Hello and welcome to the Walk On information page for the Sacramento State Women's Rowing Team!
We are glad that you are interested in trying out.
If you are coming to Orientation in July or August, you can meet with a coach while you are there. Typically, we can meet during the Resource Fair from 12:30 - 1:30 p.m. Our table is located in the Pacific Suite on the third floor of the Student Union (the same building in which you are eating lunch). You can just stop by, or confirm your appointment by emailing assistant coach Sarah Puddicombe at
sarah.puddicombe@csus.edu.
This page will give you some background about the team, what you need to do to get started, as well as scheduling, etc. There is a A LOT of information here. Don't worry if you don't read through all of it, we will cover all of this at the orientations meetings.
Orientation Meetings
The meeting is during the first week of school on Wednesday, Aug. 28, at 7:00 p.m. and should take less than one hour. If you cannot attend the meeting, please contact Coach Puddicombe.
The meeting will be in Room 2260 in the Athletics Center. That's on the second floor and there will be people there to help you find the room. Use the map below to find the Athletics Center.
This meeting is not at the Well.
Pre-Participation Physical Exam
Everyone must get a physical before you can participate in any athletic activity. You can attend practice without it, but you can only observe until your physical is complete.
Our team doctors will be giving physicals to all incoming student-athletes at a date to be determined. For scheduling reasons, this is the best time to get your physical, even if you are not 100 percent sure you want to join the team. These will be given at the Student Health Center in the Well. Exact times for each team will be available later in the summer. Please email
 sarah.puddicombe@csus.edu if you can attend.
If you cannot attend, you can still come out for the team but future physicals will be on a first-come, first-served basis at the Well and it will take longer to get medically cleared. More details will be provided at a later date.
A mandatory part of the physical is being screened for the Sickle Cell Trait. This is an NCAA requirement. You were probably tested for this when you were an infant, and if you still have access to those records, you can bring a copy to fulfill the requirement. If you don't have them, then you can get re-screened as part of your physical exam.
Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions at
sarah.puddicombe@csus.edu.
General Information About Rowing and Sacramento State Rowing
Rowing, or Crew as it is sometimes referred, is the oldest intercollegiate sport in America. The first sporting event of any kind, between two universities, was a rowing race between Harvard and Yale in 1852. That race has been held annually ever since.
Rowing boats come in a variety of sizes and are classified by the number of people who are in the crew. There are one, two, four and eight person boats. In collegiate rowing, most of our races are in eight-person boats with a few events in fours. We will cover more information about the equipment during the first few days of practice.
Rowing is one of 21 varsity sports at Sacramento State, including Football, Men's and Women's Basketball and Women's Volleyball, that are administered by the Athletics Department. The Athletics Department covers the allowable expenses of the women's rowing team including equipment, travel, uniforms, coaching and scholarships.
The rowing team trains at the
Sacramento State Aquatic Center on Lake Natoma. It is, without a doubt, one of the finest rowing venues in the United States. The very first NCAA Rowing Championship was held at Lake Natoma, and the site has hosted the championship event 10 times overall. National teams from as far away as Germany have come to Lake Natoma to train.
Novice Rowing
The rowing team can be loosely divided into two groups - novice and returners. The returning group are athletes who are back to row for their second, third or fourth years of competition.
Novices are athletes in their first year of collegiate competition, the majority of whom have no previous rowing experience before attending college. They race the novices from other schools and do not typically race against more experienced athletes from other programs. Occasionally, very talented newcomers can be moved up to row with the returners in their first year.
Racing Season
Our racing season is from late February through the middle of May. Typically, we begin training for the racing season shortly after school begins in the fall in order to make sure everyone is ready to compete to the best of their ability in the spring. More info on practice times and dates are below.
Trying Out for the Team
The rowing team strives to be inclusive. However, new athletes need to have a base level of athletic ability necessary to compete at the intercollegiate level. To this end, we use tryouts to identify people with the combination of stature, stamina, and strength to make the team.
Since no one will have any rowing experience, the tryouts are not skill based. We do not have an exact number of spots to fill, but we would like to end up with about 25 new athletes. We will complete these evaluations in the first few weeks of practice and make any final roster adjustments at the end of the fall term.
Coxswains - the smaller and lighter athletes who steer the boat and give commands - do not get evaluated on the same criteria as rowers and do not go through the same process.
Practice Dates and Times
The Orientation Meeting will be Wednesday of the first week of class.
During the second week, we have the Labor Day Holiday, and we will use the rest of the week to get everyone through the pre-participation physical and Sickle Cell screening.
Practice will start at the beginning of the third week, on Monday, Sept. 9. That week, we will stay on campus and use rowing machines (ergometers) to go over the basic rowing technique. There will be a special schedule as follows:
Monday, Wednesday - 6:30 AM
Tuesday, Thursday - 1:30 PM
Friday - 2:15 PM
Everyone should attend practice as soon as they are medically cleared by the Training Room. The practices will be approximately 80 minutes long. (You will be able to attend an 8:00 a.m. class). Directions to the campus erg room will be provided.
If you are not cleared, you can still attend practice to observe only. This can be a good use of your time since we are going over a lot of new terminology and technique.
At the start of the fourth week of class (Monday, Sept. 16), we will go to our normal schedule that will last until early November. Practice times may be adjusted to accommodate class schedules. If you cannot make one or more of the practices, please talk to a coach. We will have some flexibility about times and attendance during the first semester.
Regular Schedule
Monday – Train on campus using rowing machines, running and some core/calisthenic work. Meet at 7:00 a.m. You can make a 9:00 a.m. class, but a 10:00 a.m. class is preferable (you will get more rowing time). Directions to the campus erg room will be provided.
Tuesday - Row 2:15 - 4:30 p.m. at the Aquatic Center.
Wednesday – Row at the Aquatic Center. Meet at 6:45 a.m. You can make a 9:00 a.m. class, but 10:00 a.m. class is preferable (you will get more rowing time).
Thursday – Same as Tuesday. Row 2:15 - 4:30 p.m. at the Aquatic Center.
Friday - Row 2:15 - 5:00 p.m. at the Aquatic Center.
Saturday - Row 7:00-10:00 a.m. at the Aquatic Center.
Sunday - Off
The practice times are the meeting times at the Aquatic Center. You should plan on at least 25 minutes to return to campus, depending on the time of day and where you are parking. Once we have sorted out everyone's class schedule, we may adjust the practice times to accommodate people. If you cannot make all of these practices, you should still come to the meeting.
Eligibility and the NCAA
You
must be enrolled in 12 units at Sacramento State to begin practicing.
The NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic Association) is the organization that oversees intercollegiate sports in the United States. They provide the rules of competition for all sports, make and monitor the recruiting policies, and set the minimum academic standards that all student-athletes must meet. These include standards that all incoming students must meet before coming to college.
Compliance with these standards is enforced by the NCAA Initial Eligibility Center. Since the academic standards to get admitted to Sacramento State are higher than those set by the NCAA, you should not have any problem being certified. Nonetheless, the Eligibility Center operates independently of campus admissions offices, so you must submit some information directly to them.
You will also need to complete the amateurism certification which states that you have not been a professional athlete before attending Sacramento State. This is not typically a problem for rowers.
Technically, you have 45 days after you start practicing to get certified, but it is a good idea to get this out of the way as soon as possible. If you went to more than one high school or attended high school outside of the U.S., the process can be more complicated which makes it especially important to get started early.
You will not be able to compete until you are certified by the NCAA.
All of the information you will need to get "cleared" by the NCAA can be found at
www.eligibilitycenter.org. They charge a $100 processing fee which they will not let us pay for you.
Additional Information for Continuing and Transfer Students
If you are a continuing or a transfer student, then you have some additional eligibility concerns that we need to address. As mentioned above, this can all get pretty confusing, and we will cover it all at the meeting. If you are a transfer student with questions about your eligibility, feel free to email us sarah.puddicombe@csus.edu.
There are three main requirements that we need to cover:
• Five Year Clock Rule
• Minimum Progress Toward Degree
• Qualifier Status or AA Degree
The first regulation is the "Five Year Clock Rule" which says that you have five years to compete four seasons in any sport from the time you begin as a full-time college student (enrolled in 12 units and attend at least the first day of class). Once you start full-time enrollment, the clock starts. This means that if you took a full-time load in the fall of 2017 or earlier, then your five-year clock has expired, even if you stopped attending school full-time after that initial full-time term. There are exceptions to this rule for time spent during military service, pregnancy, and religious missions.
If you are within your five-year "clock" to compete, then we need to see if you are making "Minimum Progress Towards Degree". The idea behind this rule is that the NCAA wants athletes to work towards an actual degree and not just take assorted classes in order to be a full-time student.
Basically, this means that after four full-time semesters at any university or junior college, you must have completed at least 40% of the requirements towards a degree at Sacramento State. Then, you must complete 60% of a degree after three years (six semesters) and 80% after four (eight semesters). If you transferred to Sacramento State, your coursework from your previous school(s) needs to be evaluated to determine how much of it transfers into your major at Sacramento State.
And finally, you need to be an academic qualifier out of high school or have earned an AA degree at a junior college. If you were admitted as a freshman to Sacramento State, you have probably met this requirement. But if you transferred here, then this may concern you.
To be an academic qualifier, you must have obtained a combined GPA/Test Score standard set by the NCAA, while you were in high school. The standard is usually lower than the admission standard to Sac State. If you are a "Non-Qualifier" then you must have earned an AA degree at the junior college level in order to be eligible. The eligibility staff at the NCAA are sticklers about getting the actual degree, not just taking enough units to transfer.
This is a lot of information all at once, so don't worry if it doesn't all make sense. We will cover this in detail at the meeting, and we can answer all of your questions at that time.
