everything correct). It would have been wild to be in the room to understand how this even happens.
Original seedings screen capture.
Corrected seedings screen capture.
The seedings are even more critical this year given the elimination of reps; the heats advance directly to the A/B and C/D semis.
Say Hello to The Atlantic Sprints
The newest collegiate championship, the Atlantic Association of Rowing Colleges' Atlantic Sprints, held its inaugural run down the course on Sunday at the Occoquan. This new league, which we ran an article about in March, was created to give some east coast men's varsity programs outside the EARC an association of their own, and it brought together schools that had separately raced the NIRC and Dad Vails earlier in the weekend.
The Atlantic Sprints got a beauty of a day, but did have one of the more unusual first year hiccups we've ever heard of, when one team's trailer was towed off in the middle of the night from a lot near the team's hotel. The trailer was found, the schedule adjusted, and the first ever AARC Sprints went off with nary another hitch.
Congrats to the inaugural V8 medalists: Colgate with the gold, St. Joe's with the silver, and newly reinstated FIT with the bronze.
wild2k Updates
We think the eagle pics are this week's winners, and we had ones from each coast:
Shoutout to the Williams College men's rowing team for 'reading the room' in Worcester; when the team members spotted the eagle circling above Quinsigamond, they shouted "row2k! row2k! You have to get the eagle for the Gallery!" Well played, Ephs.
But we are keeping an eye on this snake, which buzzed the medal dock at the Occoquan and the bow of this boat, as well as this flock of future lane-jamming geese at the Cooper--hopefully they don't get too much bigger before the NCAA crews hit the water in a few weeks.
Bring Your Kid to Work Day
Lots of coaches bringing the family along this weekend:
To include Gordon College coach Maddie Hopkins, who brought along her sister, Lucia, in the Collegiate Single, where she won a silver medal for Gordon.
On the Boat Name Front
It is definitely almost time to do another photo gallery of slick boat names, but we gotta say, this one looks like it should be on a boat from Jersey, not Cambridge:
Best Recovery of the Week
Princeton LMV8 five seat Ethan Abraham noticed a pair of sunglasses about three feet deep and in one motion did a deep dive through the splash to the bottom and came up with the glasses in one motion:
Not Fond of the Bow Seat
Apparently:
In the Legends Department
Clayton Chapman, longtime EARC Commissioner and stroke of the legendary 1957 Cornell Varsity, and Tony Johnson, Olympian and Georgetown Coach Emeritus--just taking in a fine Sunday of racing at Regatta Point.
Meanwhile Steve Gladstone, who had a fine day with his crew at Sprints, turned 82 yesterday:
And yesterday was also the birthday of coach Liz O'Leary, the 1976 Olympian who has lead Radcliffe's crews for 37 years and announced her retirement this week after the Ivy League Championships.
Pretty Convenient Car Trouble
Could this be a parent faking a repair on the I-290 overpass so they could take a photo of their kid? Maybe not, but they were gone a race later; no tow truck, no cherry tops - just on their way.
Some 'Superbad' Grafitti
The QRA folks had to go paint over a bunch of inappropriate graffiti on the I-290 bridge; the comment we heard was 'someone was watching too much Superbad.'
Lastly, A Hail and Farewell
We are losing a row2k Recap legend, to graduation. All the best to you, Kevin Moy. We hardly knew thee, but we sure loved that 'stache on race day.
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