Hi All,
Thanksgiving is over and, while the stores are readying themselves for Christmas, we, amongst the alumni, look beyond this minor celebration and focus on the most important holiday season of all: the January Virtual Erg Challenge. Every year we compete against the Spartan Alumni Rowing Association from Case Western Reserve and a team fielded by the University of Chicago Varsity with a little trash talk on the side to make things fun. If you haven’t participated in the past, create your logbook at the Concept 2 website and start logging meters (its on the honor system, cheating would be kind of pathetic):
Don’t forget to add yourself to our team, U Chicago Alumni Crew. If you’ve done the challenge in the past, don’t forget to activate your logbook for this years challenge. Concept 2 is jumping the shark and trying to run challenges all year round, so feel free to get in practice during the “Holiday Challenge” which is a non-team event that runs now through 12/26. January is all that really counts. We’ve been growing in participation since it started in January of 2006. It would be awesome if we could reach new records in numbers of rowers and meters rowed!
In other news, the men’s alumni team was fortunate enough to get into Philly just ahead of Sandy and pull together for a swift race in the Open Men’s Club Eights at the Head of the Schuylkill. The weather, at least for the time we were on the water, was terrific. This was the sixth year that we’ve fielded an alumni boat, which seems like a pretty amazing thing. Over the years that we’ve been doing this, there have been rowers in the boat who I wouldn’t have known, but for rowing with them at this race. I think it reminds all involved that it’s a fantastic thing to row a boat together. Anything that you might think of one another before the race, good or bad, goes out the door in the course of the event and at the end there’s little left except for the unity of having completed the race together, knowing that could not have been accomplished without every one in that boat. Again, that’s pretty amazing. But, we, being former U of C rowers, are not satisfied. We’d very much like to get more people involved for next year. John Bretscher AB ’83 put forward the idea of helping to subsidize a boat of younger rowers next year and a number of alumni have signed on. So, if you’ve been thinking about it in the past, think on it a little more in the future and get in touch as the time for next years Schuylkill draws closer.
Sincerely,
Albert A. Bowers AB ’01
In true UChicago fashion, the crew team has taken an imaginative turn in their fundraising efforts, 
GREAT NEWS! The UChicago men’s varsity lightweight four placed third at the Dad Vail Regatta with a time of 6:46.56. This is the first Chicago boat to medal at Vails in around 30 years. I have heard rumors that the last boat(s) to do this may have been back in the late seventies or early eighties. Way to go guys!!! This is a major accomplishment and something worth celebrating at the annual Row & BBQ this year. Remember, that’s June 4-5 this year.
Friends of Chicago Crew 