Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Monmouth Beach Cultural Center, 128 Ocean Avenue, Monmouth Beach

Intercollegiate rowing began on the Navesink when the North American Amateur Oarsmen in eights rowed in Red Bank in 1938. Only a few additional races took place after the war, but now they're back. Dan Edwards provided commentary on some recent rowing related events, including the 2010 Governor's Cup that featured Army, Drexel, Delaware, Rutgers and Villanova.

Dan's rowing career began on Philadelphia's Boathouse Row. He coached both scholastic and collegiate rowing in Philadelphia and most recently managed the successful start-up of the Borough of Rumson's “Rumson Crew” and the Rumson Fair Haven Regional High School Crew. Over 130 students in the 6th-12th grades from both Rumson and Fair Haven rowed during the 2009-2010 season. Rumson Crew was recently awarded Monmouth County's Victor E. Grossinger Award for Unique and Innovative Recreation Programming.

Dan explained the beauty of rowing and opened the presentation with a viewing of the 2004 men's eight finals. Besides showing the first U.S. men's eight Olympic gold medal since 1964 it also demonstrated the amazing ability of a small country like the Netherlands to finish second in a field of much larger nations.

The discussion then shifted to rowing and crew on the Navesink. Most of the presentation related to the Navesink's unique features and Dan Edward's efforts at reviving crew on the Navesink. Dan has already established a high school crew program and now is working on reintroducing the Navesink to college crew. In 2010 this effort opened with the Governor's Cup. Many lessons were learned from this event and hopefully it will be the first of many more collegiate events on the Navesink.

Every rowing venue has unique features and Dan indicated that besides the expected Navesink river natural attractions, the ability of the crews to be boarded right along the river in private homes and the coziness of the towns and shops right along the river makes Navesink river Collegiate rowing unique. Rumson Crew