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TU team glides on Verdigris
3/14/2007
"Commit. Commit. Commit," Kevin Harris shouted through a megaphone at three teams of eight rowers as they glided down the Verdigris River near Catoosa.
It was the first day of practice for the head coach and the University of Tulsa women's rowing team as they prepared for the season's first competition, the Lawless Cup Regatta.
The Golden Hurricane rowers will compete against Creighton University March 25.
The team will dedicate its new boathouse at Rogers Point Park northeast of Catoosa the same day, marking official the abandonment of practice on the Arkansas River in midtown Tulsa.
"There's no way to create a fast rowing team on the Arkansas because of water level fluctuations and sand problems. The Verdigris is always ready," Harris said.
The 5,000-square-foot boathouse and move to the Verdigris is a dream come true, said Bob Vonfeldt, boatman-rigger in charge of the team's equipment and building.
"We sublease the land from the city of Catoosa, which leases it from the Corps of Engineers.
The Port Authority was involved because it handles water flow on the (Kerr McClellan) Navigational System," Vonfeldt said.
The team will go to Oak Ridge, Tenn., over spring break to practice and scrimmage the University of Louisville, the only ranked team on TU's schedule.
To put that in perspective, Harris said if TU was ranked among the 84 NCAA women's rowing teams, the Golden Hurricane would be in the 50s.
"If we do the right things, and it will take a lot," Harris said, "we might get into the top 20 this year.
"It's been several years. We'd pretty much have to be undefeated."
TU returns to Tennessee in April for the Southern Intercollegiate Rowing Championships.
During opening day practice, Harris had his rowers compete in four races.
Two boats -- called eight-oared shells for those with eight rowers -- were filled with varsity team members; a third held novices.
Half way through the first race, Harris said the women needed to beat one minute and 45 seconds to stay on the pace he wanted for 500 meters.
He times each 500 meters of a 2,000-meter race.
At the end of the first race Harris said, "A minute, 44 seconds and some change" for the winning team. Second place rowers were less than a second behind.
When he asked members of the losing team why they lost, answers came back to across the water to where he sat in a motorboat: "They pulled harder. "We weren't pulling together." Harris nodded.
All teams were slower in the second race. That was expected, the coach said -- legs beginning to tire and the team was rowing into a 15-knot wind.
The coach knew the wind speed as he keeps in radio contact with Vonfeldt who monitors reports from the National Weather Service.
Each boat is commanded by a coxswain (pronounced cox-n). Nicole Falvo guided the boat that won all four practice races.
"It takes multitasking to be a coxswain," Falvo said. "
I steer the boat, keep the clock, make sure my team stays calm and focused while I let them know what's going on around them. But they do the hard physical part -- rowing."
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Women’s rowing coach Kevin Harris uses a megaphone to instruct members of the University of Tulsa team on the first day of practice for the spring season
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