When the 2007 spring campaign ended for the women's crew team, the squad said goodbye to 13 seniors, including co-captains Airlia Esworthy and Faith Hester. Although Tufts lost more than a third of its team, it was not a reason to panic - the Jumbos have graduated at least 10 seniors for the last three years.
And while such a loss would be a blow to most teams, it hasn't been a problem for the Jumbos in the past. In the spring of 2006, the team placed fifth at Div. III Nationals.
Still, with 15 returning rowers and coxswains on board for the fall, the crew certainly won't be too inexperienced when it kicks off the season on Sunday.
"We have worked very hard in this early part of the season on improving technique and developing our team's style of rowing," senior co-captain Caitlin Gallagher wrote in an e-mail to the Daily. "We've spent a lot of time videotaping and analyzing and put in miles on the water to back enforce it. As we head into the racing season, I think this will show."
The Jumbos are hoping their hard work will pay off as they embark on the endurance tests of the fall. As opposed to the 2k spring races that are more like a sprint, the fall courses are 5k, which take closer to 20 minutes to finish. These regattas also feature a "head race," or staggered start times, based on previous finishes, meaning that instead of racing directly against opponents, the crew races against the clock.
The fall season will also give the team a sneak peek at some of its opponents for the spring, allowing it to gauge the competition of its opponents well before the second leg of the season. In particular, the Jumbos are eyeing Wellesley, which is looking to make a comeback.
"This year I'm curious to see how Wellesley fares," coach Gary Caldwell wrote in an e-mail to the Daily. "They have been methodically rebuilding and at the end of last year were on the cusp of taking the next step. I expect they will be very competitive this fall."
The Jumbos, as always, will also be watching their NESCAC opponents. While the established Trinity, Colby and Williams will likely come back strong this year, rebuilding teams such as Wesleyan and Conn. College will be a question mark for the Jumbos.
"We start to get some sense of who has arrived, so to speak," Caldwell said. "Schools that didn't have terrific years may start to show some speed, while some others might have lots of students abroad, like us."
Tufts will welcome back eight rowers for the spring, while it will lose just two to programs abroad. With so many people overseas, the team will only be rowing two varsity eights and a varsity four, a result of the smaller squad.
"That group will develop an identity [this fall]," Caldwell said. "[The] transition and re-absorption will be very interesting. The ones abroad this semester will come back to a squad where one third of the people here this fall are new."
"We need to continue to build and grow as a team," Gallagher added. "The team we have right now is unlike any team before it or any after it, and every member of this year's group has the unique opportunity to build an identity that we will carry throughout this year."
The team will test its new lineup this weekend as it starts off its season with the Textile River Regatta in Lowell, Mass. While the Jumbos will be without Gallagher, whose participation in a development camp this summer leaves her ineligible for the regatta, they will look to senior co-captain Sara Douglass and the rest of their upperclassmen core to help them start the season off on the right track.
