Aiding a Community One Stroke at a Time

Rowing is a sport that most people do not know a whole lot about. For most people, the first thing that comes to mind when they picture rowing is the Olympics, or Ivy League schools competing. One woman that I talked about rowing with last year said, "I thought rowing was only for rich English guys". It is very rare that rowing is ever associated with underpriveleged communities. However, last Saturday,  I competed against a rowing team here in Chicago, composed almost entirely of high schoolers from underpriveleged areas on the south and west sides of the city. This racing was entirely different than what I was used to.

Last spring, I was lucky enough to compete at Scholastic Nationals, held in Princeton, NJ, where the parking lots were filled with both german luxury sedans, coach buses, and competitors unloading $40,000 racing shells off of trailers. On Saturday on the other hand, my team and I pulled up to a canal on the south side of Chicago about fifteen minutes from Midway Airport. As we walked through the rusty fence topped with barbed wire, we saw that the home team had a high percentage of black and hispanic members, something that was unusual for rowing.

As I learned throughout the day of competition (I was there from 6am to 1:30 pm), this Chicago rowing program, know as the Chicago Training Center, or CTC, was tremendously helping it members with not just the sport itself but also academics, post-high school plans, and growing as young adults. As my coach explained to my team, the CTC program has given its members an entirely free team sport where no cuts are made. The program, founded and coached by former Oxford oarsmen, Montana Busch, also provides some students with occasional free tutoring, with the help of Loyola University of Chicago (Chicago Training Center Website). In videos on the CTC website, rowers explain that CTC has allowed them to seriously consider attending college due to the scholarships and help with admissions that rowing can provide. 

This rowing team, which once looked entirely out of place in its community, has become much more than just an ordinary rowing team. It is an organization that is managing to change lives, and the potential for the future of many of its members is looking much brighter because of it. I truly hope that CTC will certaintly not be the only crew program of its kind in the United States.