Saturday is the ACRA Championships at Melton Hill Lake in Oak Ridge. UTC races a men's quadruple sculls (M4x) — Mako on stroke, then Richardson, Burkett, Pollard. First UTC crew at ACRA since the program restarted in Fall 2025.
Three of those four guys started rowing on April 6 — six weeks ago. Mako has been rowing for years; the bow three are still working on timing and getting comfortable in their seats. You can hear them laughing from across the river when they're out on the water.
May 2 we took the boat to Oak Ridge for a scrimmage on the race course.
Saturday — I won't grade them on place. These boys will compete with whatever is next to them. The only thing I can't watch is a crab — an oar that stops the boat. Anything else, we live with.
UTC's own 4x — an Empacher — isn't racing this weekend. Mako and I pulled it off the trailer two weeks ago to look it over. There's a soft spot in the middle of the hull. We're not racing it.
That's why Saturday's boat is a Vespoli loaner.
If you rowed at UTC, send us your photos, your memories, the names of teammates we don't have on the roster yet. Drop them in. The program is back. It'll be built by the people who came before it.