Sport | Rowing |
---|---|
Jurisdiction | Virginia |
Abbreviation | VASRA |
Affiliation | Scholastic Rowing Association of America |
Official website | |
www |
The Virginia Scholastic Rowing Association (VASRA) is a 501(c)(3) that promotes and supports scholastic rowing in Virginia and sponsors and conducts competitive rowing regattas for high schools in Virginia.
It was an organizational member of USRowing, the national governing body for the sport of rowing in the United States, until 2024.
VASRA runs 8-9 regattas during the scholastic spring season. Most events are on the Occoquan Reservoir at Sandy Run Regional Park, only the Charlie Butt Regatta is on the Potomac River and is run from Thompson Boat Center. VASRA conducts the Virginia Scholastic rowing Championships, which is available for all teams from the state and is a qualifying event for SRAA (Scholastic Rowing Association of America) Championship and USRowing Youth Nationals.
VASRA was established by five Virginia high schools in 1979 as the "Northern Virginia Rowing Association". [1] In 1986, it became the “Northern Virginia Scholastic Rowing Association”, [2] and later the "National Capital Scholastic Rowing Association". The latest name became official in 2008. [3]
In 1999, the association co-hosted the Scholastic Rowing Association of America championships. [4]
It currently operates with 43 high school members. Rowing is considered a club sport in many of the participating high schools. Though not funded by most of the school districts participating, most coaches are a $0 employee of the schools, they do provide over-site to the programs. VASRA abides by the regulations of Virginia High School League, where applicable, though not currently a member of the organization. [5]
VASRA runs the Virginia Scholastic Rowing Championships, which is a qualifier for the SRAA Championships.
The Championship Regatta uses the following point scheme. A trophy is awarded to each of two divisions for men and women. Division 1 is for schools with 20 or more competitors on their roster, and Division 2 for those with fewer. [6]
1st | 2nd | 3rd | 4th | 5th | 6th | 7th | 8th | 9th | 10th | 11th | 12th | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1st 8+ | 46 | 34 | 26 | 20 | 16 | 14 | 12 | 10 | 8 | 6 | 4 | 2 |
2nd 8+ | 24 | 26 | 20 | 16 | 14 | 12 | ||||||
Jr 8+ | 24 | 26 | 20 | 16 | 14 | 12 | ||||||
Ltwt 8+ | 26 | 18 | 12 | 8 | 6 | 4 | ||||||
1st 4+ | 26 | 20 | 16 | 14 | 12 | 10 | 8 | 6 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 1 |
2nd 4+ | 20 | 16 | 13 | 14 | 10 | 9 | ||||||
Jr 4+ | 20 | 16 | 13 | 11 | 10 | 9 | ||||||
Ltwt 4+ | 16 | 12 | 9 | 11 | 5 | 3 | ||||||
1st 4x | 12 | 8 | 5 | 7 | 2 | 1 | ||||||
2x | 8 | 6 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 | ||||||
Ltwt 2x | 8 | 6 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 | ||||||
1x | 6 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 |
World Rowing, also known as the World Rowing Federation, is the international governing body for rowing. Its current president is Jean-Christophe Rolland who succeeded Denis Oswald at a ceremony held in Lucerne in July 2014.
Boat racing is a sport in which boats, or other types of watercraft, race on water. Boat racing powered by oars is recorded as having occurred in ancient Egypt, and it is likely that people have engaged in races involving boats and other water-borne craft for as long as such watercraft have existed.
Lake Quinsigamond is a body of water situated between the city of Worcester and the town of Shrewsbury in Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. It is 4 miles (6.4 km) long, between 50 and 85 feet deep, and has a surface area of approximately 772 acres (3.12 km2). Lake Quinsigamond hosts 8 islands with the majority owned by private citizens. Two islands are connected to land via bridge. The largest island, Drake Island, is still state owned. Water from the lake empties into the Quinsigamond River in the Blackstone Valley.
The United States Rowing Association, commonly known as USRowing, is the national governing body for the sport of Rowing in the United States. It serves to promote the sport on all levels of competition, including the selection and training of those athletes who represent the US at international level.
Rowing is the oldest intercollegiate sport in the United States. The first intercollegiate race was a contest between Yale and Harvard in 1852. In the 2018–19 school year, there were 2,340 male and 7,294 female collegiate rowers in Divisions I, II and III, according to the NCAA. The sport has grown since the first NCAA statistics were compiled for the 1981–82 school year, which reflected 2,053 male and 1,187 female collegiate rowers in the three divisions. Some concern has been raised that some recent female numbers are inflated by non-competing novices.
Pine Crest School is a private preparatory school with campuses in Fort Lauderdale and Boca Raton, Florida. It was founded in Fort Lauderdale in 1934 by Mae McMillan, who also served as the school's first president. The Boca Raton campus, originally Boca Raton Academy, was absorbed by Pine Crest in 1991 and hosts students in pre-kindergarten through grade 8. The Fort Lauderdale campus hosts students in pre-kindergarten through grade 12.
Charles Stahley Butt, Jr. (1919–1992) was a high school rowing coach in Northern Virginia, United States, who was also involved in promoting the growth of school rowing in the Washington D.C. area and the United States.
McLean High School is a public high school within the Fairfax County Public Schools in McLean, Virginia, United States. In 2024, U.S. News & World Report rated McLean the 218th-best U.S. public high school, and fifth-best in Virginia.
Lightweight rowing is a category of rowing where limits are placed on the maximum body weight of competitors. According to the International Rowing Federation (FISA), this weight category was introduced "to encourage more universality in the sport especially among nations with less statuesque people".
The Schuylkill Navy is an association of amateur rowing clubs of Philadelphia. Founded in 1858, it is the oldest amateur athletic governing body in the United States. The member clubs are all on the Schuylkill River where it flows through Fairmount Park in Philadelphia, mostly on the historic Boathouse Row.
The Marin Rowing Association, located in Greenbrae, California, US is a rowing association and non-profit organization founded in 1968 by Coach R.C. "Bob" Cumming.
The Intercollegiate Rowing Association (IRA) governs intercollegiate rowing between varsity men's heavyweight, men's lightweight, and women's lightweight rowing programs across the United States, while the NCAA fulfills this role for women's open weight rowing. It is the direct successor to the Rowing Association of American Colleges, the first collegiate athletic organization in the United States, which operated from 1870–1894.
Lucas Whitney McGee is a former US Rowing national team member, former Oxford Blue Boat member, and former freshman coach of rowing at the University of Washington and Brown University. Luke began his rowing career at 15 years old while attending Loyola Academy after his father Ray and brother Josh encouraged him to try out for the team. After high school, he attended Yale University for a year, but then transferred to Brown University where he rowed competitively and was captain of his crew. Luke returned to Brown in the fall of 2004 and coached the Freshmen from 2004 to 2007. From 2004 to 2012, McGee's freshmen crews at Brown and Washington have captured three Eastern Sprints Championships, four Pac-10 Championships, three gold medals and one silver medal at the IRA National Championship, as well as winning Washington's first ever Temple Challenge Cup in 2010.
Green Lake Crew (GLC) is a public rowing club in Seattle, Washington (USA), jointly sponsored by the Seattle Parks and Recreation Department and the Rowing Advisory Council. The program is located on the southern shore of Green Lake at the Green Lake Small Craft Center (GLSCC). Green Lake Crew was chartered in 1947 and first went "on the water" in the spring of 1948.
Caryn Davies is an American rower. She is the winner of the 2023 Thomas Keller Medal, the most prestigious international award in the sport of rowing, and the only American to have ever won this award. She won gold medals as the stroke seat of the U.S. women's eight at the 2012 Summer Olympics and the 2008 Summer Olympics. In April 2015 Davies stroked Oxford University to victory in the first ever women's Oxford/Cambridge boat race held on the same stretch of the river Thames in London where the men's Oxford/Cambridge race has been held since 1829. She was the most highly decorated Olympian to take part in either [men's or women's] race. In 2012 Davies was ranked number 4 in the world by the International Rowing Federation. At the 2004 Olympic Games she won a silver medal in the women's eight. Davies has won more Olympic medals than any other U.S. oarswoman. The 2008 U.S. women's eight, of which she was a part, was named FISA crew of the year. Davies is from Ithaca, New York, where she graduated from Ithaca High School, and rowed with the Cascadilla Boat Club. Davies was on the Radcliffe College (Harvard) Crew Team and was a member on Radcliffe's 2003 NCAA champion Varsity 8, and overall team champion. In 2013, she was a visiting student at Pembroke College, Oxford, where she stroked the college men's eight to a victory in both Torpids and the Oxford University Summer Eights races. In 2013–14 Davies took up Polynesian outrigger canoeing in Hawaii, winning the State novice championship and placing 4th in the long-distance race na-wahine-o-ke-kai with her team from the Outrigger Canoe Club. In 2013, she was inducted into the New York Athletic Club Hall of Fame and in 2022 into the Harvard University Athletics Hall of Fame.
Yasmin Farooq is an American rowing cox and the head coach of the University of Washington women's rowing team. She graduated from Waupun High School in 1984 at Waupun, Wisconsin. She attended the University of Wisconsin where she joined the rowing team in 1984 as a coxswain. She was a member of the 1986 national champion JV eight and served as captain and MVP of the team her senior year. A two-time Olympian and world champion in rowing, Farooq later became a college coach at Stanford University where she helped the Cardinal win its first ever Pac-12 and NCAA titles in rowing. At the University of Washington, her team swept the NCAA Championship for the first-time in history, then repeated the feat in 2019 setting NCAA records in all three events. She has been named Pac-12 coach of the year six times and national coach of the year three times. She was inducted into the USRowing Hall of Fame in 2014 and awarded the Ernestine Bayer Woman of the Year award by USRowing in 2017. In 2021, Farooq was inducted into the Wisconsin Athletics Hall of Fame.
In the United States, Crew or Rowing is a popular sport in secondary and tertiary education. USRowing is the sport's national governing body. The Harvard-Yale Regatta is the oldest college sporting event in the United States.
The Scholastic Rowing Association of America was formed as the Schoolboy Rowing Association of America in 1935 to host an unofficial national championship regatta for high school rowing. The name was changed in 1976 after women were allowed to compete.
In the United States, many high schools have rowing teams or "crews". The Stotesbury Cup is the largest regatta for high school rowing, and the Scholastic Rowing Association of America also holds a championship regatta open to schools in North America.
Colette Lucas-Conwell is an American coxswain. At the 2023 Pan American Games, Lucas-Conwell won gold as the coxswain for the United States mixed eight and silver for the women's eight. She is the first female athlete invited to a men's Olympic rowing selection camp in U.S. rowing history.