Wappingers Crew Club celebrates its
20th anniversary

Wappingers Crew Club (WCC), established in 2004, will be celebrating its 20th anniversary this year. Since its founding, Wappingers Crew Club has consistently fostered an environment for their hardworking student-athletes from both high schools and middle schools in the district to succeed.

WCC was founded in the spring of 2002 by former John Jay science teacher, Pat Hancock, during his second year of teaching. He had previously been Commodore (captain) of the Cornell University lightweight crew and coached novice rowers at Marist College for four years, so he was very enthusiastic when the principal at the time, Mr. Tobin, asked him to coach the new district team. “I jumped at the chance,” says Hancock.

In the beginning, the team was made up of just a few Wappingers students, both boys and girls, who had gone to a training event for new rowers at the Hudson River Rowing Association (HRRA) boathouse and enjoyed the sport. Those students, along with their dedicated parents, worked hard to create the Wappingers Crew Club. Hancock is forever  grateful to this initial group, saying that, “Without this motivated group of students and parents, there would be no Wappingers crew,” and that he was “lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time with some solid rowing experience.”

In its first year, WCC rowed where Quiet Cove Park now exists, north of Marist College. This site had been used by the U.S. Naval Academy Crews in the first half of the 20th century for the Poughkeepsie Regatta, at the time a premier sporting event in the nation. The Boys in the Boat, a famous novel that was recently adapted into a film, features the Poughkeepsie Regatta. WCC shared the site with multiple other groups and had only two old boats, also known as shells, that they stored on an outdoor rack. In their first season of racing, they had little success. Hancock recalls, “Some teams made fun of us. But our kids worked and they got better, and that was the goal.”

Another problem WCC faced in its early years was acquiring its own shell carrier to transport boats to and from races. Hancock recalled finding “a cast off trailer with vines growing over it in the woods at the Quiet Cove site.” They were able to obtain it at no cost, but it needed a lot of work. Over the course of several weekends, WCC students and parents worked on the trailer at the repair garage of Bottini Fuel in Wappingers Falls, removing rust, repainting the trailer, rewiring it, and replacing the tires and hitch until the trailer was usable.

In WCC’s first five years, they grew from just 20 athletes to 85. “We were constantly looking for enough equipment to accommodate the growth, a good problem to have,” Hancock notes, “We were also gaining speed as a team, and improving our skills and training harder.” In the fourth year of WCC, the girl’s 4-rower team, coached by Kerri Roger, found success at the NYS Scholastic Rowing Championship in Saratoga, winning a bronze medal and qualifying for the National Championship. The team was placed in the fastest heat out of three, and placed third in their heat, while the top two finishers moved on to the finals. “Their time in third place was fast enough to have WON either of the other two heats!” Hancock remarked, “Such is the luck of the draw at times.”

Hancock recently retired in 2020, passing the Head Coach title to Matt Stufano. Stufano is a WCC alumnus, as are the other 6 coaches for WCC. He joined WCC in 2007, when he was in 7th grade, and returned after college in 2018 to become a coach. He reflects on the differences between the club then and now, saying that the “biggest difference is certainly the equipment.” They have upgraded their equipment a lot since their time of founding, though that is not the only reason for their success.

Both the Varsity Boys and Girls rowing teams have been extremely successful in recent seasons. The Varsity Girls have won the Dutchess County Cup 2 years in a row while the Varsity Boys have won the Dutchess County Cup 7 years in a row. The Varsity Boys have also won the Hudson Valley Rowing League (HVRL) Championship for three consecutive championships, while the Varsity Girls are hoping to claim their first HRVL win since 2012. Elizabeth Schlusser, Coach of the Varsity Girl’s team, says that they are “excited about the potential for the 2024 spring season.” She encourages anyone interested in these past victories to check out the Trophy Case in the Social Studies Wing next to room 233.

WCC’s success can be attributed to the hard work each and every athlete puts in. Starting in mid/late February, before the ice on the Hudson River has even melted, their training begins. Rowing is a full-body workout, so WCC athletes train by running, weightlifting, doing calisthenics, and erging. Ergs are simulated rowing machines that Stufano calls “a great tool,” though their high intensity makes them unpopular among the students who use them. When it is warmer, they move to the HRRA boathouse to begin rowing on the river and building race plans. Their season is the longest of all athletes, yet they manage to keep up in the classroom with about 75% of WCC’s varsity athletes attaining at least honor roll each season.

Coach Stufano encourages new athletes to try out the sport, which is typically unknown amongst most students. He says that one of their most important ideals is, “We will teach you everything you need to know.” In an athlete’s first year, they are a Novice, in which their goal is just to learn. With the support of the coaches and their teammates, student athletes often find a new love for the sport and stay past their first year, moving up to the Junior Varsity and Varsity teams. Really, anyone who has rowed for over a year is considered Varsity, but the boy’s team uses the JV label because they have so many rowers, while the girl’s team does not. Stufano says, “Crew is the ultimate team sport; you can’t win unless everyone in the boat is pulling precisely together and powerfully.” Not only are they a team in the boat, but they remain a team off the water, getting through difficult practices and early-morning regattas together.

Although recent years of WCC have faced fewer problems than earlier years, Coach Hancock does recall one notable incident. About six years ago in early March, the club had been out on the river, which he described as “uncharacteristically calm… like a mirror.” After a while, he noticed that the water was suddenly getting darker, though there was nothing in the forecast that had indicated any reason for this. In just minutes, the river went “from flat to 15 inch whitecaps” as a massive wind storm blew through. The girl’s 8 and girl’s 4 teams made it to the dock safely, albeit with their boats half full of water. The boys were not as lucky, as Hancock received a call from the boys’ coaches that they were beached, kids were in the water, and they needed help. Hancock was able to go back to the boys and ferry them to the dock, of which four rowers had to be sent to the emergency room after their plunge in the near-freezing river. The coaches then went out to reclaim their equipment, as it was floating down the river. “In an emergency, all of our rowers had done exactly what they were supposed to do,” Hancock praised.

For their 20th anniversary, the club will be hosting a banquet/reunion at the HRRA boathouse on April 13th. This will give alumni and current athletes alike a chance to see how much the club has grown in the last 20 years. The Wappingers Crew Club is also hosting a fundraiser for the Kerri Roger Memorial Boat Fund. The information is as follows:

“Earlier this year, the Wappingers Crew Club and John Jay HS communities lost a universally beloved member of their family, Kerri Roger, after a long fight with cancer. In addition to her impact in and out of the classroom, Kerri was a founding Coach of the Wappingers Crew Club. She was instrumental in not only bringing rowing to WCSD, but also its first State Championship Medals. In conjunction with WCC’s 20th anniversary this year, the WCC Board and Class of 2008 Alumni would like to announce that we are collecting donations toward the purchase of a new 8-person-rowing-shell in Kerri’s memory. The purchase of this boat will be a testament to her continued support of the team she helped build, as well as the community she was so involved in for years to come.”

If you are interested in contributing, you may do so through a check to Wappingers Crew Club, PO Box 221, Hopewell Jct, NY 12533 Attn: KR Boat, or through Zelle to wcckrdonation@gmail.com.

The passion and dedication of Wappingers Crew Club students and coaches alike is evident, as Coach Stufano says, “our athletes bond in a way that keeps them together for life (or at least for 1,500m on race day).”