RowingRelated

Sketch from Farrer's Husky Crew profile image We received the following from U.S. men's coach Luke McGee , who is reaching out to the rowing community in support of his friend, former Washington Husky Matt Farrer : "The secret to happiness is to find something you love and do it for the rest of your life. For me, that is rowing at Washington." —Matt Farrer Matt Farrer is a rower battling colon cancer. He rowed at the Brooks School before making both the 1997 and 1998 U.S. junior national team. Matt earned a silver medal in the coxed four at the 1998 World Rowing Junior Championships. Farrer arrived at the University of Washington in the fall of 1998 and rowed all four years for the Huskies. It was a commitment he says taught him "discipline and perseverance under extreme conditions." Two characteristics he is now drawing upon to battle cancer. In 2012, while working as a chef in Seattle, Matt was diagnosed with colon cancer. A visit to the emerg...

Collegiate programs aren't the only snowbirds in the American rowing community. The U.S. national team has been training in California of late, taking advantage of what has been, even for California, unseasonably warm weather and calm conditions. These videos come by way of U.S. national team high performance director Curtis Jordan , and in the clips from the men's training sessions, you can hear coach Luke McGee's voice over the megaphone. Coming up soon on RR: A coaches' corner piece on avoiding subconscious complacency (how can we push beyond our imaginary limits?), and a look inside the inner workings of California Rowing Club . -RR

We said it at the time, and it held true for the 2013 World Rowing Championships—the performance of Team USA at the final World Rowing Cup made a strong statement about their intentions, both for the 2013 season, as well as the long road to Rio. Not only did the new additions to the men's national team staff—men's coach Luke McGee and high performance director Curtis Jordan —make their presence felt immediately, the women's team continued to push the boundaries of the sport, setting yet another world best time in the eight (with yet another new lineup). In a word- DOMINATION! US Women's 8+ win setting a new World Record at #Wrclucerne http://t.co/lQ6ZYyuRnl — usrowing (@usrowing) July 17, 2013 The men's eight scored the first victory over the Germans since 2009, and the men's four held off a very strong Australian crew in a wire-to-wire win. While the results on the water were very impressive, equally so was the perspective of the athletes winning gold...

The 2013 World Rowing Championships were, by all accounts, one of the best championships to date, with state-of-the-art facilities, good racing conditions, and a host of talented athletes coming together to officially embark on the Road to Rio. Photo from the awards ceremony of the Men's Eight yesterday! #ChungjuWRC @TomPeszek pic.twitter.com/KqyCGZUO3H — OKCNHPC Rowing (@RowOKC_HP) September 2, 2013 Before the slew of hotly contested finals, however, we did it again—what can we say? Shooting our mouths off about sports just comes naturally, and what you might call the 'RR ethos' is built on picks and predictions. So, now's the time when we reflect on the best of the racing, and see how our picks fared over the course of the week in South Korea.

The above video comes to us by way of California Rowing Club head coach Bernhard Stomporowski , and gives us a window into the CRC side of national team training camp down at Chula Vista , from January 6-27, 2013. Not only do we get a glimpse of this year's invitees doing some work in fours, but we're also invited on land for erg work supervised by newly appointed men's national team coach Luke McGee . USRowing released the full list of athletes invited to the Chula Vista training camps on both the men's and women's sides last week, with the (mostly) lightweight men's camp set to run from February 7-17. For the men, the camp included an NFL Combine -style assessment, as evidenced by some furious activity on Twitter: 20yrd sled push. @ usrowing @ coachlukemcgee @ rowingwolf7 @ rowingrelated twitter.com/volp/status/29… — bryan volpenhein (@volp) January 23, 2013 Also making an appearance in the film (not listed by USRowing but present representing CRC...

As I'm sure you all know, there was some big news for those of us stateside last week. That's right, USRowing announced that it would be taking on none other than Washington frosh coach Luke McGee to take over the responsibilities of coaching the U.S. men's eight and U23 men's eight, while current lightweight coach Bryan Volpenhein will take on the additional duty of coaching the men's heavyweight four. Oh, and we elected a president. Getting right down to it, there are some reasons to like this move, and some major questions regarding the timing and the new roles that these two coaches will take on as we begin a new quadrennium. First, let's look on the bright side. Personally, I was excited to hear that Luke McGee would be taking on a role with the U.S. national team, particularly after we named him as one of our top candidates (along with our top pick, Tom Bohrer , and California's Dave O'Neill ) in our piece calling out USRowing for not bein...