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 19 Recap

The MBA Rowing Program experienced another season of tremendous growth. There were 108 boys dipping oars into the waters of the Cumberland River this past fall. With 57 boys on the roster, the high school program had 13 more boys racing in the fall than it did in the spring. The fact that only 4 of these boys are seniors makes the accomplishments of the young crew pretty remarkable.

Although practices started in early August, the boys didn’t see their first competition until mid-August. The team traveled to Cleveland, OH in order to compete against some of the top boys teams in the Midwest. The Big Red raced well and returned to Nashville with 3 gold medals, 2 bronze and three 4^th place finishes.

Downtown Nashville was the site of MBA’s 2^nd regatta of the season. The Big Red Crew was the only scholastic team (single high school) in a field of club programs. Spurred on by a tremendous crowd of MBA families, the boys finished in the top 1/3 in each of their events and ended the day with 2 gold, 1 silver, and 2 bronze medals. The highlight of the day was the Novice 8 winning the event for the third straight year.

Due to fall break, the rowers headed to Oak Ridge with a skeleton crew to compete in the Secret City Head Race. Despite being shorthanded, the boys raced extremely well and returned to Nashville with nearly every boy wearing a medal. The team won 2 golds, 4 silvers, 1 bronze medal.

The team traveled to Chattanooga for its season finale. The Head of the Hooch regatta is the 2^nd largest rowing event in the world and provides an accurate measuring stick for the speed of the rowing program. The boys raced well and earned automatic bids for next year’s regatta in 5 of the 6 events in which they competed. The top finish on the weekend was the Lightweight 8 which finished 4^th behind perennial national powerhouses Oakland Strokes (Oakland, CA), Belen Jesuit (Miami), and Orlando Area Rowing. This race also marked the top finish ever for a varsity MBA boat.

The Novice 8 suffered a catastrophic mechanical failure just as they were beginning their race. This forced them to run the entire 5,000m course with only 7 boys rowing and the 8th unable to row. Nonetheless, the boys stormed down the course, passed 4 other boats rowing all 8, and finished 8th overall, 10 seconds ahead of McCallie's A boat. Our B Novice 8 also had a terrific race, beating McCallie's B boat by over 30 seconds.

Fall 19 Preview

The Big Red Crew has been continually pushing to become of the top scholastic rowing teams in the country. This past spring, the boys took another step forward towards that goal by finishing as the #4 team in the Midwest region and qualifying 4 boats for the SRAA National Championships. 3 of the 4 boats finished the season ranked in the top 10. The fact that only 9 of the 44 boys on the team were upperclassmen makes their accomplishments even more remarkable.

This fall, the boys are looking to build on their spring accomplishments as well as top some of their victories from the fall of 2018. While the team will still be on the young side with only 4 seniors, they will be joined by 21 other boys who qualified to race at the Nationals in the spring. The new crop of 22 motivated freshmen will add depth and strength that is needed to build a powerhouse rowing program.

The first test for the up and coming program will be a daunting one. The team will travel to Cleveland to race against St. Ignatius on their home course. Even though there will be 30-40 teams present, taking on St. Ignatius, one of the top 2 boys teams in the Midwest, is their primary focus. Last fall, MBA finished a close 2^nd to St. Ignatius in the team points standings.

The last regatta of the fall season, the Head of the Hooch, is the largest and most competitive one on the schedule. Last year, the boys won the program’s first ever medal at the regatta, a bronze in the Novice 8. Combined with 3 other Top 10 finishes and 8 automatic qualifying slots, it was easily MBA’s most successful outing at the regatta. This fall, the boys are looking surpass those benchmarks and come home with a few medals.

Spring 19 Recap

As crew continues to grow in popularity on MBA’s campus, the MBA crew roster has grown with it. This past spring, there were 44 boys representing MBA at races, up from 31 a year ago. Of these 44 boys, there were only 9 upperclassmen. With such a young roster, the success of the team this past year can be attributed to the strong leadership of the 5 seniors: Reagan Sparks (Captain), Marshall Summar (Captain), James Vest, Carson Reisinger, and John Preston. Despite being outnumbered 7 to 1 by the 9^th and 10^th graders, these boys helped the younger rowers buy in to the team philosophy of work, humility and accountability.

MBA Crew’s first test of the season was also its first of three trips to Zanesville, OH. The younger rowers were given their opportunity to shine early due to the majority of the upperclassmen missing the trip in order to attend Harpeth Hall’s Prom. The young MBA squad performed admirably winning the Freshman 8 as well as capturing 4 silver and 1 bronze medal.