Rowing looks to build on success

The Stanford Cardinal rowing team sat at the NCAA Rowing Championships stone-faced.

Next to them sat Princeton, whose demeanor seemed like something you might see in a movie before the big game.

But something seemed to be breaking their concentration.

IU was also at the NCAA Championships. But instead of imagining every upcoming stroke like a contender should be, they were dancing.

With their music blaring, it almost seemed to the other teams that the IU team didn’t quite grasp the magnitude of the situation.

IU Coach Stephen Peterson wouldn’t have it any other way.

“We had nothing to lose, it was the first time the team’s ever been there,” Peterson said. “Every race they just went out there and went after it. They didn’t really think about what happens if we lose, it was just go as fast as we can.”

One might say this IU team had no business entering the water at Eagle Creek Park that day in Indianapolis.

They were the underdogs, the ones nobody expected to be in the NCAA Championships.

IU’s first varsity eight and first varsity four boats had a combined two seniors
rowing. Except Peterson, this was the first time anyone on the coaching staff had coached at the collegiate level.

The first varsity eight boat finished 10th in the country. The first varsity four boat finished ninth, giving them what Peterson called “rock star status.”

Peterson won National Coach of the Year, and his entirely new coaching staff won National Staff of the Year.

“I’m flattered, I appreciate it and I’ll take the honor of National Coach of the Year,” Peterson said. “But there’s so many people and so many things that go into making a program successful. I think it’s kind of naïve to sit there and say this one person is solely responsible for it.”

How did a team with a limited number of seniors and almost no experience on its coaching staff earn the highest national finish in program history?

Peterson embraced the youthfulness of the team. He did not appoint captains, instead letting the team figure out the leaders for themselves.

“The idea was, we’re not going to elect captains, and we said that at the middle of the year we would figure out our captains,” Peterson said. “But when the season started in the fall, what became very apparent was the senior class as a whole kind of took over that leadership role without being appointed captains.”

Junior Meradith Dickensheets earned first team All-American honors, the first time someone from IU has been a first team All-American rower.

Freshman Alice Wright won Big Ten Freshman of the Year, the first time a Hoosier rower has won any type of individual award.

The first time Peterson knew this team was different from others was during spring break this year.

IU traveled to Oakridge, Tenn., for a scrimmage against Wisconsin and Dartmouth.

“We’ve never beaten Wisconsin in any boat ever,” Peterson said. “Wisconsin has always beaten us.”

The first race in the water was among the freshman boats. IU won.

The second race in the water was the varsity race. Wisconsin jumped out to a big lead, and it appeared that water would find its level reaffirming Wisconsin as a superior program.

“Our kids just rowed right through them,” Peterson said. “They didn’t even have a problem.”

It was at this moment Peterson said he believed his young squad came to the realization of how fast they actually were.

This was just one memory Peterson said was important to his team’s historic season.

He said he remembered the million meter party the team had. It occurred after every member of the team rowed one million meters on the rowing machines in a month and a half.

Or the time his team took two-time defending national champions Ohio State to the brink at a meet in April.

There was the day Dickensheets first rowed 2,000 meters in less than seven minutes.

All these moments have Peterson believing his team can contend nationally not only next year, but every year going forward.

“There’s no reason we shouldn’t be faster,” Peterson said. “There’s no reason that we shouldn’t be No. 1 sooner or later.”?