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Purdue Crew Newsletter |
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April 2023 |
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On March 11th the rowing team loaded up our two rowing trailers and another flat bed trailer with 12 eights, 8 fours, oars, T's, slings, 5 coaching launches, and assorted parts and rowing gear and headed south for a week of spring break training at John Knox Center, a summer camp an hour southeast of Knoxville, TN. It was a big change from Clemson, SC where the team had previously stayed in hotels and ate at the Clemson University Dining Hall, running the 3 miles twice-a-day to practice. Instead, the team stayed in rustic cabins, ate in a large dining hall as one single group, and walked the block to the shores of the lake on camp for practice. All-in-all the team's consensus was it was a wonderful spring break change, with the close water allowing for more water time, the large meeting cabins each squad had access to allowed for more team bonding time, and of course a $300 cheaper price tag for this trip over the Clemson trip didn't hurt! (the picture to the left is of the team holding officer board elections in the dining hall)
While the Marietta/Dayton race on the way home was cancelled due to 25 degree weather and 35mph+ winds, it was a wonderful trip, speed was found, and lifetime memories were made. The Marietta race will be made up with a quick trip to Marietta of the Men and Women's Varsity 8's, sponsored by the Marietta College rowing team. We look forward to continuing our long history of competition with Marietta the week after SIRAs.
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While the whole team's first race is now scheduled to be SIRAs in Oak Ridge, TN this weekend, the Varsity Women's 8+, Varsity Men's 8+, and 2nd Varsity Men's 8+ made the select varsity trip out to the San Diego Crew Classic. Coming off of last year's first women's trophy win and only second men's trophy win, the mood and expectations were high on that plane ride to Cali. Despite only being on the water for just a few weeks and competing against almost exclusively California and west coast schools that never got off the water, the team performed well and had some great racing. While neither of the three boats won and brought back trophies this year, the racing was tight and the team learned a lot over a lot as they work to build speed into our national championships in May.
The Women's V8 won their heat in convincing fashion with open water on the field at the finish, then placed third in the grand final to two varsity programs, narrowly edging out our ACRA rivals UC Santa Barbara by a second.
The Men's Varsity 8+ placed third in their own heat and fifth in the grand final, losing to ACRA rival UCLA but soundly beating oother rivals in the final including USC, UC Santa Barbara, and UC Davis.
The Men's Junior Varsity 8+ had the toughest draw of the bunch, racing two Cal Berkeley crews with national team members in them, placing third in their heat and seventh in the grand finals.
With sand in their shoes and the beach on spring racing on their minds, the select varsity team headed back to Purdue ready to put in the work for the rest of the spring racing season.
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With all of the buildup of winter training, spring break training, and the last month+ of hard water practices building to a crescendo, this upcoming weekend the whole team is incredibly excited to head back down to Tennessee once again to race our first all team race of the season! We're excited to defend our dominant run of 2+ decades (straight) of winning the team points trophy at SIRAs. Time trials and semifinals are on Saturday with Finals Sunday morning/midday. The SIRAs schedule can be found here, and other regatta details including (eventually) regatta results can be found here and here.
Boiler Up!
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Purdue Day of Giving - April 26th |
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Mark your calendars! On Wednesday, April 26th Purdue will be hosting its annual Day of Giving. Last year Purdue Crew decided to transition its biannual fundraising solicitations to just the Purdue Day of Giving to capitalize on both the university's robust marketing and outreach for that day, and earn some of the fundraising incentives the university offers for it. With your support we had INCREDIBLE success, fundraising a crew Purdue Day of Giving record of $235,709 from 103 donors last year! Amazing!
And as ambitious as it may sound, those of us at Purdue are known for taking giant leaps, and with all Purdue Day of Giving fundraising going to build the crew endowments and our future base of support, we're aiming to beat our record numbers from last year and get closer to our endowed support goal for the team's 75th anniversary during the '24-'25 season. Notably, we're aiming to get well over our 103 donors from last year.
Please consider doing your part and taking a fundraising power 10 with us by donating and encouraging your teammates to do the same. As we all know from our time pulling for Purdue Crew, a boat and program only move when all of us pull together. Sign up to receive a reminder email from Purdue on the Day of Giving here.
We encourage you to focus your giving from 2pm-3pm EST and from 7pm-8pm EST on the Day of Giving. There are special hourly student organization challenges then with nice bonuses for the team if we have a large number of donors give then (any amount), though all donations throughout the day will add up to the total.
In the video linked below, Craig Johnson '78, four year rower and Hovde Award Winner, explains the importance of our endowment fundraising efforts towards ensuring the financial future of the Purdue Crew team. During this year's Day of Giving, help us ensure that the next generation has access to the same foundational experience we all enjoyed during our team at Purdue on the Wabash River!
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Purdue Crew Hall of Fame Awardees |
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The team recently competed at the San Diego Crew Classic, and during the annual Thursday evening dinner for the team hosted by the Purdue Alumni Club of San Diego, Purdue Rowing Association President Ellen Shew Holland, Coach Walker, and retired Coach Kucik presented the next two inductees into the Purdue Crew Hall of Fame with their awards.
The awardees, John Fee '72 and Paul Calvert '73, have been huge supporters of the San Diego trip and the Purdue Crew team for years, arranging for food and logistical support, as well as physically cheering the team while we're racing out west. John Fee was a '72 graduate of Purdue, a two-time Hovde award winner, and helped lobby and fundraise for the new boathouse. He also served as the Purdue Alumni Club of San Diego President. Paul Calvert was a '73 graduate of Purdue, also a two-time Hovde award winner, and also a lifelong enthusiastic supporter of the team. We team appreciates their support while they were on campus and in the decades since.
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After many emails and inquiries from locals and friends of the program, we're beginning outreach to offer rowing to the greater Lafayette, Indiana community. The initial plan is to offer learn-to-row weekends this summer, and then begin a three days-a-week recreation middle school and adult masters program this fall.
Please fill out and/or share this google form signup to any that might be interested. Thank you!
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Boats! Boats! Boats! Boats! |
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The day has finally come. After serving the team for decades of faithful service, we are transitioning away from our fleet of weathered but reliable Dirigo rowing shells into exclusively carbon fiber Resolute racing shells. We've been able to speed up this transition through generous alumni and purchasing some used/refurbished boats. While it's bittersweet to say goodbye to such a notable part of Purdue Crew's history, the Dirigo shells will find continued use with a fledgling community rowing program, and we're thrilled to announce the naming of the following new (to us) resolute shells that we've recently added to our fleet! We plan on dedicating these shells of ours at our fall alumni reunion on October 21.
Eights: John Fee '72, Coach Jere Jenkins, *yet to be named 8+*
Fours: Hayden Cotterill '70, Angelo Marasco '08, *yet to be named 4+*
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During last month's team email update we chatted with Miranda Stickel and Dylan Colon, two exec board members on the Purdue Crew team who were applying for an SFAB grant to help fix our dock and also add some Bat Logic rowing shoes to our shells. I'm Very happy to announce that due to the hard-work of Miranda and Dylan, Purdue Crew has been granted a $29k grant!
I'm amazed at the grit and tenacity our team shows time and again- this is yet another example of how far this team is willing to go to be competitive, completing grant applications like this, performing multiple team fundraisers, paying dues, raising money for the local food bank, all to have the opportunity to push themselves beyond their limits at practice each day so they might lineup and test their mettle against varsity intercollegiate competition that have everything funded and paid for. Well done and thank you.
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Alumni Chat - Alex Boquist '00 |
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This month's alumni chat is with 2000 Purdue Crew grad and Most Valuable Oarsman, faculty advisor to the Purdue Crew team, and 2023 Outstanding Krannert Undergraduate Teacher of the year at Purdue University- Alex Boquist! Listen to Coach Walker's conversation with Alex chatting about what brought him to Purdue and the crew team, what he's been up to since graduating, and his experience moving back to West Lafayette to become a professor at his alma mater.
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Crew Chat - Isabel Elsener '23 |
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This month's chat is with Isabel Elsener, a senior from Indianapolis, Indiana majoring in Special Education & Elementary Education. Listen to Coach Walker's chat with Isabel about how she found her way to Purdue and the crew team, how student teaching is going, and what the next steps after Purdue might look like.
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Endowment Initiative Update |
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Our fundraising goal is to ensure the financial security of the Purdue Crew team, as well as lower the costs of participation on our athletes and make the Purdue Crew competitive rowing experience financially accessible to ALL Purdue students while still staying a club sport, by focusing all fundraising on our endowments until we are fully endowed- which will happen when the total of all of our endowments reach $15 million. Our goal is to reach 33% ($5 million) in given/pledged towards that goal by the Purdue Day of Giving 2025 during the team's 75th anniversary season. Your help is critical to get us to the finish line and each donation to support the Purdue Rowing Alumni Endowment is a gift that never ends. Read about more details on our endowment fundraising push here.
Current Status of Endowment Goal: 12.3% (with pledges over next 5 years: 13.1%)
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