Getting in their strokes

Marisa O’Neil

Eighty-five high school girls tried out this week for one of the

best-kept secrets in women’s sports.

Last year, coach Christy Shaver had 48 girls on her junior rowing

team at the Newport Aquatic Center in Newport Beach. This season, the

85 girls from area high schools are trying out for 70 spots in

eight-, four-, two- and one-person boats, called shells.

Shaver credits Title IX, the college gender-equity rule, for the

increase in rowing’s popularity.

“Rowing is such a great thing to balance the number of athletes

because they can get 50 girls on a team,” she said. “Every school in

California that has any body of water has rowing. There’s a huge

number of schools back East and in the Midwest that have teams, too.”

In the four years since she’s been coaching at the Newport Aquatic

Center, Shaver said that she’s seen her rowers graduate and go on to

compete at universities such as UCLA, Princeton and Harvard. Many

colleges are so eager to fill their rosters, they offer gifted rowers

anything from book scholarships to full scholarships, she added.

The Newport Aquatic Center’s juniors program draws students from

Newport Harbor and Corona del Mar high schools and high schools in

Irvine, San Clemente and Riverside. The competition for this year’s

team was so fierce that most of them rowed at the club during the

summer, sometimes starting practice at 6:30 a.m.

Shaver said that even the few girls who had never seen rowing in

person but still tried out this week, put in good performances. All

had to complete a timed two-mile run and a test on a rowing machine,

called an ergometer, or “erg,” before they could go out on the water.

“All 85 of them completed a 20-minute erg test without stopping,

without crying, with lot of style and a good mental attitude,” she

said.

San Clemente twins Shari and Staci Coble, 16, decided to try

rowing this summer at the Newport Aquatic Center’s novice camps. Now

both of them are hooked on its camaraderie.

“It’s more fun than other sports,” Shari said. “You have to depend

on each other just to make the boat go, and you have to rely on your

coxswain to not hit anything.”

Newport Harbor High School student Jennifer Guess, 17, has been a

coxswain -- the person who steers the boat and motivates the crew --

for the past four seasons. The team spirit and the friends she’s made

keep her coming back for more.

“I never get sick of it,” she said. “I’m down here 20 hours a

week, and I’d be down here even more if I could.”