HOOKSETT, NH – Students at Manchester Central High School have many options when it comes to interscholastic sports, including one option that many at Central may not know about.
Earlier this month, members of the Central Crew Club returned to the banks of the Merrimack River, looking to bounce back from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Established in 2001, the Central Crew Club currently draws members from six other schools in addition to Central (Pinkerton, Trinity, Concord, Bow, Londonderry and Cawley Middle School in Hooksett), with students from those schools able to join other clubs if accepted, and students from other schools also are welcome.
This arrangement is not possible in other New Hampshire interscholastic sports, but when it comes to crew rowing, New Hampshire’s competitions are not run by the New Hampshire Interscholastic Association but U.S. Rowing, the national governing body for the sport in the U.S.
That allows the club to accept both high schoolers and middle schoolers, with competitions happening at a regional rather than state scope. However, unlike most interscholastic sports in New Hampshire, the club does not have a feeder program to ensure new members in the future once current members of the club inevitably graduate. That membership instability has only been exacerbated by the pademic.
Before the onset of COVID-19, the club had 40 to 45 members. After the pandemic cancelled the Spring 2020 season, the club saw only 18 members return for the Fall 2020 campaign, with only 15 remaining this spring.
According to Club President John Earnshaw, anyone can join the club regardless of athletic ability. Outside of an ability to swim and paying a fee, there are no prerequisites.
His daughter Shannon is one of the club’s current members, placing 32nd out of 42 in the 2019 edition of the prestigious Head of the Charles Regatta.
Shannon originally was a soccer player but came to love rowing after attending a tryout several summers ago.
“There’s camaraderie in soccer, but more so here,” she said. “Everyone has to be in sync for a rowing team to work.”
Rowing also provides physical education requirements at Central, allowing her to use the time she would have spent in gym class taking AP courses.
She also says rowing has given her a physical and mental toughness difficult to find in other sports, with year-round workouts, four-day-a-week practice schedules during the spring and fall seasons and wakeup times of 4 a.m. for regatta days on weekends.
Chase Meade, another member of the club and a current junior at Central, agrees.
He got into rowing after heading to a class in seventh grade. Initially, he thought he was heading to a sailing class in hopes of emulating an upper classman he admired who was on a sailing team. Despite the error, he quickly became hooked to rowing and hopes to row at the collegiate level, potentially following in the footsteps of club alumni who have received rowing scholarships to colleges like Holy Cross and Syracuse.
Meade also says rowing has helped improve his cardiovascular health, reporting that pain from a pacemaker he received earlier in life has decreased since he started rowing.
For him, rowing is something that cannot be explained by words. Right now, he says that rowing is largely unknown among the student population at Central and he hopes that will change even though he realizes that the commitment needed for the sport is a large obstacle to overcome.
“We’re trying to get people involved, but it’s not for everyone,” he said. “It’s definitely an acquired taste.”
More information on the club can be found at centralcrew.org. More information on the club’s home base, the Amoskeag Rowing Club, as well as the Amoskeag Rowing Club’s “Learn to Row Day” on June 12, can be found at amoskeagrowing.org.
