A new path for female athletes

Earlier this month, NorCal Crew, a competitive rowing club based in Redwood City, announced the list of rowers who have committed to collegiate crew programs. Of the 15 rowers who announced their college choice, nine are female athletes.

That list includes: Ana Ciechanover (Hillsborough, Lick Wilmerding-SF High School, Princeton), Anna Koretsky (Sunnyvale, Fremont-Sunnyvale, UCLA), Cree Edwards (Menlo Park, Priory, Cornell), Elise Riney (Menlo Park, Menlo-Atherton, UCLA), Katie Friedman (Burlingame, USC), Natalie Escalera, Sunnyvale, Fremont-Sunnyvale, Washington State), Sadie Zweig (Woodside, Priory, Harvard), Scarlett Shenk (Menlo Park, Menlo-Atherton, UCLA) and Vienna Farano (Menlo Park, Castilleja, Columbia).

“It’s pretty awesome for these kids,” said Beth Anderson, the executive director for NorCal Crew. “Right now, we’re kind of in a rebuilding stage, but as far as athletes go, we had a girl on the U.S. national team who won a silver medal at Worlds.”

That would be Ciechanover, but she is far from the only accomplishment the NorCal girls had this season. Its four-member boat finished second at the prestigious Head of the Charles regatta in November.

But more importantly, NorCal Crew does a great job of quickly ramping up athletes to get them in the mix for college boats.

“We have four or five of the girls going to college who started rowing in the last 12 months,” Anderson said.

So why the sudden surge in popularity for women’s crew? College. Thanks to Title IX, women’s collegiate crew became a fully-funded, fully-supported NCAA program as of the 2025-26 academic year. Men’s college crew, on the other hand, is a club sport at the college level.

What this means is that there is a bunch of scholarship money burning the pockets of collegiate coaches for female rowers.

University of Texas, for example, has 68 scholarships available. Division I programs have access to nearly 70 scholarships, Division II as many as 20. That doesn’t mean every athlete gets a full ride, but it does mean that there are parts and pieces of scholarship money available.

“On the women’s side, rowing is growing and the recruiting is out of control. We have a kid who started in the spring and is going to Yale. One who started in the fall is going to UCLA,” Anderson said. “There is a lot of (college scholarship) money out there.”

There are a couple of barriers between competing for a club team and earning a scholarship at the college level. The biggest one is that many European athletes, who have been training in rowing for twice as long as most American kids, take a large number of college spots, simply because they have more experience.

“These kids from Europe graduate a year later and are a year strong and their high school (curriculum) includes that first year of college,” Anderson said.

The other hurdle is the cost. Like most other youth sports, you essentially have to pay to play. But Anderson pointed out that joining a club like NorCal Crew is in line with the costs of other club sports.

Additionally, Anderson said NorCal Crew does offer scholarships for those who need financial help and, unlike many other club sports, NorCal pays for for team trips.

“My youngest (child) did gymnastics and I said, ‘We’re playing WHAT?’” Anderson said. “I think rowing is about equal with gymnastics, less than volleyball. When we travel, we take the kids to the regatta. We don’t make the parents take them.

“We do offer scholarships. Pretty much anyone who asks for money, we will try to accommodate them. We really believe in the kids who want to do it.”

But you say you’ve never rowed in a boat in your life? No problem. Many haven’t when they sign up for NorCal Crew. If you have an athletic base, the club will teach you everything you need to know.

And all those skills acquired in the other sport you’ve played? They can transfer, too. Anderson said many come to the sport later in their youth careers, mainly because many families have already invested thousands of dollars in other sports clubs and shudder at the thought of suddenly changing course.

“I think the barrier to kids doing a sport when they’re young and then they don’t want to change. Parents are like, ‘I put all this money into gymnastics, all this money into basketball (you’re participating in those sports),’” Anderson said. “Rowing isn’t something you do when you’re young.”

But it is done by those athletes who haven’t quite found their niche in the more traditional sports.

“We love it when basketball players or water polo players come out. Cross country runners can be amazing rowers,” Anderson said. “The nice part about rowing is, it’s like riding a bike. Then it comes down to power and application. To be really good, you have to train a lot. But ultimately, it’s easy to go from zero to pretty good, fast.”

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NorCal Crew also have eight boys choose their colleges and universities. They include: Aidyn Eglington (Burlingame, Yale), Henry Alison (Woodside, Serra, Cal), Marco Alataris (Menlo Park, Priory, Cornell), Peter Ward (San Mateo, Serra, Cal), Sebastian Boom (Atherton, Wesleyan) and Thoreson Dakin (Burlingame, Sacred Heart Prep, Brown).

Nathan Mollat has been covering high school sports in San Mateo County for the San Mateo Daily Journal. since 2001. He can be reached by email: nathan@smdailyjournal.com.