Nov. 22, 2010
View the article in U.S. Rowing Magazine
Standing in her oversized wakeless launch, while directing a fleet of boats and athletes off the Merrimack River, Veronika Platzer looks more like an unhappy traffic cop at a busy city intersection than a rowing coach.
As she brings the three eights and three fours onto an angled dock, she turns right and left shouting instructions, waving directions and admonishing the slow movers.
It's the men's eight that has her attention. It arrived first to the dock, and the athletes are bumbling around, getting shoes on, collecting oars and water bottles, and generally doing it in a casual manner.
At 7:30 a.m. in 32-degree weather, and with five more boats of athletes to get off the water and into the classrooms at the University of Massachusetts - Lowell, Platzer is not amused.
"Men's eight, you were the first on the dock and you're still here. You've got 60 seconds to get off the dock. Get going. Now."
A casual observer, and especially one unfamiliar with the always larger-than-life coach, would get the impression that Platzer isn't a happy person.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
The former national team athlete and coach, assistant coach and top recruiter at two big Division I programs - the University of Virginia and the University of Michigan - is, in fact, one very happy head Division II women's rowing coach.
A little more than two years ago, Platzer was hired away from her job at Michigan to become the director of rowing at the newly renovated UMass Lowell Bellegarde Boathouse, and to build a new varsity women's program for the university located about 40 minutes north of Boston.
But the economy got in the way, and her plans and the plans of the university were put aside and the program's beginnings were put on hold. All through her first season and right through most of the 2010 campaign, uncertainty loomed over Platzer and the return of women's crew to UMass Lowell.
Her first two years were conducted as a co-education club program that rowed in dated, faulty wooden eights borrowed from the high school program. Platzer coached from a series of big, leaky launches that often had engine trouble.
But as often happens in schools that field large men's programs, gender equality issues came up. Boats were purchased. Platzer got a brand new wakeless launch and the women's program was returned to varsity status in 2010 after six years of rowing as a club program. The program briefly held varsity status previously, but it dropped to club in 2005.
The River Hawks will compete among 18 Division II schools, mostly in the Mid-Atlantic and New England, in what is becoming a growing segment of women's NCAA rowing.
According to John Gartin, head women's coach at Nova Southeastern University in Florida and chairman of the Division II Rowing Committee, UMass Lowell is the third school to add women's rowing as a Division II varsity sport in the last three years. Philadelphia University and The University of Central Oklahoma are the other two.
"The past two or three years, we've seen a growing interest from Division II schools, and we've seen the addition of Philadelphia University, The University of Central Oklahoma and UMass - Lowell," said Gartin. "There has been strong interest expressed by other universities, and it wouldn't surprise me to see, every year or two, the addition of a new program. And it's good to see, because there is a lot of potential in Division II, especially, for growth.
"Schools that have Division II football or strong baseball programs are looking to balance out their growth. With the growing numbers of women in schools, rowing is a great outlet to get those strong numbers for your athletic program."
That is what Platzer saw when she agreed to take the head coaching job and today, she is seeing her dreams come to fruition.
"When I first came here, we were lucky just to put a four together. My first novice spring season, it broke my heart that I couldn't even race a novice four because I was literally just assembling the squad, recruiting them to the sport and teaching them," she said.
"But I remember going to Dad Vails my first season here. I took a men's pair and I remember watching the women's eight, novice eight and varsity eight, and it really invoked strong emotions. I couldn't wait to get my first eight."
Platzer's expectation was that her wish would come true by the fall of 2009, but the money disappeared in the face of the Massachusetts economy and statewide funding reductions and cuts, and uncertainty loomed.
The cloud lifted in the spring and now Platzer has a fleet of new boats and athletes to fi ll them. The once co-education program was split. The men remained club and have their own coach, Dan Brooks, a former UMass Lowell rower who works under Platzer's direction. The women joined the ranks of NCAA rowing.
"Now we have a varsity eight and a novice eight, and I just couldn't be more thrilled," said Platzer. "That said, we have a lot of work to do in terms of the skill and power and so on. But to finally fi eld a varsity eight, to submit entries for a novice eight and a varsity eight is like we have fi nally arrived."
Platzer is not the only one that has waited for this season.
Senior Katrina Walther has rowed in the program for four years and experienced the frustration of bad boats, no funding and waiting for validation as a studentathlete.
"It's incredible," said Walther. "After four years of being in this program, I've seen it go from less than zero, to 200 percent. I never imagined that it would be where it is now. We used to wet launch without docks; it was kind of a circus show. Now we actually have credit, people respect our sport now. People can see that we now have our stuff together, and we work really hard for what we have."
It will be a while before Platzer has scholarship money to offer. For now, she focuses her recruiting attention to the campus population, something not uncommon in Division II women's rowing.
When Gartin took over at Nova Southeastern, he had a team of 12 walkons and only three scholarships. A fully-funded NCAA program has 20.
Today, he has 50 athletes on his roster and 35 of them receive some portion of scholarship aid.
"I don't know of any [Division II] program that is fully-funded right now," Gartin said. "However, many of the Division II schools have some level of athletic support and, in addition, many of the Division II schools have strong academic support. I know of many schools that combine both academic and athletic aid and have utilized that to build a very competitive offer to good athletes.
"I think DII rowing definitely has opportunities, and I wouldn't be surprised to see the Midwest continue to grow. Who would have thought eight or nine years ago we would be talking about Oklahoma City as a rowing destination? But I think that there are Division II football schools in the Midwest that are keeping a keen interest with rowing, and The University of Central Oklahoma actively took that step forward to promote rowing to their athletics.
"In terms of contacting me directly, I want to say there are two or three schools interested and I have heard indirectly of three more that have given some thought to it and verbalized that thought," said Gartin. "I wouldn't be surprised over the next couple of years to see a couple of schools pull the trigger."
Coming from big Division I teams, it would seem natural for Platzer to want to push her team toward moving up a division. But she said that is not the case.
"This is where I want to be, and I've said that even in my darkest times. Division II, the best way I can sum up, is almost like the new modern era of where college athletics is going. It's a much more community-orientated program. You can't afford to have boats sit and gather dust during the summer. You're the kind of program that has to go year-round and has to build community-rowing programs to pay for itself.
"To me, that's Division II rowing. It's a very solid economic model. The days of depending on stereotypical Division I football programs to pay for everyone else are going to be short lived. So I like the idea of being ahead of the curve. We have to ask the question, `how can we be sustainable?' That's what Division II rowing is. It's still not a compromise on the excellence. What I like about Division II rowing is that we are asking all the right questions. We don't have more money. We have limited resources, but how can we be more competitive? So I love that. I don't want this program to be bigger; I want it to be better."
