The UFV rowing club has begun a massive rebuilding operation since Lisa Roman took up the mantle of coach and director of the club after the previous coach, Liz Chisholm, retired. Roman has a goal to build a well-functioning club, despite the challenges of people being unaware that the sport exists, and the taxes of a niche sport.
Langley-born, Roman started the journey that began with her taking an opportunity to learn about the sport at UFV Learn to Row lessons, similar to the ones she began coaching this year, before going on to Washington State to continue rowing. Roman has sat bow for Team Canada and attended multiple world championships, taking a bronze medal, and two silvers, and was on the 2020 gold medal-winning team. Not only is UFV lucky to have Roman’s knowledge and connections within the sport, but also her self-proclaimed strong-headedness to grow rowing as a sport here in the Fraser Valley. This is motivated by her experience in navigating the possibilities that can come from trying something you didn’t know that you could do before.
“I’m just doing whatever I can to provide opportunity,” Roman said about her role as the new coach and mentor to the potential athletes. “I was very open about anybody coming to these Learn to Row [lessons]. The start of university is kind of a weird age. You’re out of high school, but you don’t really know what you wanna do, it’s a confusing stage of your life. And I think sports can keep you in that lane.”
Part of the initiative to rebuild the rowing club has been the Learn to Row lessons that Roman conducted at the start of the fall semester. Learn to Rows give UFV students, alumni, and the athletic community opportunities to try their hand at rowing, and was met with a positive turnout. Perfect timing before the start rowing season starts to pick up and be chaotic.
The post-pandemic return of the Head of the Fort regatta that UFV holds annually in the spring, along the Bedford Channel in Fort Langley is a big draw for rowing, and a chance to spotlight the club and its athletes. This coming year, Roman is hoping to run a women’s camp and an LGBTQ+ camp in the spring, as well as more Learn to Rows open to anyone in the UFV and across the community. The proposed camps will allow the participants to get trained, get coached, and experience a race as part of the regatta.
While the Learn to Row lessons and Head of the Fort regatta has been successful in the rebuild, the club has made additional progress since Roman has taken over. Fresh talent has stepped into rowing and begun to show promise. However, the hardest part has been facing the heaviest tax of all niche sports: they’re expensive.
A set of oars for one person to use can be $1,100. A single pair’s boat can be $10,000, whereas a new eight-seater shell is closer to $60,000, according to Roman’s experience. Programs like UFV’s don’t have tons of alumni or tons of funding; therefore, the ongoing support from students and outside sources is integral to keeping the club afloat.
Gaining this support would open doors for UFV rowing to be able to compete in more races and things can spiral from there. Excitement around rowing would allow even a small program, such as this one, to bring in the number of students needed to become competitive and draw more interest.
“Anywhere between five and 10. As many as 16,” is what Roman said she’d need to have a good start for the club. “If I can get eight women so we can row an eight, we can actually contend in a lot of the categories of competition.”
A well-functioning club is an attainable goal that Roman believes can happen with an increase in interest. “I do think it’s possible, we’ve got a couple of kids that I think will do really well and that’ll be exciting. I think that will help grow the program more.”
The dream to be an official club comes with a small set of goals such as growing the interest of students and outside supporters to acquire another coach that could tag-team train the current and new coming students and athletes.
“I think there are lots of people that were in my situation, starting university, doing a different sport, wanted to still be an athlete, but didn’t really know what to do. A lot of athletes could excel in rowing, it’s a good transitional sport.” Roman says about rowing. “It’s a sport where you excel as you get older. There are lots of opportunities. And it’s very much an open playing field. I mean, as a coach or somebody that cares about the sport, I’m interested to watch these athletes grow from where they’re at now and see where they can go with it and find out what they didn’t know about themselves.”
Students, you are encouraged to reach out and try rowing, it is great for those who are wanting to start their university lives, or jumpstart their athleticism and get into a hobby that will also get you jacked while rebuilding a program that will bring more interest to UFV.
Teryn Midzain is an English Major with ambitious goals to write movies and a full-time nerd, whose personality and eccentrics run on high-octane like the cars he loves. More importantly, Teryn loves sports [Formula One], and doesn’t care who knows. When not creating and running deadly schemes in his D&D sessions, Teryn tries to reach the core of what makes the romantic and dramatic World of Sports, the characters and people that make the events so spectacular.
