History of Crew at St. Paul's

Crew began in the spring of 2001 with about two eights worth of boys. Rowing out of Canton from 2001-2002 and The Living Classrooms Foundation property from 2003-2005, the crew team gauged success in the early going by learning to row better each week, starting to beat boats here and there and training harder and harder.

Then in 2004, rowing our first brand new Vespoli eight and four, St. Paul’s starting winning regattas. In 2005, we won all five races we entered at the William Fritz Regatta on the Potomac that year, stunning all our rivals. That same year, we even surprised ourselves by finishing sixth in the Jr. 4 event at the Stotesbury Cup Regatta, the worlds largest and most competitive high school regatta.

Always a popular sport at St. Paul’s, rowing was also gaining a competitive reputation and began drawing larger numbers to the team. In 2006 we moved to Middle River and began having longer, more productive practices on calm water without battling water taxis and huge wakes in the Inner Harbor. Boys started training harder in the winter months to get ready for spring crew and it showed. Our fleet of boats expanded to two eights and three fours to accommodate a steady 35 to 38 rowers by 2009. More important, rowers emerged in the last five years as serious athletes and contenders for college recruiting. Therefore, the top rowers led the way in training and setting a tone of a serious commitment to winning.

In the past four years, St. Paul’s rowers have gone on to row at the following collegiate programs: Colgate, Coast Guard, Williams, Georgetown, Middlebury, Rollins, Hobart, Yale, Navy, Vermont, U. Penn, Trinity, Brown, and Drexel.