2022 brings a new class of competition to the IRA Regatta: a true Division 3 Men’s Rowing National Championship.
Firsts are few and far between at the 127 year old Intercollegiate Rowing Association Regatta: the IRA changed venues just five times in its first hundred years, and was in its 114th year before it made to the West Coast for the first time. The IRA format may have changed the most over the years--gone are the four-miler, the mass-start, the pair and the freshmen races, and in are lightweights since 1987 (Men) and 1997 (Women), and 3V’s since 2014--but this year’s 119th IRA will see a division-specific event for first time, as the IRA welcomes a select group of Division 3 programs to race for its national title.
Seven D3 schools will compete in this inaugural event, three of which--Washington College (MARC), Williams College (NESCAC), and Bates College (NESCAC)--earned automatic bids, based on their conference championships: the Mid-Atlantic Rowing Conference and the New England Small College Athletic Conference.
Four At-Large bids went to Hamilton College, Trinity College, Tufts University, and Worcester Polytechnic Institute.
You can read more about how the IRA D3 Championship came to be and see the original proposal in our earlier coverage from when the new championship was announced, but a lot of the growth was spurred by the NESCAC's 2015 decision to let its member schools enter post-season competitions like the IRA. At that point, the number of D3 IRA members jumped from 5 to 12; there are now 20.
"The idea percolated up from the teams, and we only needed to water and care for the idea as it grew," IRA Commissioner Gary Caldwell said, "The coaches are a very directed and self-motivated group; it is classic D3 at work."
Williams will come into the 2022 IRA as the consensus #1 in the latest IRCA poll, after a season that included winning the New England Rowing Championship and the National Invitational Rowing Championship.
Of note, programs had to declare their intent to compete in the D3 Championship in order to be invited, and there are three D3 schools which remain--for now--committed to racing "up" in the D1 events at the IRA: Hobart College, Marietta College, and MIT. In all, there are 31 D3 schools which sponsor Men's Rowing and the hope is that this new championship opportunity will encourage more of them to join the IRA to compete in future years.
row2k spoke about the state of D3 Rowing and the expectations for this new Championship with Marc Mandel, the Williams Head Coach and current chair of the IRCA’s D3 Committee, and Sam Pratt, Head Coach at Adrian College, who was a D3 rower himself at Wesleyan before starting his coaching career there; he took on the head coaching role at Adrian this past year.
row2k: What does it mean for D3 programs to have this stand-alone event at the IRA?
Mandel: While the challenges of racing (and sometimes winning against) Division 1 teams is something I love about our sport, having this stand-alone championship will only add to the student-athlete experience. More programs will get to compete, athletes will get more weeks rowing together, and having this race in the back of your head throughout the year will only add to the quality of day-to-day practices throughout the year.
Pratt: I think it's hugely impactful: before now, especially for crews in the MARC and those who aren't in a conference championship, D3 rowing on the men's side always felt a little bit disconnected--a whole bunch of separate championships with no real sense of overall speed. It's really big for D3 Men's rowing to have this actual sense of the speed order. Even the fact that there's now a D3 IRA and IRCA ranking, which there hasn't been in past years. All of that means that we start to get a sense of where the crews stack up across the country and [D3 rowing] feels so much bigger than it has in previous years.
row2k: How has the prospect of adding this championship been received by D3 coaches, and has the existence of the IRCA--which is relatively new--and its D3 Committee helped to bring it about?
Mandel: The proposal pre-dates the IRCA, although I will say the IRCA has been impactful in keeping coaches connected and gathering feedback to pass along to the IRA.
Pratt: I think it was pretty widely favored by coaches. I don't know anyone who wasn't in favor of this. From the point of view of D3 coaches on the men's side, they see that the women's side has the NCAA Championships at the end of the year, and so [the women] get a real sense of where things stack up in the whole of D3. This championship could create such a feeling of validity around D3 rowing that hasn't been present to the same degree for the men until now. It makes it feel like a serious championship and a serious division.
row2k: What are the hopes of D3 programs, in general, for this event? And for your program in particular?
Pratt: My athletes are just incredibly excited about it. They have gone from competing at the D3 level--which is obviously still very competitive--and aiming to you know, win conference championships to suddenly thinking, 'oh boy, we can go to a national championships at the end of the year.' That's what every athlete wants to do at the end of their year. They want to go and try and win a National Championship or at least be present on a national stage.
Mandel: Honestly, while the idea of competing for this championship is exciting, I’m most excited for the potential opportunity to simply keep our athletes rowing. Especially in New England, the spring rowing season is very condensed, with crews getting on the water in mid to late March, and the season ending in early May. With the addition of the IRA, not only do teams get to compete for a true championship, but we also get close to 4 more weeks of rowing when the weather is warmer, the water is flatter, and athletes are finished with classes. With these extra weeks of rowing, crews have the opportunity to continue getting faster, which should make for some exciting racing in early June.
Pratt: I think it really helps the individual conferences as well. It's going to bring the standard of D3 rowing up significantly because, within each conference, you have a very good idea of what the speed level is, what you need to do to win a conference. So, I think, within every conference, you know, crews tend to start competing to try and hit that standard, instead of competing to be the fastest they can be. Suddenly [with the IRA Championship]--and especially within the MARC, which has tended to be a slower conference than the NESCAC--you see this real effort from the MARC crews to up our game to try and get to where the NESCAC crews are and get to a position where we can compete at the IRAs, and not just go to the IRAs.
That's made huge differences already in the IRA and the IRCA rankings. Three years ago, the highest MARC crew would have been would probably be about 10th. This year we've had one at #7 and one at #9. The standard rises because everyone wants to be combative on the national stage and that means making another step up beyond just your conference.
On the wider scale, in terms of hopes for the event: everyone wants to see some competitive racing. Obviously, I think there's some some pretty clear favorites this year, but I think everyone wants to be able to show off that D3 racing can be just as exciting as the D1 racing . There's no reason why it needs to be less exciting; maybe it's not as fast as you know, Washington and Yale and Harvard racing, but it can still be exciting, close, action-packed racing.
row2k: Has the promise of an IRA Championship impacted recruiting at all in the D3 ranks?
Mandel: I think it creates a logical progression for Division 3 programs that more closely aligns with other sports and junior rowing, so in that sense there is a more straightforward story to tell when building relationships with prospective student athletes. That said, each year we have had student athletes choose Williams over Division 1 opportunities as they simply feel the overall experience at Williams is a better fit for them.
Pratt: Yes, this is going to have a really big impact on recruiting. You hear it in the kids voices. Every guy I've talked to this year, I've said, 'Well, the goal for this year is to go to the inaugural IRA Championships and compete for a National Championship.' And you can hear it in their voices. They say, 'Oh, that sounds cool.' Especially since, in D3 recruiting, a lot of these kids are the ones who have felt like 'Oh, I'm just not competitive enough to row at a D1 school' or 'I'm just not fast enough to make it into a D1 program.' Maybe even feeling a little demotivated and thinking, 'Because I'm not going to make it in D1, what even is there for me?' Now there is an option, there's something where those same kids can say, 'Okay, I'm not fast enough to make it into a top D1 program, but I could make it into a good D3 program, which is still very competitive and I could still come out of college with a national championship.'
row2k: Do you see a wider impact that this new championship can have for the sport in general?
Mandel: Division 3 men’s rowing is a category within men’s rowing that has been expanding, not contracting, in the past few years. I am hopeful this opportunity will continue to spur growth at more schools.
Pratt: Yes. I think the wider rowing world beyond just the D3 schools, to include the D1 schools as well, wanted there to be a D3 championship, because it does create more opportunities for the sport. It grows the sport and that creates more options. There's more options to be competitive. There's more options for the high school kids who, at the end of the day, are never going to go to Yale or Washington but who can still be very competitive. There's not really a downside for anyone: we're not taking any time away from the regular championships or taking away time from the other boats racing and the existing schedule. It's a win-win for the sport rowing in general, because it just means there's more competitive rowing.
row2k: Where do you, as D3 coaches, see this championship going as it evolves?
Pratt: I think that all the D3 coaches are looking forward to the championship growing in future years. This year is very much seen, I think, to some degree by people outside of D3 as sort of a test run: there are seven crews who are going to go and, even within D3, there's a bunch of crews that didn't actually register for IRAs this year that I think we expected to be involved. I think that's just--on those crews' parts and on the parts of those who are outside of the of the D3 world--a sort of let's wait and see how this championship goes and then see if we commit to it.
So what I'm excited for is next year, because I really believe these championships are going to be a massive success, and I think it's going to really show off the best of D3 rowing. I'm really excited to see next year when all of those crews realize that this is something worth doing and sign up for it. When we have 20 or 25 crews signed up with the IRA, maybe we can have 10 crews go to the IRAs, or even 12, so that it really feels like a championship with heats and finals and all of that.
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