Club rowing has sights set on achieving D1 status

By Ryan, December 11, 2015

By Deirdre Logan,  Sports Editor//
Club sports at High Point University are becoming more popular every year, especially for the rowing team. Starting out at only 15 varsity players at the beginning of the season to the 60 members they have now, the crew is exploring options in the realm of attaining D1 status.
Head Coach Jessica Mahon explained that there are several factors that would be required in order to achieve this goal.
“It’s a very long process,” Mahon said. “We would need to do well in the league we are currently in and the Athletic Director is going to have to make a choice whether or not they will add another D1 team to the mix.”
Sophomore men’s team captain Scott Hardesty gave some insight into the future plans for both the women’s and the men’s team.
“Our goal is to go D1. Our coach has laid out an entire plan for the women’s team to go D1 first. She hopes that the girls team will go D1 in the next three to five years,” Hardesty said. “To get D1 status, we do not only need more people on the boys and girls teams but we need to place highly in these regattas.”
As far as the team goes, everyone seems to be on board with this idea. Senior Zoey Chittick shared her opinion.
“I would say there are positives either way. With the amount of practice we have, it would be good. We’d get better housing and class scheduling which would help a lot,” Chittick said. “As far as team dynamic I would say no because we train and travel as a coed team. With the change, the boys wouldn’t travel with us and we wouldn’t travel with them. It would split the team.”
With this potential change, HPU would be the only team in the Big South Conference to have a D1 rowing team.
“Being D1 would be nice because we would get a boathouse and dock. That would be really awesome because we could practice later in the season,” Chittick said. “And we still compete against other D1 teams already so not much would change in that respect.”
The level of intensity from club to D1 athletics is much higher and can be daunting; however, the rowing team trains just as hard as any other team.
“We have two practices every weekday and one on Saturday. Weekdays, my lifting sessions are 6 a.m. to 7 a.m.,” Hardesty said.
Scheduling is difficult for club teams because they are not D1 teams with full-time staff that oversees scheduling.
“We will have a rowing session that’s about an hour and a half to two hours long sometimes in the afternoon. The reason I say sometimes is because we are club. Our coach has to take everyone’s schedule and figure out what time to practice,” Hardesty said.
Spending all those hours training and competing has brought both the men’s and women’s teams close together, especially when traveling to competitions. That kind of team unity is what the team needs to be successful.
“You become really close with your boat. We train together, our boat goes to Prime together, get ice cream together and go shopping,” Chittick said. “You adjust those people to your daily life. We all go through the same challenges together and that brings us close. The reward of success is huge as we all suffer through training together.”
The rowing team is not the only club with D1 status on their mind. The softball, swimming, tennis and field hockey teams are all interested. As far as Mohon is concerned, none of these team will be achieving this status for another five to 10 years due to the teams being so young.