College recruiting has become increasingly cutthroat, but with guidance, perspective, and candor, high-school rowers and their parents can navigate the process successfully.

A pioneer of collegiate women’s rowing, Virginia's Kevin Sauer has been one of the sport’s truly nice guys, running his program with family values that endeared him to his team and many others.

After the agony of Olympic selection, the head coach of the USRowing Training Center-Princeton is confident the process yielded the 12 best athletes. “We just have to make sure we don’t mess it up.”

“We had a team meeting this morning about the fact that words matter. Words are really important—how they talk to each other, how they talk to the trainer, how they talk to me, how they talk about me—all of that matters. Those kinds of life lessons will help them become not only better athletes, I hope, but also better people.”

With great athletes, great coaches, and great support, the exclusive New England prep school switched to eights and became the best rowing high school in America last year.

After the university tried to eliminate men’s rowing, Stanford, led by Northeastern alum Ted Sobolewski, has come back stronger, faster, and more resilient.

From colliding to capsizing, in foul weather or rough water, the perils of an outdoor water sport like rowing are obvious, potentially lethal—and totally preventable.

How training for top performance evolves over a lifetime.

When three coaches and 17 rowers left SMU for Tennessee last summer, it wasn’t the beginning of a transfer-portal apocalypse. It was the predictable result of a top athletic program devoting major resources to women’s rowing.

They have the most thankless job in our sport. Usually unpaid, often unappreciated, still unrated and unranked, referees are graying, and some regattas can’t find enough.

How the IOC’s drive for “universality” changed rowing for better and worse.

Like it or not, change—Beach Sprints, 1,500-meter racing, no lightweights at LA2028–is coming. The future of Olympic rowing is at stake. Will World Rowing lead or follow?