Vanderbilt’s club rowing team competed at the American Collegiate Rowing Association National Championships from May 16 to May 18 at Melton Lake in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Vanderbilt Women’s Varsity 8+ boat took gold with a time of 6:53.626, edging out Northwestern by 5.598 seconds.
The 8+ boat has eight rowers and one coxswain that gives the boat instructions. The Vanderbilt Women won this event for the second year in a row, making them the first team to win in back to back years since 2019. In 2023, the team took second in this event, and, prior to that, the program’s top finish in the Women’s 8+ was ninth in 2016.
Sarina Samuel (B.A. ‘25), 2024-25 president of Vanderbilt Rowing, expressed her gratitude for her teammates’ hard work, her coaches for putting them in a position to win and for her past four years on the team.
“Rowing it into the docks after my last collegiate race was very emotional — a mix of nostalgia thinking about all the memories I have on the course in Oak Ridge both from high school and college, excitement about the fact that we just defended our National title and sadness for ending what has been the most wonderful experience with Vanderbilt Rowing,” Samuel said.
Additionally, 14 athletes made the ACRA All-Academic first and second teams, and 6 athletes made the ACRA All-South Region Team. Vanderbilt also placed third in the Women’s Second Varsity 8+ and third in the Men’s Novice 4+. Vanderbilt Rowing additionally cracked into the top ten in overall team points at ACRA for the second year in a row and placed second in Women’s team points.
“The attitude and work ethic of the team this past year was tremendous. It starts with the upperclassmen and spreads to the whole program, sophomores, freshmen, coaches and everyone else who is a part of our program,” head coach Jon Miller said. “We talk a lot about balancing the goals with the process.”
Miller, who has coached Vanderbilt Rowing since fall 2007, was named All-South Region Women’s Coach of the Year for the second year in a row. Miller attributed much of the success of this year to staying present and handling pressure in a healthy way.
“In terms of handling any pressure or expectations carrying over from last year, we made this season about this group, not last year’s group,” Miller said. “Each year is unique, as is each boat. We simply try to build off what we accomplished the prior year and continue to adjust as needed.”
At Vanderbilt, rowing is considered a club sport. Rowers do not receive scholarships to compete and do not have access to NCAA-level facilities or NCAA-level funding. Despite this, Vanderbilt Rowing regularly competes against NCAA programs.
“We have raced multiple NCAA programs in recent years, and we would love to continue this and see how many fully-funded programs we can beat,” Dzialowski said.
Samuel, Miller and Dzialowski all expressed that the rowing program has seen increased interest from prospective students following their past few years of wins. Per Dzialowski, Vanderbilt Rowing has 10 incoming first-year students interested in joining the team, along with a few transfer students.
“We believe that our team is at its best when we have a healthy mix of athletes with previous rowing experience and athletes who had never touched an oar before getting to campus, so we hope to have a really strong recruitment effort in the fall,” Dzialowski said.
For the upcoming season, Vanderbilt Rowing will be celebrating its 40th Anniversary. Per Miller, it hopes to engage alumni across the country and have some of them come back to celebrate. In addition, Vanderbilt Rowing hopes to grow the size and speed of the team, so it can bring more groups to the national championship and improve on its 9th place finish in the team points competition.
“Even if it doesn’t always feel like it in the moment, every person on the team contributes to a win, whether it’s racing against the top boat in practices, pushing each other’s limits during erg relays or creating a culture of excellence and support,” Dzialowski said. “It’s a testament to the efforts of the full team and a great sign for the future of Vanderbilt Rowing. I’m just incredibly proud of what we accomplished this year across the board.”
