Former Sarasota Crew rower makes U.S.roster for 2017 World Rowing Championships

The U.S. team roster for the 2017 World Rowing Championships, to be held Sept. 24 to Oct. 1 at Nathan Benderson Park, holds a secret, one that area fans may want to know.

A simple glance at the American participants reveals no local connections, with three rowers from Florida, but none from the Gulf Coast: Ben Delaney, of Windermere, is rowing in the Men’s Four; Ben Davison, of Inverness, is rowing in the Men’s Double Scull; and Corinne Schoeller, of Palm Beach, is rowing in the Women’s Eight.

But what many people watching the championships won’t know is that Delaney rowed for almost two years with Sarasota Crew. His parents wanted to move closer to the Gulf Coast, and Delaney wanted to row in a world-class program. In 2012, the Delaney family moved to Sarasota and found a compromise. For a while, anyway; they eventually moved to Michigan.

Delaney was already an accomplished rower when he came to the Crew. He was named to the 2011 World Rowing Junior Championships, racing the U.S. Men’s Quadruple Sculls to a fourth-place finish against kids two to three years older, he said. He was intimidated, he said, but he overcame those emotions and performed well. This was just two years after he began rowing at all, proving his natural affinity for the sport. Delaney said this experience will help him at the WRC, when he’ll go against “massive men from Eastern Europe” who also have a decade of rowing on him, he said. The plan: Pull from the emotions of six years ago, channel that intimidation into excitement and perform your best.

So Delaney was always good. When he arrived at Sarasota Crew, though, his skills rose to a new level, one beyond simply “good” and into “world class.”

“The Crew taught me how to be a high-level athlete,” Delaney said. “They do a good job of regulating the quality of training sessions, the quality of individuals that come through. The results from the last six, seven, eight years really show that. If you want to be the best, you don’t need to be the best athlete, you have to have that mentality. That’s something I really learned.

“The training sessions were very different from what I was doing before. A lot higher intensity and a lot more physically exhausting. There was a lot of talk with coaches about how to adjust hydration habits and healing the right way, making sure I had a diet and was getting enough sleep, things I had never thought about before.”

Delaney still speaks with his coaches, Liza Dickson and Casey Galvanek regularly. They check on how he’s doing, and he keeps informed on happenings with the Crew, the program that prepared him for national races. Yes, Delaney did say those rigorous training sessions helped him prepare for the rigorous U.S. selection camp process, at least indirectly. They’re all stepping stones: His original Orlando team to the Junior Championships, to Sarasota Crew, to winning a national title for Sarasota in 2013, to attending George Washington University, where he is now a fifth-year senior, to making the WRC roster.

His successes spotlight how difficult it is to make the U.S. roster. There are two paths to the WRC, trials and selection camps. Delaney took the camp route. At those camps, this year held in August in Princeton, N.J., coaches figure out the boat combinations they want for each event. They also test different orders of rowers, trying to maximize a boat’s speed. Coaches will make team recommendations to a selection committee, and the committee has final say in who comes to Nathan Benderson Park and who stays home. Approximately 30 people were at the camps, Delaney said. Invitations are given for many reasons, including past international performance, training camp performance, and style or attitude fit.

Then, there’s the trial route. Some boat classifications handle it differently, but basically, if you win your trial (also held in August in Princeton), you’re on the team.

If someone had told Delaney nine months ago that he’d be on the national team, he’d have called them crazy. Eight years ago, when he started rowing? He would have laughed them out of the room, though part of him would have dreamed they would be right. It turns out they would have been, and he wants young area rowers to know they can follow in his puddles.

“We’re all human,” he said. “It doesn’t matter your size, you can make a difference and make the boat go fast.”