We are the club rowing team at The University of Tennessee Knoxville. We do not compete at the D1 Level.

Indoor practices currently take place at The Legacy Parks Foundation located at 900 Volunteer Landing Ln, Knoxville, TN 37915. The site is ~10 minutes by car from campus and has free parking.

The boat fence is located ~10 minutes by car from campus at 1648 Riverside Dr, Knoxville, TN 37915

We currently hold practices Monday through Friday from 5:30-7:30PM. This is subject to variability around breaks or finals.

Transportation, lodging, and race entry fees are covered in your dues. Food cannot be covered by the club per Sports Club policy.

While we cannot compete with D1 teams due to US Rowing Policy, we strive to be extremely competitive at the club collegiate level.

If you’ve never rowed before, we’ll teach you! Many if not most of us had no rowing experience until we came to college, when we were taught how to row during our novice year.

While experienced rowers will typically be given the oppoutunity to race varsity events, we may also place you in collegiate novice events while you are eligible. This is dependent on the novice turnout for the given year as well as the schedule for the given regatta.

You become a member of the varsity after you have rowed with the team for one year.

Although the best time to join is at the beginning of the semester, you should be fine to join within the first few weeks to first month after the semester begins. Be prepared to put in the work to catch up though.

Yes, we have both men and women on our team, in roughly equal numbers.

If you miss practice because you have a class during the same time or it overlaps, let our coach or an officer know! There is no penalty as long as it communicated! We do ask however that those seeking to be in the top boats attend ~3 practices a week.

Rowing has two main seasons: Fall and spring. In the fall we race 5000m races (called head races). Spring races are 2000m sprints. Regattas generally are during held during October-November and March-April. During the winter we continue to train indoors until the conclusion of the semester. Per Sports Club Policy we are not allowed to operate in an official capacity during the summer. We highly encourage athletes to continue exercising during this time and to get involved with local club teams.

In general no, except in extreme cases.

Anyone enrolled as a student or faculty member at the University of Tennessee can join the team.

Currently the team is coached by Bill Waugh, a Tennessee Crew alumnus and UT Graduate, class of 1995.

Although we are a club team, we strive to be extremely competitive in both our practice and our performance. We encourage anyone to come out, give it a try, and maybe you’ll catch the rowing bug. However, if you only plan on showing up a couple times a week and don’t care about races, this may not be the club for you.

If you’re small, you might still make a great lightweight rower or coxswain! The cutoff for Male and Female collegiate lightweight rowers is 160lb and 130lb respectively. Lightweights race in separate races than heavyweight (or open weight) rowers, although there isn’t any rule about a lightweight also racing in heavyweight races. If you’re REALLY small (around <120/<5’4” for a girl or <140/<5’7” for a guy) you’d make a great coxswain! Coxswains (or just cox’s) are just as integral to rowing as the rowers themselves. Even so, if you’re 5’ and 100lb and you want to row, we’ll let you row.

Rowing is a very taxing sport. That said, if you come with a drive to put in the work and put in 100%, you shouldn’t have a problem. Rowing is also a fantastic way to get in shape.

Spandex shorts (similar to biking shorts) should be worn to water practices along with a comfortable tshirt or tank top that doesn’t impede arm movement. This will also ensure no clothing gets caught in the moving parts of the boat. Always bring socks for water practices, and running shoes in case the weather turns bad and we jog during practice. For land practices and workouts, general workout attire is to be worn, along with running or tennis shoes.

We are able to use 12 passenger vans provided by the university for travel.

If it’s a light rain, without wind or lightning, we’ll still go out on the water. If it gets very windy, or it starts to thunder and lightning, we will cancel water practice and shift indoors.

An erg (or ergometer) is a rowing machine. The standard for the competitive rowing world are Concept II indoor rowers. When we aren’t rowing on the water, we’re rowing on the erg. The erg is a fantastic tool to teach basic stroke technique, as well as to measure rowers’ performance. Performance on the erg is generally measured by the rowers split (effectively their speed in a boat, measured by time to cover 500m). Lower splits indicate a faster speed/more power. Ex: You row 1000m in 4:00, your average split was 2:00/500m

Most private universities or large public universities will have a rowing team. Some of the ones we have raced against include Alabama, Auburn, Georgia, Georgia Tech, Georgia State, UTC, Tulane, Texas, Virginia, Virginia Tech, Clemson, College of Charleston, UCF, Rollins, Murray State, Cincinnati, Dayton, Oklahoma, Baylor, Sewanee, William & Mary, Duke, UNC, Northwestern, Vanderbilt, and others.

A 5000m race generally lasts about 18-22 minutes, and a 2000m race lasts 6:30 to 8:00 minutes.

Sweeping is where each rower has a single large oar off to one side. For instance, there will be four rowers with oars to port, four with oars to starboard.
In sculling, each rower has one oar in each hand.
The boat types can be differentiated by their suffixes with sculling boats ending in -le (Double, Single, Quadruple)
We offer the oppourtunity to learn both styles!

The coxswain (or cox) is the person who steers the boat and directs the rowers. Anytime a boat is doing anything other than sitting on the rack, the coxswain directs the rowers in that boat, both on and off the water. The cox also motivates the crew during races. The cox communicates to the crew through a headset that is wired to speakers throughout the boat. In an eight, the cox sits in the stern, while in a four the cox is in the bow. Most pairs do not have a coxswain.

A regatta is a rowing meet, where many crews come together to race. There are often many races throughout the day(s) with different age groups, weight classes, and boat types for each race.

Port and starboard are nautical terms for left and right. When facing the front of a boat (the bow), port is to the left, and starboard is to the right. However, while rowing we sit backwards. Even so, the directions do not change. So, when seated facing backwards in a boat, port will be to your right and starboard to your left, relative to your sitting position.