Lowell - A Rowing Revival Story

**Reposted from my personal blog. Originally written in May 2013

I thought I would share the very interesting story behind the story of bringing the USRowing Northeast Junior District Championships back to Lowell.

When I was hired to work full-time with USRowing in 2010, the organization was planning to run the Northeast district championships for the first time. Previously, the event had been run in combination with the Mid-Atlantic championships by a group of coaches. My predecessor at USRowing had begun the process of having USRowing run these formerly combined events as two separate events. Part of this process involved finding a venue to host the Northeast championship.

That’s where Lowell comes in. The head coach at Lowell High School had started to work with my predecessor to bring the event to the Merrimack River. This required the group in Lowell to purchase and install a course on a running river that had never had a buoyed course before. The plan was to have Lowell High School purchase and install the course at the beginning of May, run two test events, and have everything set for our event on the third weekend of May.

As the regatta weekend approached, we found out that Lowell had purchased the materials for the course, but did not have it installed. With only a week to go, USRowing CEO Glenn Merry, myself, and Jim Buckalew, who runs our Southeast Masters Regional Championship, headed up to Lowell to install the course. I can’t really explain to you what all goes into installing thousands of meters of cable, hundreds of buoys, and to do it all in about 3 days. But, that’s what we did, and the course was perfect for the regatta.

Heading into the 2011 event, we felt much better about the set-up in Lowell. We never could have expected what happened that year. The week before the regatta, heavy rains dramatically increased the flow on the river, and debris caused significant damage to the course. The Lowell High folks were pulling all-nighters to have the course ready to go for racing on Saturday. On the first morning of racing, the team was still working to ensure that the course would be ready for the start of the first race at 8:00am. About 10 minutes before boats were going to start launching, I called the head coach, who was working on the course, to ask if the course would be ready or if we should delay launching. The coach said, “It’ll be ready in 5 minutes.” So, we stuck to our event plan.

Before that 5 minutes, I got a call from that same coach.

“AJ, I just had a body float by me on the river.”

That’s right. A dead body floated by on the river. We immediately stopped launching, and notified the police department, who was on site. The police took their boats across the river, and retrieved the body on the far shore, away from where the parents and kids were watching the regatta. As time passed, rumors began to spread about what was happening. By the time the police were finished, the rumor had the body count up to 4 or 5, and had them littered down the course. In fact, when the police Sargeant came over to tell me that we could resume racing, because their people were all off of the water, a call came over the radio from a referee claiming that the body was still on the far bank down by the finish line. It had never made it that far, but this just shows how the rumors were spreading.

Once given the all clear, we allowed crews to resume launching. It looked like it was going to be a little over an hour’s delay, but nothing we couldn’t handle. After a race or two, we started to hear from competitors that the buoy lines were not straight. We went to the bridge that crosses the course, and sure enough, two of the lanes were significantly bowed.

Come to find out, the course had not been sunk deep enough under the water near the bridge. When the police boats went to collect the body, their propellors cut the wires of the buoy lines near the bridge. So, essentially, we had thousands of meters of cable floating loose in the water. We had to clear the course, and take all of the buoy lines out of the water. Because of the amount of time this required, we were going to have to complete overhaul the schedule, and possibly cancel a bunch of races for novice and junior varsity kids, who are always the first ones to have their events cancelled.

I had to deliver the news to a room of 50 coaches. We were able to work with them to come up with a solution to get the non-varsity kids a set of races, and ended up finishing the regatta with no buoys.

Based on that experience, a complete overhaul was needed in Lowell. It looked like an inner-city high school was going to have to find a way to replace a $30,000 course, in order to ever hope to have the event back again.

At the 2011 event, I started working with the coach of the college program housed in the boathouse that is the main point on the venue. Over 2011 and 2012, I put together a team that included the convention and visitors’ bureau, Lowell High School, UMass-Lowell, and Merrimack River Rowing Association.

The CVB found itself in a situation where their only convention hotel had shut down, so they were looking for a way to fill their hotels without a big hotel. I brought them rowing.

The other organizations all were intersted in bringing the sport of rowing to the forefront in the community. Having the national-governing body run a regional championship there that is the same size of the national championship certainly fits that bill.

I put them in touch with the best course guy in the country, and they raised nearly $30,000 to purchase and install a brand new course.

This time, the plan worked as it should have back in 2010. The course was installed in April. The group ran three regattas on the course before our event. The weather was perfect, and no bodies floated down the course.

We will be in Lowell for the next two years. This was our committment to recognize the investment the community made in the course and the sport of rowing. The venue was magnificent last weekend, and could potentially host a national event in the future.

Bringing Lowell back to life may be the accomplishment I am most proud of so far in my career. It’s a great story, filled with great people, all trying to achieve something great. It’s great to be able to make a difference.

**Update

Since 2013, the venue has continued to have a strong presence in the city. The Lowell Rowing Regatta Association continues to manage regattas at the venue today. The river continues to host the USRowing Northeast Youth Championships, and has been announced as the 2025 host for the event. It has also hosted the USRowing Northeast/Mid-Atlantic Masters Regional Championships, USRowing Head Race National Championships, MPSRA Championships, and the Amber Zapatka Regattas since it's "relaunch" in 2013. The venue was even included in the Boston bid to host the 2028 Summer Olympics.

This story provides an inspirational tale of perseverance that can serve as a model for cities and locations looking to get started in the sport. The sport provides opportunity for a city both economically and culturally, and can become a lasting legacy when the right leadership team is brought together.