‘There’s no other sport like it.’ With help from Penn State, local teen forms area rowing club

In a classroom on the ground floor of the State College Area High School late on a Friday afternoon, several girls were hard at work lifting heavy rowing machines and placing them upright against the walls after a sweaty 90-minute practice.

State College Area Rowing, or SCAR, is Centre County’s newest spring sport for girls. The club practices every day at State High from 4-5:30 p.m., and participates in various competitions throughout the season.

On Feb. 3, the team will compete in a two-kilometer indoor race on ergs (short for ergometer — an indoor rowing machine). They will also compete in four regattas, or outdoor boat races, in the spring.

While Penn State has a rowing team, Penn State Crew, there hasn’t been an outlet for area youth to participate in the sport, which involves teams rowing in unison on a lake or other body of water against other boats. The standard race length for high school students is two kilometers, or 1.24 miles.

After trying rowing at a program in Georgetown, State High junior Amelia Wyckoff quickly fell in love with the sport and wanted it to be available to everyone. She decided to form a club, but found it’s not easy starting from scratch.

The ergs, for example, are what SCAR typically uses to practice, since they can’t always borrow boats from Penn State Crew. A boat (or “shell,” in rower lingo) can cost upward of $40,000.

“It was really hard getting Penn State involved in the beginning because of NCAA rules,” Wyckoff said. “But we were really fortunate and we had such helpful people in the process.”

John O’Brien, SCAR’s head coach and the assistant coach for Penn State Crew, worked with Wyckoff all summer to grow the program from a group of four people going to Bald Eagle State Park — where both teams practice when it’s warm enough — to a 12-person team made up of State High students.

“(O’Brien) really helped me put my dream of the club in place,” Wyckoff said.

Diane Swauger, State High’s fitness center operator, helped the group create a plan for working out in the fitness center once a week. And Loren Crispell, State High’s assistant athletic director, helped SCAR get practice space and promotional announcements broadcast throughout the school.

Crispell has also helped in their efforts to become an official State High club. Right now, SCAR is allowed to practice at State High, but isn’t technically affiliated with the school. They are incorporated as a nonprofit in Pennsylvania and just filed for 501(c)(3) status.

Recently, O’Brien has been working with Wyckoff to help SCAR gets its own equipment and grow the team. O’Brien is a graduate student at Penn State, and doesn’t plan to stick around State College forever. He emphasized the need for infrastructure that will keep SCAR alive even after he leaves. Part of that goal requires expansion.

“Right now we’re only a girls club. There’s no reason to restrict it to that,” O’Brien said. “But men and women compete and train in separate boats, which go at different speeds, and you can’t really have one coach running back and forth.”

Wyckoff has found, however, that the community’s interest in SCAR and the connections locals have to rowing are plentiful.

“We’ve had tons of interest from State High,” she said.

Kate Lukens, a member of the club, first found out about SCAR from a friend’s post on Instagram. She enjoyed canoeing and kayaking, so she figured she’d give it a shot (“I know they’re all very different things now,” she said, laughing).

“I haven’t been in a sport before,” Lukens said. “(SCAR) is a really nice community because you get to row and workout but you also get to hang out with other people, which is really nice.”

Wyckoff, on the other hand, had tried many sports before rowing, and said nothing could compare.

“The one thing I really liked about rowing and why I fell in love with it is because there’s no superstar on the team, or ball hog, compared to other girls and guys sports,” Wyckoff said. “You have to listen to one another and at least respect one another, which is different. You have to work together. There’s no other sport like it.”

Any State High student interested in joining can contact statecollegearearowing@gmail.com.

This story was originally published January 23, 2020 at 9:06 AM.