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| A team of Kansas State rowers strives to keep up with their opponents. During his recruiting search, head coach Patrick Sweeney said he contacts around 4,000 athletes, with most of them coming from Kansas. Mercury file photo |
"We're contacting high school basketball, volleyball kids, swimmers, soccer players, track and field kids who aren't going to get offered a Division I school placement in their first sport," Sweeney said.
It's the mission of Sweeney and his coaching staff to find women with the right physique and mental toughness, and mold them into quality rowers.
Scholarships await those who make it through tryouts and survive the rigorous season.
"We're an equivalent sport so what we can do is we can say 'we'll give you a little bit for you to try it out'", Sweeney said. "The further along they go we can gradually increase and increase and increase their scholarship and that's how we really want it."
Sweeney said this massive recruitment program involves contacting nearly 4,000 athletes each year. Approximately 70 rowers are on the roster each year, although that number can start out as high as 100.
When searching for rowers, Sweeney said the biggest thing is a woman's physique, but it's also important that his athletes are tough mentally. The latter aspect was reflected last season, as Kansas State led the Central Region with 12 National Scholar Athletes selected by the Collegiate Rowing Coaches Association.
"I think it's one of the things that we're really proud of in the program is that we can combine the academics and the athletics to a high level," Sweeney said.
His approach has been successful. Last year, the boat of coxswain Kilah Bond and eight other rowers won KSU's first ever Central Region title in the novice division, which is reserved for first-year rowers.
One of the things that helps Sweeney teach his rowers and command their respect is his impressive resumé. As an international coach in Europe, Sweeney won two gold medals at the World Championships and one gold at the Olympics, he's had plenty of experience with the immense popularity of rowing in Europe. The former coxswain for the British national team said he doesn't really see rowing ever competing with sports such as football, basketball and baseball in its popularity, but he's doing his part. He'd like to see more programs take KSU's approach in recruiting to help generate more interest from American athletes.
"That's why I'm against bringing in these foreigners, and I'm a foreigner," Sweeney said. "What you're doing is you're not expanding it to the community of the United States. I think (rowing) will get bigger, I just wish more schools would do it the way we're doing it and then it will get bigger even quicker."
With another season on the horizon, Sweeney doesn't really know what to expect for the upcoming campaign. Since 90-95 percent of his recruits have never rowed before, it's difficult to predict what the team will accomplish from year-to-year.
"That's one of the fun things with collegiate rowing," Sweeney said. "On the international rowing, you basically know what you get year after year. In collegiate, every year's a new year and you really don't know what you get."
