When I was offered admission at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the first email I received on my new school email account had a subject line of “Become a UNC Division I Athlete at UNC-Chapel Hill.” Inside the email were documents inviting me to become the next member of UNC Rowing, a form for tryouts, and an insurance form. My first thought was, is this a mistake? Don't they know I'm already committed to the UNC swim team? I have never rowed a day in my life! I wondered why I had received such a confusing email. After asking around, I was informed that every woman athlete admitted to the UNC-CH receives the email on the first day of school. Essentially, the rowing team recruits anyone who checks their email and has a pulse. The email had me interested in the topic of women's college rowing, and I felt I had to do more research. 

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What I found out was surprising–the model of women's rowing at big, Power Five conference schools goes against everything we have learned as high school athletes trying to get recruited for our sport. In general, the pattern goes like this: the bigger the school, the bigger their athletic department, the more competitive and demanding their sports are. Big schools equal better programs, which equals harder to get recruited. That's the case for almost all collegiate sports, with the exception of women's rowing. 

How it Started

The modern wave of women's rowing programs getting scattered across the country began in 1972 with the passing of Title IX. The legislation requires schools to offer women equal opportunities to participate in sports. The law also mandated that schools keep statistics on scholarships, spending, and the number of athletes in each sport, parsed by gender. 

Athletic departments needed to balance the numbers because football teams were becoming so big and rich that they risked violating the new law. This situation led to the rapid addition of women's rowing programs across the country, which offset (and saved) college football and allowed schools to comply with Title IX which created a codependent relationship between the two sports. 

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How it's Going

Essentially, the development of women's rowing serves as a ploy for athletic departments to get away with their lavish and expensive football programs. At the beginning of each season, athletic directors send their women's rowing coaches a target roster number needed to balance the football roster number. The rosters were filled without much intention for a skilled athlete; as the coaches looked anywhere, they could find women to fill the spots. It is clear that the athletic departments do not care much about the quality of their rowing programs. As long as it exists and is proportional to the football team, that is all that matters.

In most college sports, the recruiting process can take years to months and involves lots of research and commitment on both the athlete and the coaching ends. In rowing, recruiting can sometimes involve a conversation that takes five minutes. I spoke with a female college athlete at an ACC school who recently committed to taking on a fifth-year and row for her school after she spent the past four years swimming. She was approached by the rowing coach at a dining hall during senior year. She left the conversation with a scholarship, a spot on the team, and admission to the school's prestigious graduate business school, where she will pursue an MBA degree in the fall.

“I don't know anything about rowing,” she said. “I've still never been on the water in a boat. And now I have a scholarship to business school.” And her experience is not much different from that of rowers at other Power Five conference schools. 

At UCLA, rowers are recruited during the first week of classes as they walk to class on Bruin Walk. Once rowers make the team, they are not allowed to receive any official Under Armour rowing or UCLA Athletics gear until they complete an entire season on the team. This practice illustrates the lack of consistency and retention rate of rowers on their team. 

Related: Looking Back on 2022: Title IX Turned 50 But Progress is Still Needed

At Wisconsin, rowing team rosters are upwards of 200 athletes. However, these roster numbers are collected at tryouts, when their turnout is the highest. None of these practices make sense until you understand that the only reason they are in place is to offset college football. The purpose of Title IX, and women's rowing as a whole, is to match the large football teams proportionally. 

In Compliance?

Legally, the schools are abiding by Title IX. But morally, are these athletic departments providing equal opportunities for their male and female athletes? Title IX wasn't created so schools could find loopholes in the system and exploit the power football has over other sports, but women's rowing illustrates clearly that not all sports are created equal. Though the addition of more women's programs may provide some level of opportunity, they are often not taken seriously nor equate in any way to the lavish football and men's basketball programs. There is still a long way to go in the name of equality and opportunity in college women's sports. 
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* Originally published on January 26, 2023, by Allison Goldblatt