Crew team to be discontinued next fall

The Hopkins Department of Athletics and Recreation has announced that both men's and women's varsity crew teams will be discontinued, effective at the end of the spring 2009 season.

The decision, made last Thursday, was financially motivated.

"It is perhaps the most difficult thing I've done in my 20 years here," Director of Athletics Tom Calder said, referring to the decision to disband the crew teams. Calder has spent the last 13 years at Hopkins as athletic director.

"The fact that today's poor economic condition is forcing all colleges and universities to begin cutting back in many areas, including student services, only pushed this growing fiscal problem to the surface and made it an immediate budgetary decision," Calder said.

The combined crew budgets are currently the most expensive budgets, after the men's and women's lacrosse NCAA Division I budgets, and the costs have continued to increase.

As a sport, the crew team has been relatively successful during its two decades as a varsity sport at Hopkins.

According to Steven Perry, who has been the head coach of the men's and women's crew teams since their inception, crew has?won numerous medals at the prestigious Dad Vail Regatta in Philadelphia and has also produced a male Olympic medalist and female World Championship medalist.

The decision to eliminate crew was under consideration for several years, according to Calder, but it became more immediate when the cost to finance the team's operating budgets and to pay for the replacement of increasingly expensive equipment became too much.

Calder also stressed that Baltimore is not the most ideal city to harbor a crew team. Despite the rowing clubs downtown, Baltimore is not like Princeton, for example, where a stream runs through campus, according to Calder.

The crew teams learned of the decision last Thursday morning. The team members received an e-mail on Wednesday night from Associate Director of Athletics Mike Renwick, stating that there would be a crew team meeting at 8 a.m. on Thursday with mandatory attendance.

"We showed up, and we actually had practice that morning so the whole team was out at the meeting early," senior men's captain Taylor Reese said. "And Tom Calder and Mike Renwick walked in together, and pretty much first thing that came out of Calder's mouth was, 'The crew team will no longer exist as of next year.'"

Perry was informed of the decision about 30 minutes before his rowers.

"I was told last Thursday morning. I had no input," Perry said.

After hearing of the decision, team members had a wide range of initial reactions, from anger, to shock, to understanding.

"I was really peeved," sophomore Beth Simmonds said. "I came to Hopkins because I was recruited for coxswain [the rower at the end of the boat responsible for coordination, steering and motivation]. It is something I've been doing for five and half years now. I was really upset, because I felt like I had been completely shafted."

For Reese, who has been rowing for Hopkins for four years, the announcement was numbing.

"I was in shock. It really didn't hit me right away," Reese said. "Calder was taking questions and other teammates were reacting with these harsh questions. It didn't actually really hit me until I was walking away from the meeting, and I got kind of emotional, and I really started to think about what that really actually meant for me and for Hopkins crew."

Women's captain Madison West, who has rowed at Hopkins since her sophomore year, said she was upset with the decision but understood where the Athletic Department's decision was coming from.

"I understand with the economy the reasoning behind it. I was disappointed because I've been working hard all year to help the team for future years, just getting the girls team to grow and become stronger and develop leaders at an earlier age. After the initial shock, I couldn't really be angry, because it wasn't like they wanted to do this. It was a tough position for them, with less money coming in."

With the deadline for transfer applications fast approaching, there was a rationale behind the timing of this decision.

"Three students admitted early decision were recruited for crew," Calder said. "If they decide not to come here, the admissions office has said it will help release them from early admission, and help them get into another school. We also wanted to give our athletes some time, if anybody wanted to consider transferring. I don't know if that will be the case. It's a little late but we can still help them."

One of these athletes is sophomore Will Cooper, who has been rowing since high school and is looking at his options for transferring to another school which has a varsity crew program.

"I wouldn't have applied to Hopkins if they didn't have a crew team," Cooper said. "It's hard to blame the administration because of the hard economic times. But at the same time, I wouldn't be here if I hadn't expected to be able to row. Transfer deadlines are March 15 for the most part, so it's a little tight. A little more heads up would have been nice."

Simmonds has also begun to explore her options for switching schools.

"I just met with the athletic director today, and I've been in contact with my coaches from high school, and we're looking into [transferring]," Simmonds said. "At this point it's still early, but the directors have been very supportive and willing to make some phone calls to coaches at other school with equal or better academic reputations. I chose to come here because of the academics and the opportunities available, yet I was under the impression that I'd have crew available all four years."

Word of the sudden termination of varsity crew spread fast, and within the last week two Hopkins crew alumni, Doug Keen and John Faulkingham, started an online Web petition and Web site, save.jhucrew.org, which have been quickly gaining the support of alumni, current team members and friends of the Hopkins crew teams.

"The site first went up on Monday, in response to John Faulkingham's call for pledges from team alumni and friends of the team," said Keen. "As of Tuesday morning, we had almost $18,000 pledged for the 2009 to 2010 season, and almost $10,000 a year for 2010 to 2014.?The team costs the Athletic Center around $200,000 a year, so we're trying to get as close to that figure as possible, and we believe we have enough support to accomplish that."

But according to Calder, even if the money were raised, Hopkins would not continue to sponsor crew.

"Once we decided to drop the programs we decided that it would be on a permanent basis and fundraising dollars would not be utilized to support the programs in the future," Calder said. "This decision would have been made regardless of the poor economic condition."

"We told the athletes we're not going to start a club team because it's still going to be expensive, and you won't have the supervision on the water that we have with our current coaching staff," Calder said. One of Perry's accomplishments in turning the team from club to varsity was increasing?the program's on-water?safety measures.

"Prior to becoming a varsity sport, crew?had only limited regard to the dangers of unsupervised rowing?without appropriate safety equipment," Perry said.

Even though Hopkins will not sponsor a club team, there are organizations in Baltimore which could allow students to be involved in rowing, such as the Baltimore City Rowing Club.

"In spite of the times, the City of Baltimore has a multi-million dollar expansion of the?boathouse planned for 2011," Perry said.

There were also rumors amongst some members and alumni of the crew team that the Hodson Trust, which donates hundreds of thousands in scholarship money each year to Hopkins, stipulated that in order to receive money from the trust, Hopkins must sponsor a crew team. But according to Finn Caspersen, the chairman of the Hodson Trust, while money from the trust was utilized by the crew team nearly two decades ago, "there were no conditions, ongoing or otherwise, attached to this grant. The administration of the crew program lies entirely within the purview of the University administration."

Crew, which has been a varsity sport at Hopkins since 1989, is currently one of 26 varsity athletic programs the department sponsors.

According to Calder, this is not the first time that Hopkins has had to cut a varsity sport. Rifle, squash and golf all used to be varsity sports at Hopkins, but for various reasons those sports, like crew, were discontinued.

Even though this will be the last season of varsity crew at Hopkins, both the men's and women's team members are trying to maintain a positive outlook towards the upcoming spring season.

"I think we definitely want to go out with a bang," West said. "We want to show the school as a whole just what they are losing, because I feel we're one of the most dedicated sports in the school. We just want to end on a high note."

The teams will compete for the final time on May 8 at the prestigious Dad Vail Regatta in Philadelphia.