Vol. 11 No. 12 September 2004

Different Strokes: Oakland Girls’ Rowing Team Breaks Stereotypes

—By Marnie McLeod Santoyo

Mention rowing on a crew team and the first image that comes to many minds is the famed 150+ year-old Harvard-Yale Regatta. One of the oldest collegiate rivalries in the nation, the annual race pits privileged young men against others to row for the pride of their schools.

Jenny Hale aims to break that rowing stereotype. Hale, who rowed for Harvard’s varsity women’s crew, is founding coach of the Junior Girls’ Rowing Team at the Jack London Aquatic Center (JLAC). Here, Harvard’s “Crimson tradition” gives way to a new generation of rowers — young women of color who come to the Oakland aquatic center to learn a sport some may not have known existed until they were recruited for the team.

“What’s interesting is that the history of this sport take place in many of the nation’s urban centers and yet people of color have had virtually no access to the sport,” says Hale, an Oakland resident who began her career coaching junior teams in college and then moved on to coach UC Berkeley’s women’s crew and, most recently, began the rowing program at Kansas State University. “The focus is well overdue and I’m excited to bring this great sport to Oakland’s youth.”

In the program, which meets every Monday through Thursday from 4-6:15 pm throughout the school year, Hale offers a more holistic athletic program where girls focus on not just the techniques of rowing but also on the values of teamwork, leadership and self-esteem. Most important, the team is driven by participation, not performance.

“Any time any young kids can be involved in sports where their success is based on their effort instead of their performance, it’s a positive experience,” Hale says. “That’s something that’s unique to rowing – that most people who come to the sport come with a blank slate so there’s no prevailing hierarchy and everyone is in the same place.”

The JLAC team students don’t even have to know how to swim to qualify. In fact, Hale encourages any girl — water safe or not — to join her team. She includes water safety and swimming lessons as part of the program. Two times a week, the team jogs from the JLAC center to a nearby swim school where all the girls take lessons.

“Last season, probably a quarter of girls knew how to swim while three quarters didn’t swim or weren’t strong swimmers,” Hale says. “That’s going to be a bridge we’ll need to continue to build as we continue to extend this sport to populations that haven’t been exposed to rowing.”

Now with the first season under her belt (the program began mid-way through the school year in January and ran through May), Hale expects to at least double the team’s membership from 22 to 44 girls this month. And she has many cheerleaders helping her pass along the word.

Rowing Can Part the Waters

Joya Rodgers, 16, became hooked after rowing only five months. The smart, articulate Antioch teenager, who hesitated at first to join the program for fear of lowering her 4.0 grade point average, now can’t imagine her life without rowing. She goes into the new season as one of the team captains.

Bay Area Business Woman Vol. 11 No. 12 September 2004

Different Strokes: Oakland Girls’ Rowing Team Breaks Stereotypes

(continued from page 1)

“I’m the kind of person that likes doing sports that other people don’t normally do, and rowing just sounded interesting to me,” says the McClymonds High School junior. “Rowing has opened a lot of doors for me. If it hadn’t been for rowing, I wouldn’t have tried sports like sailing or golf. Now I love them all. I definitely plan to row through high school and hopefully at college.”

Rodgers says she and her teammates have gotten great support not only from the team’s coaching staff but also a sport psychologist, who taught the team about circle breathing and gaining focus before a race. She says she and her teammates have learned much about teamwork and supporting each other.

“When you’re rowing, you learn how to work under pressure and communicate with people from different ethnicities,” she says. “We’re all on one team and we have this love for each other. Your teammates love you for you and they know you can row and that’s all it’s about.”

A Bonus: Free Tutoring

To ensure the girls on the team don’t fall short on their schoolwork, Hale and JLAC offer an optional study program on district high school short days when girls get transportation to the center where they stay and study until their 4 pm practice begins. The center gives students access to volunteer tutors who can help girls with their homework.

“I’ve learned a lot since we started the after school study program,” Hale says. “The girls on our team are generally motivated to begin with and are talking about college and future careers, but I’ve found their sights are often not set high enough. Some could qualify for larger schools and a host of scholarships that they are unaware of.”

In an effort to better support future aspiration of the girls, Hale is exploring ideas of offering mentor programs with local businesswomen to advise and support the girls as they progress.

“Rowing teaches transferable business skills such as teamwork and leadership,” Hale says. “It just seems like building a mentor program would be a natural outgrowth to further support these talented kids.”

And those values are already clearly set in Rodgers own words about her team: “Rowing is such a great escape from school because everyone comes to practice in shorts and a t-shirt with nothing to prove. You never hear anyone yelling negatively at someone. Here we yell to encourage our teammates and let them know we’re here with them.”

The Jack London Aquatics Center is accepting girls to join the Junior Rowing Team. They will have an information night on Sunday, September 19, from 2–4 pm at JLAC, located in the Oakland Estuary Park on Embarcadero between Oak Street and 5th Avenue. To join, girls must: • Be in grades 9 through 12 • Attend an Oakland public school or Oakland charter school • Hold a 2.0 GPA or higher • Be in generally good health For more information, call (510) 208-6060, or visit http://www.jlac.org.