Northeastern Men srowing 2017WinterNewsleter Leterfrom HeadCoach JohnPojednic Leterfrom AssistantCoach JustinJones Leterfrom 2017-2018Captain WaystoGive 2018SpringSchedule
Alumni, Parents and Friends: Your Northeastern Crews have had an exciting, productive, and rewarding fall season. Warm temperatures, low river flow, and relatively little rainfall made for great conditions on the river. We spent a good amount of time in four evenly matched 8+ s to build squad depth, work the basics of moving boats well, and accumulate a baseline of volume that we can build off of throughout the entire year. We raced at the Head of the Housatonic, The Head of the Charles, and the Foot of the Charles. Each outing provided the opportunity to test different combinations and give the crews the opportunity to demonstrate the ability to perform on race day. The team produced very strong results at each race, demonstrating both top end speed and very strong overall depth. At the Head of the Charles, our Varsity 8+ finished fifth overall and fourth in a tightly-packed and record-shattering top 5 of U.S. colleges in the Championship 8+ s race (1st: California, 2nd: Yale, 3rd: Harvard, 4th: Northeastern, 5th: Washington) and our Second Varsity also finished in the top half of the field in that same race, posting a very fast time and besting numerous IRA level Varsity 8+ s. We also fielded a Champ 4+, a Club 4+ and a Club 8+, all of which raced very well and achieved solid results. The internal culture of our team is sacred to us, and, is an element we strive to cultivate each day. As so many of you know well from the success you experience in your own lives, the constitution of the people who make up an organization will ultimately dictate success or failure. As we continue to re-define our approach to recruiting, we feel strongly that we have identified what the profile of an OKG (our kind of guy) is for the current era of Northeastern Crew. These Huskies are true sled dogs, athletes who can bring significant individual ability into our organization while simultaneously embracing the concept that we are a pack, and only as a pack will we truly exceed the sum of our parts. These Huskies do not hail from any one place in particular our recruiting efforts domestically and globally are far-reaching and oriented towards finding the common threads among oarsmen from a wide array of backgrounds. This process involves all of the coaches and all of the student-athletes on our team. We all take this very seriously, and the success we are having in recruiting is a product of this collective effort. We are thrilled at the caliber of oarsmen who are committing to joining our pack, and look forward to announcing the successful recruitment of another deep and capable class. We feel we are poised to take a meaningful step in the spring of 2018, and this is backed by a body of evidence comprised of both internal training data and external results achieved this year so far. Like all intercollegiate sports, achieving top five results nationally is incredibly challenging and comes as the product of long-term planning and execution of clear program-building strategies. We are confident we are on the right track and are excited about what our program will achieve in the coming seasons. None of this would be possible without your support. We ask for your continued commitment to being there to cheer on Husky Crews on race day, and we genuinely hope you will support the program financially. Our three main areas of need are clear: Supplemental funds for recruiting and outreach Winter training camp in Florida Boats, oars, and ergometers. The University is more supportive of the rowing teams than it has been at any previous time in the history of our program. With that said, it s the nature of our sport that financial generosity from Friends is also a key driver of success; we can t forget for one moment who we are trying to get in front of, and these are some very well-heeled organizations. As we approach the holiday season, I wish you and your families a wonderful season of relaxation and time spent with loved ones. Thank you to all of you who continue to show such support for the team; we are working hard and looking forward to making you proud! One Pack, Go Huskies! All my best, John
Huskies: Rowing for Northeastern is a lifestyle that persists long after an athlete s four-year collegiate eligibility concludes. It produces a type of individual that shares a common bond among other members of this pack: a bond which bridges generations and national borders. This bond remains, quietly and consistently carried with each of us, as we continue to branch out and to leave our mark on the world in our own respective ways, but it never fades, and it always draws us back together. The Head of the Charles proved yet again to be a spectacle in the sport of rowing, and it brought together a truly awesome group of Huskies to row in the Alumni 8 s. Competition for this event was at an all-time high, as the course record was shattered by a number of crews composed of recent grads, senior-team athletes and talented older oarsmen. For the first time, we had three eights in this event: the A entry raced to a competitive fifth place in a time of 14:51, the fastest time rowed by our Alumni in this event since its formation a number of years ago. The B entry finished a strong 27th, and was filled by a number of all-stars from our proud 90 s crews. The C entry finished 45th, ahead of some much younger crews, and was composed of our usual Senior Men s 50+ athletes, who have been pulling hard at this regatta for an incredible number of years. It truly was an exciting event to be a part of, and we should all start training now for next fall s race! The Varsity Club Hall of Fame recognizes Northeastern s most impactful student-athletes, coaches and benefactors. This year, we were very proud to see our own Scott Fentress, Class of 2000, added to the ranks. Scott s impact on our program as a team captain, driver of the 96 crew, World Champion for the US Senior Men s team, and career Navy SEAL are truly legendary testaments to the type of man we all aspire to be. We are all incredibly proud, honored and humbled to be in his company as fellow Huskies. This Spring, the current generation of Huskies will kick off the regular season with a series of races at the San Diego Crew Classic. We haven t raced there since the Spring of 2014, where the Varsity 8+ and JV 8+ both captured a pair of second place finishes. The Huskies will be looking to start the season off strong against a deeper field than we ve seen at this regatta before, and it will certainly prove to be an exciting competitive opportunity for each of the oarsmen selected to make that trip out west. An Alumni 8+ event exists at this regatta, and if there is enough interest present in our ranks to join the current generation in bending an oar for Northeastern once more, we would like to assemble a crew to race. Please reach out to me directly via email if you are someone who would like to come support the Huskies by making the trip to San Diego. Thank you very much for your support. It truly is an exciting time to be a Husky, and we are on the brink of what we think has the potential to be something special. Go Huskies. Justin Jones Assistant Coach
Fellow Huskies, This year s Huskies have implemented a dramatic cultural change in competitiveness, aggression, and embracing good, hard work. Though some monumental changes in team culture were made last season, we felt that there was room to grow in terms of our on-water tenacity in order to become a group of race-hardened Huskies following last spring s IRA Championships. The Fall training plan has seen the oarsmen take advantage of daily opportunities to push ourselves against each other at a maximal or near-maximal intensity. Incorporating the staple Harvard Stadium workout, running, erging, pairs, fours, and eights racing, we aim to get better through the work and build a bulletproof culture based around racing. With a new class of 15 freshmen, the team has now grown to 38 for the 2017-18 season. The extensive work done by the coaching staff and university to bring in the best talent from across the United States and the world has already shown some very real results. Northeastern is a top-choice school, and with every promising race result, we accumulate more and more recruiting power. We find ourselves bringing in the absolute top junior talent from the Junior and U23 World Championships, and this trend can only go up. As current upperclassmen, it is our responsibility to make sure this trend continues, and we see to it that Northeastern becomes the powerhouse it is set up to be. Entering the Head of the Housatonic for the first time in many years, the four Northeastern eights made a big statement to start off the year. Taking out second, sixth, seventh and 14th place, our depth proved strong in a field amongst Yale, Harvard, Brown and others. Under near-perfect conditions for the duration of the weekend, the Head of the Charles Regatta proved to be a great day to be Husky. Entering two Champ Eights, one Champ Coxed Four, one Club Eight, and one Club Coxed Four, the Huskies finished in fifth, 13th, sixth, fifth, and seventh, respectively. Special mentions to the B Champ 8+, finishing ahead of every other B boat in the event. Our final race for the Fall, the Foot of the Charles, was a great performance among the four Coxed Fours and the two Eights entered. Lining up against our usual New England rivals in Boston University, Brown and Harvard, our Huskies fought through freezing Charles conditions to take out third, fourth, sixth and 12th in the fours event, and second and seventh in the eights. Though we didn t win the main fours event, our depth proved strong again, with the Huskies being the fastest team across all boat classes. Though this was arguably our best FOTC result in many years, it has left us even hungrier, knowing that we are right on the cusp of the traditional conference leaders and owning the ILAK legacy. At the core of the Huskies approach to the Fall season are three foundations: accountability, excellence, and purpose. We push each other every day to be punctual and uphold the highest possible standard of training. Especially entering the holiday season, where our oarsmen scatter to all corners of the world to spend some time at home, it is important that we hold each other accountable to the training plan, and keep the long-term goals of the program in sight. We take ownership of the team and the course we take. This sense of accountability feeds our hunger to do something great this season. Another theme for the Fall has been striving for excellence in all that we do. We received the highest average GPA among the men s athletics teams for the 2017 Spring (3.38) and we are looking to push the standard even further this Fall. The art of juggling rowing, school, and our personal lives is challenging at the best of times, but our desire for excellency outweighs all that stands in the way. We, as Northeastern oarsmen, are an exceptional group of people, and I am deeply proud of everyone s efforts thus far. Finally, we have taken a great leap forward in team culture both on and off the water this semester. At the core of this push in culture is an infallible sense of purpose held amongst the oarsmen. We have a tangible goal to be in the Grand Final of each boat class we enter at the IRA s in June, and an intangible X factor which I personally haven t seen in my time at Northeastern so far. The Fall season has been incredibly fun, extremely challenging, and downright rewarding. I am profoundly excited to see what the Huskies have to offer in the Spring. Andrew Maglio Captain, 18
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2018SpringSchedule VisitGoNU.com formoreinformation SanDiegoCrewClassic,March23-25 *vs.pennsylvaniaforduel BostonUniversity,April7 BrownUniversity,April14 HarvardUniversity,April28 WisconsinUniversity,April29 EasternSprints,May13 IRANationalChampionships,June1-3