Athletic Team Pages Detail

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Why Crew?

Crew is one of the most unique sports in which a young man can participate. Success in the sport is not predicated on a boy's ability to run fast, jump high, throw a ball fast or far. His ceiling isn't determined by the innate athleticism, or lack thereof, with which he was born. Success in the this sport is determined by a boy's dedication to work in order to maximize his potential.

On paper, the sport of rowing should be simple to master. There are not different plays or positions to learn. There is neither an offense nor defense to study. The boy must simply do the same motion over and over and over....

The mastery of the sport hinges on the boy's dedication to mastering the almost unnatural, but fluid, motion of the rowing stroke. He must be willing to learn how to coordinate the use of the large muscles of the legs and back with the smaller muscles of the fingers and wrists. He must be willing to exert his maximal physical effort while trying to learn this motion on the moving and pitching platform that is the rowing shell. On land, he must push himself through physically and mentally exhausting workouts designed to maximize the strength that can be generated by his frame.

If he is willing to immerse himself in this sport, a boy will be rewarded for the rest of his life. He will be become part of a fraternity of like-minded young men who have found the almost addictive feeling of pushing themselves farther than what they thought was possible even the day before. The bonds formed during the training and the races last a lifetime. The boy will truly learn what his mental, physical and emotional limits are. He will be better prepared to tackle life’s difficulties having been pushed to his limits over and over again through training and racing. The boy will learn dependability and responsibility knowing that the other members of his boat are counting on him to put forth his best effort.

Why crew? Because there is nothing else like it. If you let it take hold of you, it will help you grow into the best version of you.

FALL 18 PREVIEW

This fall, the MBA Crew will be kicking off its 10^th year. It will be starting the season with one of its largest and most experienced varsity rosters. There are 26 returning varsity rowers, 11 of which qualified for the SRAA National Championships last spring.

The team is also welcoming in another large 9^th grade class. Most of these boys rowed in the JS program and gained valuable experience racing at the Mid-South Championships last May. 11 of the boys have already earned a HS varsity letter by winning the “B” Novice 8 against McCallie’s high schoolers last spring.

The ultimate goal of the fall season is improve on the two Top 10 finishes at the 2017 Head of the Hooch Regatta (5^th in the Lightweight 4 and 7^th in the Novice 8). The boys are highly motivated to be part of the first MBA crew to earn a medal at 2^nd largest regatta in the world.

Fall 2018 Recap

The MBA Crew program continued is drive to become one the top scholastic teams in the country. Each time that the boys hit the water, during practice or at a regatta, they remained motivated and focused on this goal. The level of comradery and diligence displayed by the boys helped the team to an even more successful season than the one which they had last year. The boys earned medals in 17 events over their regattas: 9 Gold, 4 Silver, and 4 Bronze.

The boys started the fall by traveling to Cleveland to compete in the Head of the Cuyahoga Regatta. The opportunity to have an early race against the top boys’ team in the Midwest, St. Ignatius, made the drive well-worth it. At the end of the day, the crew finished a very close 2^nd to St. Ignatius in the overall point standings. Nearly every boy made the long trip back to Nashville with at least one medal hanging from their neck.

The next regatta on the calendar, the Music City Head Race, happened to fall during MBA’s Fall Break. Even though the boys knew that they would be rather short-handed for the regatta, they all relished the opportunity to race in front of “home” crowd. The most impressive performances of the day were turned in by the Novice boys. They fought hard and were the winners of both the Novice 8 and Novice 4 for the 2^nd straight year.

The boys then traveled to Oak Ridge for the Secret City Head Race. While there, they turned in the most complete performance in the history of the rowing program. The boys earned medals in all 7 events in which they were entered: 4 Gold, 2 Silver, and 2 Bronze.

The Head of the Hooch Regatta in Chattanooga, the 2^nd largest race in the North America, is the finale of the fall rowing season. Of the 10 boats that competed, 8 earned automatic entry bids for next season and 4 finished in the Top 10, both are double what the boys did last fall’s total. The team also earned its first medal in the history of the MBA rowing program: a bronze in the Novice 8. MBA finished 22^rd out of the 113 high school teams at the Hooch this year. We were the 2^nd place all-boys school.