The men's crew team here at UW is undergoing many changes. After being one of the most dominant crew teams in the nation for nearly 130 years, ranking among schools like Yale and Harvard, Head Coach Chris Clark and his team have a new set of challenges to face in the 2004-'05 season.
New faces are common for the team, which will have to fill the void left by last year's class. UW has only one returning rower from last year's varsity boat, but the younger rowers have shown skill.
Another
ew face"" for the team will be their state-of-the-art crew house. After spending all of last season, and most likley three-quarters of this season, in a tent off Lakeshore Path, the team will be able to move into a brand-new facility in a few months.
The team is moving into its new digs gradually. While there is not much the riggers can do to expedite the construction process, they are working on improving a team that showed its youth two weeks ago at the Head of the Charles.
""We performed as we expected to. The guys are a little disappointed with the result, but they did well, and realize there is plenty of room for improvement,"" Clark said.
There is no doubt Clark saw improvement from his team last weekend at the Head of the Iowa in Iowa City, Iowa.
The Badgers won four of the six events at the meet including the varsity eight, the open eight, the lightweight four, the open four and the freshman eight.
Although it was a markedly better performance than the previous race, Clark still sees room for the young team to improve.
""It was a good win overall, but our performance wasn't where we would have liked it,"" Clark said. ""Our performance reflected our young team only having one returning varsity member.""
The next chance for the Badgers to grow will be the American Heritage Regatta in Wyandotte, Mich., Nov. 7. After that race, they have only one more race until the break between the fall and spring halves of the season.
