About Rowing

• Rowing is the ultimate team sport; there are no individual stars in crew.  A boat wins or loses together, so no rower can have a good race when the boat has a bad race. 

• Rowing also is the most mentally and physically challenging sport.  Because of the simultaneous involvement of the large muscles in the legs, back and arms, rowing burns more calories per minute than running, cycling, swimming, or any other sport. 

• Rowers "go anaerobic" at both the start and finish of a race – the only sport in which competitors are required to go above and beyond their aerobic capacities twice within a single event. Consequently, rowers must train together to develop their timing and form as a team, and must train as individual athletes to build power and conditioning.

• Rowing is the oldest intercollegiate sport in the United States; the first sporting event between teams from different colleges was the 1852 Yale-Harvard race.  But rowing is one of the newest intercollegiate sports in Arizona.  Until Tempe Town Lake opened in 1999, there was no body of water suitable for rowing near any Arizona college or university.

• In 2007, parents of ASU rowers and other supporters of the ASU crews came together and founded the Arizona Collegiate Rowing Foundation (“ACRF”), an IRS-recognized 501(c)(3) organization.  Since 2007, ACRF has acquired racing-quality boats and other equipment for both the ASU Men’s Crew and the ASU Women’s Crew.  ACRF also has helped fund travel to many out-of-state regattas, primarily in California but also as far away as Pennsylvania.