As you sign your child up for various sports and activities throughout their childhood, you hope that in addition to the skills they learn, they also absorb valuable lessons about hard work, sportsmanship, perseverance, and positive attitude — all the good stuff they’ll carry with them for the rest of their lives.##M:[more]## When Katie signed up to row with the Mercer Junior Rowing Club at Mercer Lake her sophomore year, we knew she was having fun learning a new sport and making new friends from high schools all over Mercer County and even Pennsylvania. What we didn’t know at the time was how important a factor rowing would be in the college application process, that in addition to her grades, test scores, and activities, colleges would find her a very attractive candidate as an athlete for their rowing programs. Katie was admitted early decision to Johns Hopkins, where she was recruited for the Division III rowing program. Many of her MJRC teammates will also continue to compete at the collegiate level, with many of them winning scholarships to row.
Other area rowers are bound for Harvard, MIT, Columbia, UCLA, Boston University, Notre Dame, Lehigh, Duke, University of Rhode Island, North Carolina, Trinity College, and Northeastern. It’s an impressive list of some of the finest institutions in this country, and it represents just some of the schools where high school seniors with the Mercer Junior Rowing Club have committed to rowing this fall.
In only six years since its inception, the MJRC, based at the Finn M.W. Caspersen Rowing Center at Mercer Lake in West Windsor, has become a powerhouse for the production of scholar-athletes heavily recruited by college rowing programs that are looking to fill their boats with students with a proven track record of fine academics, outstanding rowing skills, and dedication.
“The Mercer Juniors are a great group of kids who strive for excellence both athletically and academically,” says Sean McCourt, head coach and director of programs and events for MJRC. “In addition to the demands of school and homework, the students are practicing at the boathouse six days a week, two to three hours a day in fall, winter, and spring.
Training at the Caspersen Center has special perks for high school rowers, since Caspersen is an official training site for the U.S. Olympics. That means the Mercer Juniors train alongside world-class rowers, many of whom are currently in training for the Beijing Olympics. In fact, most of the MJRC coaches are past or present U.S. national team members, including McCourt’s wife, Megan, who won a silver medal winner at the 2004 Olympics in Athens.
“The coaches are a great inspiration for the Mercer Juniors,” says Sean McCourt. “How many other high school student-athletes get to train side by side with Olympic hopefuls? The kids get to see first-hand what it takes to be the absolute best you can be at something. During the 2004 Olympics in Athens, the kids would be up in the middle of the night, checking the Internet to see how the U.S. boats fared in their races.”
Mercer Lake is also the site of many world class rowing events, including the FISA Masters Worlds, as well as regattas that draw competitors from all over the country, including the NCAA championships. The Northeast/Mid-Atlantic Youth District Championships, a qualifier for the U.S. Rowing Youth Nationals, was also held on Mercer Lake this spring. In addition to races in New Jersey and on Philadelphia’s Schuylkill River, MJRC travels to Boston every fall to compete in the prestigious Head of the Charles Regatta. MJRC has competed in the renowned Women’s Henley Regatta in England, and this past April the first varsity crews traveled to California to compete against such powerhouses as Oakland Strokes and Los Gatos Rowing Club.
“Our coaches always encourage us to reach for our best,” says Katie Suyo, co-captain of the girls’ team who was recruited by Notre Dame, where she will be rowing in the fall. “Knowing and seeing how hard these guys work to achieve their goals, how could you not give your best?”
Rowing is a sport that demands long hours, lots of sweat and hard work, and a fierce determination to stay the course and win. It is a sport that teaches young athletes to develop inner strength and resolve, team work and leadership, all life skills that they will carry to college and beyond. The success of the MJRC rowing program in sending its rowers to some of the best schools in the nation is a testament to the young club’s brilliant track record in developing students with that winning attitude.
Following is a list of MJRC seniors from West Windsor and Plainsboro and where they are headed in the fall:
From High School South: Allison Friedlander will row at the University of Rhode Island; Isabel Hager-Johnson will row at Columbia University; Yaman Kuban will row at Lehigh University; Yigit Kuban will row at the University of Michigan; Kyle Rohrbach will row at Johns Hopkins; Allison Simi will row at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Andrew Wagner will row at Boston University; William Wagner will row at Northeastern; Jordan Berman will attend Quinnipiac University; and Kirsten Schenk will attend Loyola College in Maryland.
From High School North: Brenton Henry will row at the University of Western Ontario.
From Princeton Day School: Katie Brossman, a resident of Plainsboro, will row at Johns Hopkins University; Nick Ford, a resident of West Windsor, will also row at Johns Hopkins.
