Spring Break means one thing for most college students — vacation. But for college rowing teams, it means spring training.
Rowing teams from Smith College, Ithaca College, and the Naval Academy took over the Lake Lanier Rowing Center this week to take advantage of the facility and hone their skills. The teams train here because, as Smith coach Karen Klinger said, “the Lake Lanier Rowing club is just about the best all-around place to train.”
All three teams came south for a change in environment, a chance to focus, and hopefully, some warmer weather.
“We’ve just come out of the cold dark winter,” Klinger said. “It’s like a burst of spring for us. This is my 13th year coming here. I love training here because it’s incredibly easy for me. I just get to coach.”
The athletes don’t seem to mind the North Georgia weather either.
“The weather is generally freezing in Massachusetts, and our river is not very good,” Smith junior Molly Johnson said. These teams don’t just love the venue, however, they also love the atmosphere. The coaches agree that “everyone has been so welcoming,” and that they wouldn’t have continued coming to Lake Lanier if the venue and the people weren’t so accomodating.
It also doesn’t hurt the rowers to train with other teams, especially ones they’ll be competing against later in the season. Johnson said that “knowing that there are other teams out there pushes us more.”
The teams are not the only ones who benefit. Lake Lanier Rowing Club’s Lauren Pickens knows the opportunities these teams bring to the club and to their junior rowers are priceless. Her husband and the club’s coach, Jim Pickens, is able to sit in on a launch with the other coaches for at least one of the practices. He then takes the different methods the collegiate teams use in warm-ups and drills and applies them to his coaching. In addition to acquiring new skills, the junior rowers also gain scholarship opportunities.
“Women’s rowing brings big-deal scholoarships, like the way football does for men,” Lauren Pickens said.
The Pickens take the initiative to invite teams down for spring, and it works. According to Lauren, “spring training has probably increased 20 percent from last year.”
Spring training has an impact on Hall County as well.
“One thing we really try to do is make an impact on the community,” Lauren said, “Over a thousand rowers come through here in a season. They stay in hotels, they go shopping, they buy food, they buy gas,” all of which generates revenue for Gainesville and the surrounding area.
The goal, Lauren said, is to make the facilty work for the community, not the other way around. Although some coaches were apprehensive last year because of what they’d heard about the drought, the Lake Lanier Rowing Center is experiencing growth.
“Things are picking up again,” Pickens said. “I hope that we help teams create good memories of being here that make them want to come back.”
The Lake Lanier Rowing Center will hold two regattas this week. The John Hunter Regatta, hosted by the Georgia Tech and Saint Andrew rowing clubs, is March 27 and the club’s own Lanier Sprints are March 28.