With the weather being less than cooperative these past few weeks, I haven’t had a chance to attend a practice with our middle school girls. While Tuesday afternoon still wasn’t ideal (we were blown off the water all day. I’ve never seen waves that high on such a small lake), I at least spent some time with Jennie, Avery, and their girls. Practice was a healthy dose of ergjng along with some blade work in one of the barges, which was tied to the dock. The wind got pretty intense at points, but everyone reported a good time at the end practice. A well timed arrival by an ice cream truck may have added to the general good feelings, but we won’t talk about that.
For those of you who don’t know, Row New York’s middle school program has grown substantially in just the past six months. Since last September, Jennie Trayes, our Director of Middle School Programs, recruited a group of strong, talented students from middle schools in Queens and transformed our middle school offering from a seasonal, learn-to-row program into a year round program of serious athletic training and academic support. The clear goal of our expanded middle school program is to acquaint kids with rowing at as young an age as possible, so that when they reach the high school and college playing field, they have plenty of experience. This will give them an edge that will win them more races, and get them bigger scholarships to better schools.
We are quite happy to report that things are going very well so far. There have been tons of interest and enthusiasm from our newest, youngest members. These past few weeks were the first these girls have ever been on the water, and the girls have done a great job of persevering through the cold, wet, windy weather. An informational meeting was held for middle school parents at our Long Island City offices last month, to address concerns and answer questions, and we were very pleased to see that the parents shared the interest and enthusiasm of their daughters for the sport of rowing.
