Rowing Alumni Update: RFN Team Store is OPEN / Connor's ERG Wrap-Up / Biathlon After Action Report
Dear Marist Rowing Alumni, Family, and Friends,
It’s been an exciting few weeks here at Marist. The weather continues to act as our moderator. We spent all of Jan with temps in the 50s and perfect water. The docks finally went back in this past Tuesday, just in time for the temps to drop to less than 10 degrees yesterday and start snowing (shaking our heads). Regardless of the temps, the oarsmen and coxswains were super excited to go back to pulling on real oars in real boats and we’re trying to maximize the benefit of our earliest dock-in date in at least 5 years. I have LOTS of information to send this week and so I’ve decided to break it up into TWO emails to make it more manageable and not bore you all to tears! In this first email we’re going to get business out of the way. Today we are announcing the opening of the Marist Red Fox Navy Nike Store for this year, getting you one last update on fund raising for the Connor’s Erg Challenge and giving you some updates on the Marist Biathlon! Later this week We’ll be announcing our race calendar for 2022 and giving you a quick preview as well as updating you on the team’s fund raising so far this season.
RED FOX NAVY TEAM STORE!!!
We’re excited to once again be offering our alumni access to great Nike Gear from our Nike provider BSN sports. Like last year we have incorporated the “Red Fox Navy” logo into several of the pieces to celebrate our excellent team of alumni and parent supporters. The store can be accessed at the following link.
https://bsnteamsports.com/shop/pNsyWYwGTh
All orders from the RFN store will ship directly to you and a small portion of the proceeds from each purchase will go to support the team. The store will remain open throughout the next two weeks and close on March 13th. We will endeavor to remind you a few times before it closes.
On a quick side note I just wanted to mention that we did try to incorporate a hat into this year’s store but to no avail (BSN does not stock them) Bob Missert and I are working on a separate opportunity to order a hat with team and RFN logos on it and we hope to have that headed your way soon!
Wrapping up Connor’s Erg Challenge
Earlier this month the team completed the Connor’s Erg Challenge. This is a virtual fundraiser/erg race in which the team raises money towards research on pediatric brain cancers (the biggest disease related killer of young people) and then races 100K as a team on the erg. This year’s crew completed the challenge on Feb 10th. We had 16 athletes complete the challenge and another 4 who jumped in for a few celebrity rips (myself and Coach Crawley included!). In spite of having a 20% smaller crew than last year we still completed the 100k relay in a total time of just 5hrs, 4mins and 50.1 seconds for an average split of 1:31.4! I felt that the crew did really well and we were excited to be a part of a great event again this winter.
I wanted to encourage anyone who hasn’t already, to join us to donating about $20 to the Robert Connor Dawes Foundation in our team’s name. It’s a great cause and also a great source of fun for our team each winter. To donate simply click on the following link.
https://www.connorserg.com/join/maristcollegemensrowing
Annual Rowing Biathlon: A Tradition Unlike Any Other!
I wanted to thank everyone who stopped by in our Facebook Live Stream on Super Sunday to catch the Biathlon. This annual event has continued to be a huge favorite for the athletes. You should have seen the backlash when I suggested that we skip the event this winter because our slate was so full (I won’t make that mistake again!). If you didn’t catch the event live OR if you did and you just want a good chuckle, I want to encourage you to watch a short video made by our team captain Gavin Crouch about the Biathlon which you can see on his Youtube channel at this link:
It was much warmer and less windy this year for the Biathlon and we had an exceptional freshman winner (for at least as long as I’ve been here). Matthew Welch is a lightweight oarsman from Christian Brothers Academy in North Jersey and has been having a seriously strong season here at Marist as a freshman. He came into the day knowing he was unlikely to win the erg but that he was light and quick on the road and could probably pass the erg hammers on the run. Just like he planned he got off the machine about 1 minute behind the leaders but quickly tracked them down and walked away to a clear victory. Meanwhile our two captains duked it out for the other two podium positions and the rest of the team had a great time enjoying another suffer fest that’s totally unique to Marist Rowing.
We hope you are all doing well and enjoying our mild winter. The team is eagerly preparing for our trip to Clemson to be followed by a great racing season. Keep an eye on your emails later this week for some updates on our own fund raising and the announcement and preview of our upcoming spring racing calendar!
GO RED FOXES!