Happy New Year / Monthly Updates / Nike Store Opened / Annual Giving Day Announcement
Dear Marist Rowing Alumni Family and Friends,
Happy New Year! We hope that you all enjoyed a happy and healthy holiday season and are looking forward to exciting times in 2024. It has been far too long since I last wrote, and I wanted to reach out and bring everyone up to date on the goings on here at Marist and get us ready for the upcoming season! Along with some general updates this week I want to communicate the opening of our Marist Rowing Alumni Nike Store AND the announcement of an official date for the rowing giving day for 2024!
Team Updates
This fall was simultaneously very fun AND very difficult. We are extremely young as a team and the growing pains were pretty evident on the water and show in our performances on race days. This was not much of a surprise to the coaching staff based on what we’re seeing in the erg room, but it is obviously frustrating not to be where you want to be. On a brighter note, I have rarely seen a more committed group of athletes than what we had this fall. These men are doing excellent work and rather than letting that afore mentioned frustration turn inward on one another, the group has rallied and created realistic and tangible goals for the coming seasons while bringing extremely consistent work ethic to the table. The term closed out with our hike up Mt Schunemonk where for the first time in team history we didn’t lose anyone on the mountain (a good omen? Or bad?) For the winter break, we once again participated in Le Tour De Poughkeepsie, a 6 week “stage race” competition where the athletes compete to earn meters through a variety of exercise opportunities. I am still tabulating the results, but rest assured I’ll let you know who won! As we closed out winter break, our top 22 athletes flew to FL where we completed 5 days of training in DeLand, just north of Orlando. By comparison to 2023 this group was clearly more developed and prepared for the training we faced on the trip. There was a lengthy seat racing matrix which was considerably more competitive and notably better weather was a nice plus. The crew is now in our first week of term and our first week back on the erg for 2024 as a team. We’re excited to see what we can do together as we prepare for the 2024 campaign. In the meantime, coach Stratton and I have been hard at work on the recruiting front and as of today had signed at least 5 high priority applicants for the class of ’24 which is considerably better progress than we had made in 2023 at this time. We’re very excited about this class and while I’m not ready to announce names and hometowns yet we’ll be looking forward to introducing these men to the Red Fox Navy later this spring once the whole class is locked in.
Red Fox Navy Nike Store
Better late than never, we finally got our 2023/24 RFN Nike Store up and running. In spite of Nike supply chain issues we are able to offer an improved variety of options this year so I hope you enjoy! As with previous years, all items purchased will ship directly to you and a small portion of each purchase will go to help support the men’s and women’s rowing teams at Marist. The Nike store can be accessed at this link.
https://bsnteamsports.com/shop/9MoaRjGJmP
Giving Day Announcement
As many of you will remember, last spring we beta tested a new “giving day” format in June which we used to concentrate our giving efforts and really weaponize some giving firepower with matching gifts offered from 2 of our exceptional alumni oarsmen. This was a fabulous success for the team and we raised more money than any previous RFN year while also getting more total donors! Men’s Rowing also helped to provide some serious support for the giving day concept which is now being adopted by the whole college (proudly leading the way!)
New for 2024 Men’s Rowing will be just one of many teams, clubs, and programs at Marist all competing to raise money on our full college giving day which has been announced for Wednesday March 20th. There will be much more news and much more noise about this in the coming months as we prepare for giving day, but today I mostly wanted to give a special thanks to our challenge givers from 2023 as well as everyone to donated to support the Red Fox Navy. If you gave in excess of $5000 in 2023 (our “Captain” level) and/or are planning to do so again in 2024 Bob Missert and I would love to chat with you in the next few weeks about how we can best use your support to energize and engage the rest of the Red Fox Navy and really make a splash on giving day. For everyone else, start setting your calendars and communicating the giving day to your crew mates. The RFN has an opportunity to make a very big and very public statement together about our support and goals for Marist Men’s Rowing this March and for the first time it will be in direct context with other efforts at the college. We look forward to working with you once again as we approach giving day. Go Red Foxes!
PS I have attached below here our RFN ranking members for 2023
