History of Rowing

Rowing has been a sport for over three thousand years. Learn facts and skills for competitive rowing in this rowing video.

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Rowing is the oldest intercollegiate sport
Rowing was 1 of the first Olympic games

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Charles is the head coach/chief instructor at the Texas Rowing Center and has been a rowing coach for many years. He loves heading outside to row every morning and enjoys the view.

CHARLES BARKSDALE: Hi. My name is Charles Barksdale. I will be talking to you briefly about the history of rowing. Rowing is the oldest intercollegiate sport beginning back in 1852 between Yale and Harvard. Rowing is also one of the first games in the original Olympics. The modern inventor of the rowing of the Olympics was a rower himself. Rowing has been around since late 1700s and basically rowing was a bunch of taxi cab drivers on the Thames River who just started getting into competitions saying, "I can row faster than you," or, "Get the person or the cargo across the river a little faster," and then it evolved from there. Rowing was actually second to boxing at the turn of the century in the amount of spectators in gambling. In 1902, I believe, in Austin, they had a race with the prize of $1500 but somebody arranged it would be for about $40,000 and they have over a hundred thousand spectators here in Austin watching a regatta. Around the east coast, regattas have been going on for years. Gambling was the major reason rowing kind of fell out of favor in that respect for a little while and now it is just an amateur sport; there are no professionals in rowing even though there are some cash prizes but we consider it an amateur sport.

History of Rowing Video

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