Row Your Boat

Recently Oklahoma City has earned a reputation as a hotbed for rowing in the Midwest, thanks to its hard work at renewing the downtown area, enhanced by a large waterway. While Wichita has not built a luxurious body of water suited for regattas, it has shown a similar will to row. The Little Arkansas River in Wichita's Riverside neighborhood was the site of the Frostbite Regatta on Nov. 2, as the Wichita Rowing Association hosted 31 teams from seven regional states. Regardless of age, size or abilities, rowers of any experience and skill level are welcome to row for the club, as has been the case since it originated in 1975. The club's six full-time high school rowers were among the many college and club teams from Oklahoma, Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, Colorado, Texas and Kansas which rowed down the Little Arkansas in singles, doubles, quads, fours and eights. Former WRA president Brian Adamson began rowing for the WSU crew team in 1990 and after college graduation has continued to row, volunteer and coach for WSU and WRA. After stepping down from his recent position as WRA president to devote more time to raising his three children under the age of 5, Adamson decided a year and a half ago to revitalize the WRA's waning high school program - one that had previously been virile. The program lost its coach a couple years ago after sending on several rowers to the WSU crew team. While the rowing association numbers approximately 50-plus members, the prep program had dwindled from 20 to a handful, which prompted Adamson to take it over. He has hopes for the high school rowing program to thrive once again and continue to feed athletes into the Wichita State rowing program which spawned from the WRA in the 1970s. "The Wichita Rowing Association has been around since 1975. A core group of experienced rowers started it," says Adamson, also still a WRA board member, "and from that WSU started a (varsity) rowing organization. The club supported it in the beginning, then in the '80s, WSU began recruiting its own coaches and purchasing their own equipment. Ever since, the Wichita Rowing Association has always supported WSU, sharing equipment, boat houses and volunteers. In our regatta, you sometimes still don't know who you're rowing for." Previously a summertime venture, Adamson has extended the six-year-old high school program to year-round. The six current full-timers are East High senior Sydney Fish, Independent School senior Rebecca Goltry, Maize High senior Allie Rader, Southeast senior Rob Below, Goddard sophomore Elliott Dreiling and East High sophomore Sara Wilkes. Adamson recruits rowers by pounding the streets and knocking on doors - mostly local high school doors - posting fliers and talking with administrators. Word of mouth has also been effective - East High's Fish persuaded Independent's Goltry to come out one day and learn. Both remain full-timers in the program, while still participating in high school sports. The WRA competes in several other regattas every fall, and three or four more in spring and summer. In the aftermath of the Frostbite Regatta, the club is now pushing toward the winter ergometer regatta in February, an indoor rowing-machine event modeled after a famous annual event in Boston, CRASH B Sprints, which attracts the attention of the international rowing community. "It's getting cold, so now we go inside. Just like other sports, we'll do weight training - and ergometer training in preparation for the spring regattas."