Early mornings at Long Beach Marine Stadium find coach Scott Strong encouraging the men and women of Beach Crew as their oars dig into the still water.
They’re up at the crack of dawn out of a love for competitive rowing—also called crew. It has long been a popular collegiate sport in which CSULB has an honorable history, including three former Olympic athletes—Joan Lind, John Van Blom and Tom McKibbon.
Nowadays, CSULB crew is a club sport for men and women, but one that is as meaningful as ever to the 20 to 24 students who generally show up on a given morning. “These athletes are up at 5:30 a.m. and are willing to train hard for two hours. They train their tails off,” said Strong, who volunteers as coach. Although members of CSULB’s men’s team didn’t come face-to-face with an oar until their freshman year, last season, all the sacrifice paid off.
In May, CSULB’s four-person men’s team, above, from left, Frits Kerncamp, Will Harris, Jason Geggie and Brian Buchanan, along with coxswain Jackie Taheny, front, won the Western International Rowing Association Championships that featured the West Coast’s best squads. That victory made them state champions and the national western division titleholder.
Their success earned CSULB a spot in last June’s 103rd Intercollegiate Rowing Association Championships in Cherry Hill, N.J., and the opportunity to go against the sport’s best—Harvard, Yale, USC—23 other schools in all. Many of those squads had personnel with a decade or more of experience.
But CSULB was equal to the task, placing an impressive eighth in the nation, the best finish ever by a CSU school and beating Harvard and USC.
“The big name schools, especially those from the East Coast, grew up around rowing and it was really amazing for a bunch of guys like us who literally took up the sport in college to compete with those schools,” said oarsman Buchanan. “It was really us against the world, especially when you are competing against teams like UCLA, USC, Harvard and Yale. It was a remarkable experience.
“I definitely think our work ethic was really good and that made a big difference,” he continued. “This is the most demanding sport I have ever competed in and it takes a lot of dedication. We had a good group of dedicated guys and you can see how they got better every week with the hard training and it really paid off.”
On a team that receives no scholarships or significant financial support compared to other schools, and whose audience is normally little more than family, friends and curious onlookers, there is no doubt that what comes from within determines the difference. So, what is next for this CSULB crew team?
“Right now, all I care about is that the program maintains a solid base and continues to grow each year,” said Strong. “The biggest thing is the success of the program and how people feel when they come into the program. I tell my team the worse thing that can happen in rowing is that you get in the best shape of your life and make friends for life.”
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