Football, men’s basketball and men’s hockey may be the most popular varsity sports at Wisconsin, but last year, the men’s rowing team was the most successful.
At the IRA National Championship in Cherry Hill, N.J., the Badger rowing team beat out previously unbeaten and top-ranked Washington to take home the trophy, winning their first IRA title since 1990.
“We were going to go out and just have a good race, that’s all that we could do,” junior Ross James said. “We didn’t necessarily know that we were going to win — we were just trying to have a good race.”
The Badgers did in fact have a good race, edging the Huskies by 1.5 seconds to claim first place. Although Wisconsin was only a slight underdog, the team still felt overwhelmed by the victory.
“No matter how confident you are … it’s definitely pretty surreal,” UW head coach Chris Clark said. “There’s no question that your competitive spirit is flowing so high that it’s just incredible.”
James found the victory just as thrilling as Clark did. The sophomore was one of five underclassmen of the team’s eight.
“It’s almost overwhelming; it’s kind of hard to grasp at first,” James said. “Eventually it seeps in, and it feels great.”
Despite winning the national championship, the Badgers received little recognition from local media and UW fans. Being a non-revenue sport, Wisconsin rowing gets little attention regardless of its success.
“Rowing is its own worst enemy like a lot of other sports,” Clark said. “In order to have media coverage, you need a lot more people rowing. … People need to be able to gain a connection to it, then people will start to pay more attention to it.”
Few know about the success of the men’s rowing team in part because few, if any, major newspapers have covered it. Even though the Badgers won the national title, Wisconsin rowing has seemingly been neglected by local journalists.
“It does get frustrating sometimes when newspapers choose to put out what they think people are really interested in,” Clark said. “Sometimes you see a huge article about a JV basketball team, and varsity sports at a university get ignored. Sometimes, that can get disappointing.”
Nevertheless, Clark and the rest of the team are looking beyond the lack of coverage, working hard to compete again this coming season, as the Badgers will boast a veteran squad this season with five returning starters.
“We have a lot of guys coming back, and it will be really good to have that leadership, especially for the younger guys who just joined varsity and the freshman who are on the team,” James said.
Winning the national championship last year does not necessarily mean things will be easy for Wisconsin this season. Clark knows there is always room for improvement, and the success of the team relies on its ability to stay focused.
“We’ve got some good guys on the team. … They’re too good to go slow,” Clark said. “We’re not going to surprise anyone — everyone knows we’re going to be pretty good, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have to work hard to get where we want to be.”
As the team moves on from last season, it will try to win back-to-back IRA titles for the first time since it won three straight from 1973 to 1975, when UW was at the top of its game.
The Wisconsin team will try to make UW fans and local media give them the recognition they deserves. For now though, the Badgers are just going to forget everything else and try to win.
“We’re hoping to build off of what we’ve done,” James said. “But it’s a new season, and we want to keep winning and we can’t keep our past success from getting to our heads.”
