By Paul Esau (The Cascade) – Email
Date Posted: August 30, 2011
Print Edition: August 25, 2011
The rowing team is coming off an impressive 2010-2011 season, in which the women’s team placed third at the Western Canada Championships and tenth at the Nationals. The program is coached by Liz Chisholm who is beginning her tenth season as head coach, and was kind enough to answer a few questions for The Cascade.
What was your personal highlight from last season?
My personal highlight would be that two of our members on the team [Courtenay Lanseidel and Spencer Lanseidel] made the selection to row for Team BC in the National Rowing Championships. So that’s Olympians and pre-Olympians and all that from across Canada. That was really exciting. Also, a former rower [Lisa Roman] who started with us, made the Under-23 national team and actually got gold in the World Championships this summer. Just watching the development of athletes in the UFV programs and their successes, those were the highlights of last year.
What do you think the team learned last season? What are you building on coming into this season?
We took a full open women’s boating [team] and most of the lightweight women’s boating [team] to our national Canadian University rowing championships last November, along with a small crew of men’s. We placed tenth in the country on both men’s and women’s. This year what we’ve realized is our potential to sit within the top ten for sure, even though we didn’t have a full men’s roster. So this year our focus is to take a full men’s roster in November and see if we can’t bump our placing up.
So you’re going to kidnap some dudes out of the dorms?
I’ve already done that.
What does a successful season look like to you guys?
I think adding to a student’s experience at university, but also being part of a community. Sport can be like the front porch of a university in that you get out to places that other clubs and associations and programs on campus don’t have the opportunity to reach.
Are there any new recruits coming in this year that you’re really excited about?
I have two new recruits, one male, one female. Brad Jones is coming from rowing at a high school program at our home venue in Fort Langley, and Nadine Mross is coming for her post-bachelors degree and has been rowing for four years. I’m pretty excited about these two.
How can students at UFV support your team?
We love to see people come out to events, and there are a few local ones…we also open up our program, if anyone wants to learn to row for six weeks during the fall. We start [the program] the first week of school and we don’t refuse anybody. People get to learn a new sport, get to know other people on campus, and it’s coached by the UFV rowing team. The info meeting is September 8, at 5:30 in A259.
