The men's crew team missed its chance to shine in the fall.
The squad returned five seniors to its first boat, seemingly poised to establish a winning culture at Tufts to go along with its brand-new boathouse on the Malden River. Unfortunately for the Jumbos, the team finished the fall season with those expectations largely unmet, ending the disappointing campaign with a sub-par finish at the Head of the Charles.
And as it turns out, the fall season might have been the team's best chance for success, as the crew will look quite different this spring due to the loss of fall co-captain Jeff Vanderkruik and senior Jordan Chiu, both of whom left the team for personal reasons. To make matters even worse, senior Nick Haslett suffered a shoulder injury and is out for the season, as well.
"It's always too bad [when people leave the team] because you never want to lose teammates and friends," said junior coxswain Faith Davis, who returns from a semester abroad to cox the first boat. "But if you're going to wake up at five every morning, you really have to love what you're doing and be passionate about it. For everyone here now, [crew] is their passion."
Luckily for the team, however, there is a slew of new rowers waiting in the wings, eager to fill any vacancies on the varsity roster.
"The end of someone's career is the beginning of someone else's," said head coach Jay Britt, now in his second stint as a Tufts rowing coach. "That's why the underclassmen are there."
This winter, the team trained with Tufts athletic trainer Mike Pimentel, who brought a revolutionary mindset to preparation for the spring season. Unlike in the fall, when crew teams race long-distance courses of five to six kilometers, races in the spring are two-kilometer sprints.
"In the past, our team was more geared to distance races, but our performance was often mediocre," senior captain Tim Pineau said. "The athletic department put together a weightlifting program for us to use in the offseason, and what we found is that we were too heavily focused on endurance training that we didn't need for 2k races. Long distance is the most damaging to your body."
The team hopes the new training regimen will start to show this weekend, when the Jumbos host their first race of the spring at their home course on the Malden River against Boston College, Vermont and Tulane.
Even though they have been limited to only a week of water time because of the weather, Britt was encouraged by the progress his team has made so early in the season.
"We made some [advances] on getting the blades into the water, and we've had improved hull speed and leg power that has led to us being able to get a lot of run at high ratings," Britt said. "[Monday] was a great practice - we were getting a lot of run at 36-38 strokes per minute."
An anonymous donor gave the team two new eight-man boats this spring, and though the team has yet to use them, it is more than grateful for such generosity.
Though the squad will race throughout the spring, its sights remain set primarily on two races: the New England Championships on May 6, and a regatta in Henley, England, which will draw on some of the world's finest talent. Tufts will send at least a four-man boat to Henley in July, but if it performs well enough during the season, there is a possibility they could send an eight as well.
"It's our performance at races like [New England's] that people all over the country, and at Henley, will be looking at to judge the Tufts University crew team," Pineau said. "I'm really psyched that we'll be sending a four or an eight to Henley in July. It's a good boost for the program, and after eight years of rowing, for me, that would be amazing."
