Macye Farrar
Contributing Writer
Correction: In the print edition of this article, The Purple incorrectly identified the person the boat is being renamed for. This has been fixed in the online edition and The Purple apologizes for the error. Here is the corrected sentence: “Coach Maynard has also pushed the administration to fix the launching docks that had been incorrectly built and is currently renaming the boat after Dr. W. Brown Patterson (C’ 52), an alumnus, former dean of the college, and former professor of Sewanee, who rowed during his time at Oxford University in the 1950’s.”
It’s an early Saturday morning, and the sun has fully risen over the tree line and is illuminating the glassy lake below. Four women carry one boat on their shoulders, while two men carry another, and both are careful to keep their space as they march down to the small launching dock on Lake Dimmick. Both the women and the men easily lower their boats to their hips before setting the boat out in the water with a little splash. They then lock in their oars, push off the dock, and row out to the middle of the lake, all the while their coach prepares his own motorized boat to keep up with his athletes. Sometimes the occasional duck flies overhead and turns black against the backlighting of the sun, while a bald eagle flies down and catches a fish before veering off into the tree line.
This is an average weekend for the Sewanee club crew team, who normally convene on Saturday mornings at ten or later in the afternoon. These mornings are a fantastic way to start a morning and experience Sewanee’s beautiful domain. “We try to schedule practice times so that the whole crew can be there,” said Coach Gregory Maynard, crew’s one and only coach. “A lot of times that means early morning, which is really not bad at all and you get used to it… You see bald eagles out there, you see deer out there swimming across the lake.” A typical practice will start out in the boat house, where Coach Maynard will lay out the drills that the team will be doing that morning. After that the coxswain will tell the team to take down their oars to the water, carry the boat down to the dock, and shove off onto Lake Dimmick. Half the practice is usually dedicated to drills that focus on a particular skill, while the other half is dedicated to getting in as many strokes as possible. “The lake itself… is usually about twelve hundred meters, so like three-quarters of a mile.” The practices themselves take about five-five minutes to an hour depending on the rowers’ schedules, and they rarely go over time thanks to Coach Maynard’s flexibility.
Sewanee Crew was started way back in 1996 by a freshman named Rob Phillips, who had rowed previously in high school and loved it so much that he wanted to continue with it in college. When he realized that Sewanee had no rowing team, he gathered enough interest to establish a rowing team here. Coach Maynard has only been working with the Sewanee crew teams for three years now, but the program has flourished thanks to his efforts. There are currently a women’s novice eight, a men’s novice four, a women’s varsity four, and a men’s varsity double that will all compete in the upcoming regattas later this fall. Coach Maynard has also pushed the administration to fix the launching docks that had been incorrectly built and is currently renaming the boat after Dr. W. Brown Patterson (C’ 52), an alumnus, former dean of the college, and former professor of Sewanee, who rowed during his time at Oxford University in the 1950’s. Without Coach Maynard’s dedication and enthusiasm, the program would be experiencing the growth that it is now.
Although many students may hesitate to join crew due to their lack of expertise, previous experience is not required to join. The novice teams are created especially for students who have never rowed in college or high school before, and it provides a good place to find friends you might not have otherwise met and keeps you in shape. The women’s varsity team are currently looking for a coxswain to drive their boat, and the men’s novice team is also looking for anyone to fill in another seat in their boat. Practice schedules are made to accommodate an athlete’s class schedule and take place a maximum of three times a week. The fall season has two regattas: the Music City Head race that takes place on October 26 in Nashville and the Head of the Hootch on November 3 in Chattanooga, which is the second largest regatta in the nation. These regattas are five thousand meters long and are against the clock, and whichever team has the fastest time wins. If you would like to join crew, you can connect with them using the email sewaneecrew@sewanee.edu.