New bridge could attract area athletes to rowing

The biggest challenge facing Manatee County Youth Rowing, headquartered at Fort Hamer Park on the Manatee River, is recruitment.

So says Trish Chastain, head varsity coach of the club and owner of Powerhouse Row and Fitness in Lakewood Ranch. She and others originally approached the Manatee County school board about starting a club at Palmetto High in 2011 and created Manatee County Youth Rowing (MCYR) as a nonprofit club.

In 2014, the school board dropped financial support for the school program, and MCYR became a fee-based club program. The Palmetto members of the program are still able to compete as a school team, but rowers from others schools joined as well.

The club has done well at competitions, including a women’s doubles state title in 2015, but has found it tough to win more titles because of its size.

Chastain said she has 70 rowers at the varsity level, whereas a program like Sarasota Crew has close to 300. Part of that is because of its location. In previous years, it has been difficult to get the attention of rowers in the East County area, Chastain said. The drive to Fort Hamer Park was a hassle.

MCYR currently has three rowers each from Braden River and Lakewood Ranch high schools. The rest of those schools’ rowers are split between the Sarasota Crew, a known powerhouse in the rowing world, and the Sarasota Scullers, the oldest rowing club in the area (1991).

“When you have two strong programs 45 minutes away, it’s a challenge,” Chastain said.

MCYR’s fortunes may be changing, however, with the opening of the Fort Hamer Bridge. Construction on the bridge, which stretches over the Manatee River and connects Upper Manatee River Road in Lakewood Ranch to Fort Hamer Road in Parrish, started in 2015, but has been talked about by country officials for more than a century. 

“Hopefully, with the Fort Hamer Bridge opening, more people will join (from the East County area),” Chastain said. “It makes the drive so much easier. It’s also a beautiful drive.”

The increase may be slow at first. Due to rules set by the Florida Scholastic Rowing Association, coaches cannot recruit students already in a rowing program. Instead, MCYR will have to focus on getting new rowers through learn-to-row events and word of mouth, Chastain said.

The best recruitment tool, according to Braden River senior Madison Stahley, might be the drive over the bridge itself. The senior has been with MCYR for three years, and this year was named a captain. Stahley has attempted to recruit her schoolmates in the past, but found that not many high schoolers know what rowing is about, she said. After the Fort Hamer Bridge opening, she’s noticed the sport getting more exposure.

“A lot of people will take the bridge home after school,” Stahley said. “It goes right over where we practice on the river. They’ll tell me, ‘Hey, I saw you rowing yesterday!’ It’s pretty cool.”

Chastain’s Powerhouse Row and Fitness business accomplishes the same goal. The more people in Lakewood Ranch that know about the sport and the club, the better, Chastain said. The business hasn’t directly translated into higher varsity numbers, but it has helped the club’s Masters Program, which began in 2015.

Eventually, MCYR would like to get big enough to compete against the Crew and Scullers in national events, not just the state ones, Chastain said.

Thanks to the construction, it's no longer a bridge too far.