Rowing is a very popular sport in the USA and is performed competitively amongst more than 150 colleges. It also the oldest college sport and thus receives extra attention. It is sponsored by funds from the universities as well as revenue through TV-coverage and provides ideal opportunities for the rowing athletes. Female rowers can be awarded with a full scholarship and there are also partial scholarships available to male rowers. The coaches work fulltime and are paid by the university, being able to concentrate on the long-term development of the athletes, unlike rowing coaches in Germany who lead teams in their spare time. Because there are excellent coaches and training facilities on campus, rowing athletes can progress continuously. For women, there are more than 2000 scholarships whereas men only receive a scholarship as a top-athlete. While competing as an individual athlete in Germany, there is the ‘team spirit’ in the USA which makes training and competitions double the fun. Rowing is one of the few collegiate sports, where athletes train all year around and compete in tournaments in spring and autumn. This culture of year-round training is owed to Harry Parker, the Head Coach of the Men’s Heavyweight Team in 1963. Additionally, many athletes also train during the summer at different rowing clubs across the country.
Timing
The best suited time to go to the USA with an athletic scholarship is right after completing the high school diploma or Abitur. College coaches like to pick young athletes so they can improve continuously over the four year period with the great training and brilliant facilities on offer. Of course, it is also possible to go to the US only for one year. Induced by our great relationship to the coaches in the US, we could also help many athletes to begin their Master’s after finishing their Bachelor’s degrees. The best time to get in touch with Scholarbook is one year before planning to commence studies in the USA. Rowers can pick up their education either in the spring (January) or fall semester (August).
Requirements for a rowing scholarship
Male rowers should have participated in the European or World Championships in order to qualify for a scholarship. For female rowers, there are brilliant opportunities to receive a scholarship since the universities offer twenty scholarships to their women’s teams. Upper positions in the state championship and participating in the national championships will be enough to qualify for a scholarship in most cases. There are also possibilities for athletes who have not participated in the German championships. We evaluate the opportunities from athlete to athlete individually and give our protégé a fair estimation for the chances of a scholarship.
Men
Although rowing is the oldest college sport, the men have decided against joining the NCAA. If they would become a member, the NCAA would sponsor a championship but would also force them to follow their rules and those of the Athletic Conference. This is the reason why there are fewer scholarships for men and rowers have to be successful on an international level prior to receiving a scholarship.
Women
Women athletes compete in the NCAA Rowing World Championships in a Varsity Eights, a second Eights and a Varsity Fours. Whereas the NCAA National Championships only 
comprise of the already mentioned varsity boats, Head-to-Head races and rowing regattas like the Head of the Charles and Pac-10 Championships, many other competitions include less prominent classifications like Pair, Sculls and lightweight races. In the last 25 years, there has been a spectacular growth of women’s college rowing. Universities which have never had a men’s rowing team, have assimilated women’s rowing into their athletic department and offer financial help and athletic scholarships for this expensive and challenging sport and thereby increased the success and the ability to compete for the women’s rowing teams.
The season in the USA
Rowing is one of the only sports in which the athletes have to practice year-round and compete during spring and autumn. Additionally, many athletes also train during the summer at different rowing clubs across the country.
Autumn
During autumn, many college athletes concentrate on the build-up of technical skills and the improvement of physical energy and perseverance. In the United States, the main races, which are typically three and six kilometers long, take place in autumn. These longer races are part of the foundation for the preparation of the spring season, improving the athletes’ endurance and mental strength. The biggest race is the “Head of Charles” rowing regatta in Boston, Massachusetts in October. Participants are of all age classes, qualifications and conferences. Also, the best college rowing teams take part in this race and compete on Olympic levels against athletes from across the USA and other countries. The largest college-regatta is the “Princeton Chase” in autumn, which is held in the beginning of November on the lake Carnegie in Princeton, New Jersey, and is hosted by the Princeton University.
Winter
In winter, the coachwork is intense and serves as the preparation phase for the racing season in spring. The training comprises of long interval-trainings, which become shorter and more intense as the racing season comes nearer. The practices are held for schools below snow-level on water. Some of the northern universities, which are unable to train on lakes or rivers due to the frozen water, will train on rowing ergometer machines and indoor-rowing-tanks. Most colleges, irrespectively of their proximity to water, train with ergometer machines, practice weights, on stadium staircases and long sprints. A few colleges and universities send their athletes to the “Crash-B Sprints” in Boston. The 2000 meter long race takes place on ergometers and includes other competitions for college athletes. Many north-eastern universities take winter training trips to warmer states like Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Louisiana, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas, either during the winter break or spring break, in order to give the students more time on the water while their local rivers and lakes are frozen.
Spring
Spring is the primary time of the year for the college rowing teams and the schedule is dominated by dual-races. These 2000 meter races take place between two or sometimes three schools.
There are also bigger rowing regattas like the “Dad Vail Regatta” and the “Eastern Sprints”. In these tournaments, the teams compete in flights, in which the winner is declared instantly, or there are a couple of turns and a semi-finale, in which the finalists are fixed. Sprint-races start with all teams lined up in a row and a simultaneous start, unlike the time races in autumn. The good results are important criteria in order to get an invitation to different rowing competitions in the after-season. When the team is part of a conference, the dual-race results as well as the results in the rowing-regatta are considered to establish the winner of a conference. The light division is always more prominent in spring. In many normal tournaments, there are no separate categories for lightweight rowers, but a lot of spring races have a separate weight class for lighter rowers.
Lightweight rowing
In rowing, taller, heavier people have a huge advantage. This is based on the physical principle of boats which are faster according to an increasing number of rowers. To give average-sized rowers a chance to compete against comparable athletes, the lightweight rowing was introduced. For men, the maximum weight is 165 lbs (74,84kg) for the autumn season and 160 lbs (72,58kg) in spring.
Also, in the men’s division, the boat can only weigh up to 155 lbs (70,31kg).
In the women’s division, athletes can weigh up to 135lbs (61,24kg) in the autumn season and 130lbs (58,97kg) in spring. There are no weight restrictions on the women’s boats.
There are different races for men and women in lightweight rowing. There are little programs available in little universities. Many of the bigger universities where the competition is very fierce, there is no lightweight rowing and if there is, it is not well financed and are handled like normal club sports.
Scholarships
There are 81 Division I and 15 Division ll Colleges which award scholarships. In total, there are 1.920 college rowing scholarships remitted within the NCAA. College rowing scouting is very competitive because scouts are looking constantly for athletes who are physically fit and strong and make a perfect team member. The NCAA allows every rowing team in the Division I and II to award twenty scholarships. 25 years ago, the ‘Title IX’, which established that the schools have to offer the women what they offer the men, was dismissed. That would be the exact same amount of scholarships. It sounds uncomplicated until one notes that 85 scholarships are awarded to male, soccer-playing athletes and that there is no equivalent sport for women. Now the rowing provides a huge opportunity and also an advantage for women. In the Division l, we can see that a coach divides his or her “twenty” scholarships and allocates it to more than twenty students, giving out thirty partial scholarships instead of twenty full scholarships. If you are good enough, there is a great chance of getting one of these scholarships.
The process of finding a scholarship, getting in touch with the coaches in the US and the handling of rules and regulations of the NCAA can be an exhausting task for the athlete as well as the parents. The usage of our scholarship scouting service is a necessity for all athletes who are interested in a career in rowing.
