As fall sports come to an end and athletes are preparing for winter, the Manhattan Junior Crew train tirelessly to prepare for the rowing season. Many have not only been seeing improvements in their teamwork, but also with the growing interest in the group.
“We are starting to become more of a community,” junior Kyli Thornton said. “Not only that, we’re also seeing a lot better results in races compared to previous years.”
Unlike most sports, rowing is not connected to one specific season. When it’s during the warmer seasons, they practice out at Tuttle Creek Lake. And with the colder seasons coming in, practice continues indoors to the Combative Sports Center.
“Rowing is structured into four seasons,” senior Lake Rodriguez said. “We have the fall season, which is the long distance races. That’s also when we get most of the new people for the rowing team. A lot of people start dropping out because they realize how tough it is. We end the season after our Frostbite regatta, and immediately start training indoors for the sprints during the winter. We end it at Shocker Sprints in Wichita, and move on to spring, where our competitive team competes in some Oklahoma and Des Moines races.”
The Manhattan Junior Crew was founded in 1986 when some high school girls talked with Kansas State University’s Rowing Association founder Don Rose to create a team for younger people wanting to row. They were able to get enough people to fill an eight-boat and started to train with the men’s crew. They later assembled a junior men’s team, and the rest is history.
Despite their longevity and growing popularity, MJC has been in a state of interest group purgatory. There have been attempts to talk with the USD Board of Education to make the transition to an MHS sport, but issues like funding and being affiliated with other schools have made it very difficult.
“The rowing team is affiliated with the Yacht Club, but we’re not a school sport or club because it’s too expensive to fund us,” junior Bryn Davis said.
Regardless, the Manhattan Junior Club still encourages people to give rowing a try.
“Besides it being a good way to workout, the people are really nice and I enjoy being within that community,” Rodriguez said. “It’s just an open community of so many different minds and outlooks and ideas. We make sure that we’re putting our all into it, and I think that attitude of working together, being part of a team, making friends and putting everything you’ve got into all of that is why people should join rowing.”
