Who is Texas Crew?
Texas Crew is the nationally competitive co-ed rowing team at the University of Texas.
As the home for over 100 rowers, we are both the largest club sport at the University of Texas and among the largest rowing programs in the country. Six days a week, we get up at 4:30 A.M. to make it to practice by 5:15, regardless of the weather. Texas Crew is led by an elected student executive board whose responsibilities range from recruitment, budgeting, organizing national travel for a large team, as well as the hiring and evaluation of paid coaching staff. From coast-to-coast, San Diego to Boston, we represent the University of Texas in the highest levels of competition.
Our Story:
For nearly half a century,
Texas Crew has had a remarkable history as the representative for not only the University of Texas but the state of Texas in the sport of rowing. Since its founding in 1969, Texas Crew has fostered an environment for adventurous spirits to fall in love with the sport of rowing, regardless of athleticism, exposure, or experience. Although the scope of this team reaches far and wide with rowers from all different disciplines and backgrounds, the unified vision of pursuing a higher level of performance and achievement is relentlessly pursued.
In the face of adversity,
this team has demonstrated grit and persistence. In 2013, all odds seemed to be against Texas Crew. The team was evicted from the boathouse it had called home for two decades for the construction of a new hotel. Dock access became a luxury; the team was left having to launch boats by walking waist-deep into the water under Interstate 35. Unrelenting thunderstorms and flash flooding caused over $30,000 worth of damage to now vulnerable equipment. The loss of a place to call home and severe equipment damage struck the team to its core. Recruitment was severely impacted and the team failed to field enough new members to replace those graduating, putting the team into a steep retraction. With a new home at Texas Rowing Center and a head coach entering his fifth season, this program has completed a remarkable turnaround. Through four years of fighting tooth and nail and many sleepless-nights-blurred-into-early-practices later, the team has reemerged from the passionate group of 20 rowers, to a powerhouse of over 100 dedicated men and women, committed to a vision of excellence at the national level. Back in its stride, Texas Crew brought home five medals from the American Collegiate Rowing Association National Championship and a total of 40 medals at national competitions in the past season.
Our Next Steps:
Like the university and state with which we share a name, Texas Crew is big, bold, and ambitious.
We have our sights set high, specifically to light the tower orange by bringing home a national championship victory. However, this cannot be accomplished alone.
It takes eight perfectly synced rowers to move a boat forward; it will take your support to move this program forward.
In order to properly maintain and grow, Texas Crew’s next steps are in protecting and repairing our fleet. Over the last few years, Texas Crew has grown exponentially, and although this growth of both people and fleet size has allowed us to strengthen our position in the rowing world, it has also started to display ‘growing pains’. Our boats experience almost constant use, and as such are consistently in need of repairs. Aside from that, our facilities to house our expanding fleet has nearly been outgrown. As such, we look to achieve two major goals. The first is the fund repairs and renovations for our the older equipment, allowing our rowers to reach their full potential. The second is to expand our storage facilities. This ranges from covers for our boats, to new frames to keep them off the ground, and possibly even upgrading our storage facilities. This will protect our new investments from potential damages, and provide space for even more growth.
Texas Crew is a student run 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization and every donation will be tax-deductible.
Stay in touch: texascrewfundraising@gmail.com
