10/16/2020
Thank you for your interest in the SDRC Juniors Program! Covid-19 has forced us to modify our Fall 2020 rowing season. The health and safety of all athletes, families, and staff members has been our main consideration as we looked at different scenarios for our fall season.
I am disappointed to let you all know that we are not going to be able to offer a
middle school or
novice program for our fall season (through December at least). This is obviously sad news for us at SDRC and for many of you who were hoping to take your rowing experience to the next level with us. The main issue is that we are expecting to continue to only offer rowing in singles and on the rowing machines and we simply don't have enough equipment or coaching supervision to go around. During a normal year, we have about 120 high school athletes and 25-30 middle school athletes and are able to use 8, 4, 2, and 1 person boats along with the machines for our practices. Due to Covid-19, we only have 25 singles and 40 machines available and just can't accommodate everyone. Our middle school and novice programs have been put on hold, while our varsity squads will be able to hold modified practices.
We are hopeful that things locally and nationwide will begin to turn around and that we will be able to get back to a normal routine in the new year. Our plan is to be able to offer both middle school and novice programs some time early in 2021. We will continue to monitor the situation and will adjust our plans accordingly and I will be sure to send out any info about updates. We will also be posting any new info at
sdrcjrs.com. If you would like to ensure that you receive updates when we have them, you can join our mailing list
HERE.
For those wondering about opportunities to get out on the water in the meantime, we will have a couple options. We are planning to offer rowing events on a few Saturdays per month for athletes to get out on the water (either for the first time or to continue from a summer camp). We will be
posting dates and registration info for these in the coming weeks. It is also possible to set up a private lesson with a coach to get out on the water and practice.
I'm sorry that we will not be able to proceed this fall as usual, especially with all of the good work and enthusiasm that we have seen from our camps this summer. I hope that this setback does not dampen any of your enthusiasm for being on the water and for our great sport. We are very confident that we will be able to come through this and expand our programs back to normal capacity.
Please do keep an eye on your emails as we move through the fall and check
sdrcjrs.com for the most up to date info. Please also feel free to let me know if you have any questions. Thanks!
Patrick Hurley
Juniors Program Director
patrick@sandiegorowing.org