USRowing is pleased to announce the winners of the 2023 Referee Awards.

Jack Franklin Award – Carolyn “Lyn” Wylder

Joan “Mama Z” Zandbergen Award – Sue-Kyung Farabaugh

About The Winners

Carolyn “Lyn” Wylder – Jack Franklin Award 

The Jack Franklin Award recognizes an individual for a lifetime of contributions to our sport. The winner of the Franklin Award is selected by the Referee Committee. 

Carolyn “Lyn” Wylder has a proven track record of exemplary service to the sport of rowing. Wylder began her refereeing career with her licensing in 1991. She augmented her domestic credentials by successfully being awarded her international license in 2003 at the World Championships in Milan, Italy. She is only the fifth American woman to attain this achievement.

Over 32 years, she has averaged over 18 regattas per year with almost 600 regattas in total. Wylder has consistently worked events both in-region and out-of-region, including conference championships, national team trials, and national championships. She was named the first female chief of the NCAA Rowing championships, and the only person to have been named Chief Referee at this regatta four times (2003, 2004, 2005, 2009). She has represented the U.S. in an official capacity at several international regattas including multiple world championships and the 2020 Paralympic Games. Wylder has answered the call numerous times, chiefing regattas, putting in many hours as the leader of the Referee Committee, and soothing many challenging situations.

In addition to her regatta work, she has committed countless hours to mentoring referees and working with LOCs to improve the athlete experience. Throughout her career, she has demonstrated the best qualities of rowing and refereeing: bravery and strength. By virtue of her being a referee, she has made the referee corps stronger and more inclusive.

In recognition of her tireless work for the sport of rowing, Lyn D. Wylder will have the national team’s women’s quadruple sculls named after her.

Sue-Kyung Farabaugh – Mama Z Award 

The Joan Zandbergen”Mama Z” Award for Sustained Superior Performance is presented to one USRowing official who, over a period of 3-10 years, has stood apart from the rest of their peers. The winner is selected by previous winners. 

Sue-Kyung Farabaugh is a perfect example of who the Mama Z Award honors. She has shown a dedication to rowing that is exemplified through her steadfast and calm approach. Farabaugh became an assistant referee in 2015 and passed the plenary exam in 2017. She is a very active referee working in many regattas from the local level to championship regattas. Farabaugh has expertly navigated multiple situations from rescuing a rower, implementing safe waters for all, and managing a deputy role for the PAC-12 Championships. Her communication style should be recorded for all to emulate.  She is an asset to every regatta and staff. Her work ethic, demeanor and ability to seamlessly “fit” with everyone is such a key to success.

As the June issue of the print magazine Rowing News went to press in mid-May, the NCAA-dominated world of college athletics braced for the settlement of the House vs. NCAA lawsuit. It’s expected to cost universities, which have been collecting record revenues from broadcast deals to show their student-athletes playing football, and to a lesser extent basketball, billions in payments to student-athletes and to reshape how college sports are paid for.

One possible outcome would require $20 million in payments from big-time football schools like Iowa State, whose athletic director halted plans for a new wrestling facility as well as renovations of the school’s Hilton Coliseum.

“With this lawsuit getting ready to be settled, you just can’t go forward with projects like that,” Iowa State Director of Athletics Jamie Pollard told The Des Moines Register. Other athletic directors have laid off staff already and are preparing for reduced budgets.
College rowing programs are well aware of the potential threat to their budgets—and existence. The best, as we report in the June issue, are doing something about it already.
No one has won more James Ten Eyck Memorial Trophies, for team points at the IRA National Championship Regatta, than Washington (17). The Huskies recently announced the establishment of their first endowed coaching position—in any sport–in honor of Blake Nordstrom, joining the growing crowd of endowed rowing coaches.

UCLA, the reigning men’s ACRA club national champions, has launched a $10-million endowment effort—with more than half already raised or committed—specifically aimed at “permanently establishing the opportunity that we all benefited from—a chance for young men and women to share life-defining experiences through the sport of rowing.”
In honor of two-time NCAA Division I champion coach Kevin Sauer, whose retirement announcement came out in May, University of Virginia rowers—men and women, club and varsity—gave over a million dollars last year to start a rowing endowment.
None of these programs, and the others already endowed, waited for either an NCAA-dependent athletics department or a cash-strapped student-activities budget to cut their funding, or entire program, before taking action to ensure that the opportunities of rowing continue.

And it’s not just the college programs that are taking their financial futures into their own hands. Regatta organizers—including USRowing, the Intercollegiate Rowing Association, and the New England Interscholastic Rowing Association—have sold the exclusive rights to their live video feeds to Overnght, a video-streaming service begun by former college student-athlete Kevin McReynolds.

As I wrote in this space last month, the only way to succeed in rowing is to work hard and to work together, and you couldn’t give a young person two better lessons. The only way our sport can continue to teach those lessons is to figure out how to pay for it.
As McReynolds says, “This is what the sport needs.”