Blog
Permanent link for GVSU Rowing Team kicks off spring break by unveiling a new men's 8+ named after former GVSU Head Coach, John Bancheri on March 3, 2024
Alyssa Cassie
Today was the first day in Clemson! After a long, courageous battle of driving through the night, we arrived at the course to rig boats and begin to knock the rust off. To quote one of our coaches who has been through this process themself, today is the kind of practice that puts hairs on your chest. After some projected rain, we were pleasantly surprised with some sunshine and warm weather. Before hopping on the water, as one of the clothing coordinators I was tasked with passing out our spring shirts for the season. After some team photos in our new merch, we got to work on the water. For being one of our first practices back on the water, it felt highly productive and we got some good meters in, rowing through a total of three bridges. Some of the main things I focused on today to prevent the resurfacing of old habits is opening my shoulders to prevent shooting my slide and backing in my blade. Too bad I was sitting bow so I didn’t have any teammates in the splash zone behind me.
After wrapping up practice, we all headed to the hotel and received our room assignments. I fell asleep on the floor waiting for my turn to shower and then took yet another nap post shower until it was time to leave for dinner. As an athlete, it’s important to get in sleep wherever you can, I consider it a form of self care. Thank goodness one of my teammates/roommates was awake to get us up and moving in time to head to the dining hall. Tonight we also had our Spring Break meeting where our Club President graced us with some gentle reminders as well as stern rules. As always, our spring break guides meant to keep things light hearted and fun did not disappoint. I can’t wait for all the adventures and memories to be had this week!
Bryce Drobnick
Today we arrived for our first day of break in Clemson, South Carolina. We left Allendale last night at 7 pm and arrived in Clemson around 9 am. My van had a blast on our travels and visited fun locations throughout our adventure.
Once we got to Clemson we began to rig our boats, including our 2 new 8's. Once rigged up we grabbed lunch from Jimmy Johns and headed on to the water. It was a beautiful 70 degree blue sky day, much nicer than the 20 degrees we left in Michigan.
Today we did mixed lineups of Varsity and Novices and did drill work, specifically at the back end of the stroke. We rowed about 12k today.
After practice, we headed to our hotel; relaxed, and headed to dinner at Southern Wesleyan University and returned to the hotel to finish the night.
I am super excited to continue my training this week and I hope you all enjoy the rest of the blogs.
Sydnee Ochs
We began our journey to South Carolina by leaving lot J in Allendale at 7pm March 1st.In complete honesty I was in and out of consciousness until we hit Kentucky, at around 2:30AM, when I was granted Passenger Princesses Privileges while Reilly drove.
We arrived in Clemson right around 10AM on March 2nd, after unloading our trailer, rigging our boats and a quick lunch we were ready to launch our boats into Lake Hartwell. Our workout consisted of steady state rowing, to get us used to being back on the water. I was rowing in the Schintz 8+ boat and we did several sets of sprints.
After practice Beka, Jo, Anna, Sawyer and I decided to take a swim! It started as a way to decompress after a long night of driving and water practice, but quickly turned into several hours of games in the water to celebrate the warm weather. Not too much happened when we finally got to the hotel around 3PM, I took a well deserved shower and nap before heading to dinner with the rest of my team around 6. Once dinner was over we returned to our hotel for some very well deserved rest before our practice tomorrow!
