Some of the biggest rowing organizations in the U.S. are leaving USRowing because of new membership requirements imposed by the national governing body.
The Scholastic Rowing Association of America, which has run “Scholastic Nationals” since 1935, announced in early December that it will not be renewing its organization membership with USRowing and will not require participating schools and individual athletes to be USRowing members to row in the regatta. Last year, 2,597 rowers competed at the SRAA regatta.
In November, the stewards of the Intercollegiate Rowing Association, the largest collegiate rowing organization and host of the IRA national championships and four other regattas that serve 4,000 collegiate rowers altogether, voted to leave USRowing.
Rowing News has learned that at least six other rowing associations that administer leagues and hold championship regattas—as well as the Head of the Charles, with 11,000 competitors—are considering leaving USRowing over new insurance, membership, and coaching-certification requirements.
USRowing reports a current membership of over 77,000, down from a pre-Covid membership of over 93,000.
USRowing announced the new requirements in a June enewsletter after most coaches and programs had finished rowing for the school year.
In a statement to Rowing News, USRowing CEO Amanda Kraus said, “We will be implementing universal coaching standards that align with our mission to steward, strengthen, and grow American rowing and meet requirements from both the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee and the U.S. Center for SafeSport.”
New USRowing requirements for coaches include completing online courses, showing proof of CPR, AED, and first-aid certifications, and completing three continuing-education credits.
As of January 1, 2025, all individuals who coach at USRowing member clubs or attend regattas hosted or sanctioned by USRowing as a coach must have at least Level I certification from USRowing. For Basic members, Level I certification is $99, USRowing.org states; for Championship-level members, it’s free. For Level II certification, the website confuses with two fees—$250 and $280.
Rowing programs in scholastic and youth leagues are often run by volunteers whose greatest challenge is attracting and retaining qualified coaches willing and able to do the job for what is often low pay.
Leslie Pfeil, president of the Philadelphia Scholastic Rowing Association, says that every year, for want of a coach, at least one member program either ceases to exist or is saved at the last minute. Many have completed required background checks and complied with local laws and the abuse-prevention policies of their various schools. For them, USRowing’s additional requirements, Pfeil said, are “burdensome.”
“Most scholastic coaches have other full-time jobs and many are teachers,” said Pfeil. “This is unlike many club coaches, and we can see why the new requirements are appropriate for clubs, but not appropriate for schools.”
PSRA’s member organizations come from four different states with four different sets of laws
“They don’t seem to understand we’re all different,” said Pfeil, of the various kinds of organizations that make up youth and scholastic leagues.
Pfeil and her fellow youth and scholastic organizers went to USRowing with their concerns, such as the $30 background-check fee from USRowing’s designated vendor, when many have had other background checks already. Counterproposals made in October by the scholastic groups were rejected by USRowing, Pfeil said.
The Virginia Scholastic Rowing Association (VASRA) follows state laws that differ from those of other states and take precedence over the rules of amateur sport organizations.
“Our school districts found some clauses to exceed what they are willing to cede,” said VASRA president Dorothy Lazor of the SafeSport policy requirements. “It’s a non-starter.”
“We recognize that new standards can be an adjustment and we remain dedicated to supporting our members in this transition,” Kraus said in her statement.
Kraus and USRowing Executive Director Rich Cacioppo have offered additional meetings, said Pfeil. Cacioppo did not return a call seeking comment.
Pfeil, who has spent “so much time researching statutes and talking to lawyers and a judge,” said she does not see the value of further meetings. “We tried to give feedback. We didn’t really get very far with it.
“It’s hard for me, because I’m just trying to convey information to our members and let them make their own decisions about what to do as far as USRowing membership goes.”
In June, in response to the displeasure of college coaches with the new coaching-certification mandate and other requirements for membership, USRowing’s Chris Furlow hosted a webinar in which he spoke and coaches could only listen. Pointed questions posted by viewers went unanswered.
“Feel free to type questions in,” said Furlow during the one-way webinar. “We’ll either answer them as we see them if we think they’re relevant or at the end we’ll answer as many questions as possible.” Furlow did not return a call from Rowing News seeking comment.
Many rowing programs have sufficient safeguards and policies in place, but others do not. Tragedies like the deaths in Orlando of two middle-school boys whose coach reportedly took them out in thunderstorm conditions in 2022 and the sexual-abuse crimes that sent Kirkland Shipley, a girls’ rowing coach at Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda, Md., to prison, happen when rowing programs lack adequate safeguarding systems. As the Aspen Institute’s Project Play states, when it comes to youth sports, “the United States is programs-rich and systems-poor,”
“Like many sports, we continue to face safeguarding challenges, including reports of child abuse and neglect, unsafe practices, and negative team cultures,” Kraus said. “As of mid-November this year, USRowing and SafeSport have received 164 allegations filed against 94 organizations–over seven percent of all organizations. An audit conducted this summer also showed nearly 40 percent of youth club and scholastic programs had expired or missing background checks for coaches.”
The U.S. Center for SafeSport is the nonprofit entity established by Congress to address gaps in youth-sports safeguarding and to prevent the abuse that can occur when such gaps exist. It was designed for amateur sports programs that operate independently and lack the resources of school districts and universities.
The rowing community was appalled when Conal Groom, now on the SafeSport suspension list, was able to continue coaching minors when he was believed by many to have abused others.
There have been times, however, when SafeSport has been weaponized by disgruntled athletes and their families to “get back” at coaches. At least one rowing coach was placed on the SafeSport banned list only to be removed after further investigation.
(Rowing News inquired about one such erroneous listing and, after being referred by USRowing staff to SafeSport, and back to USRowing by SafeSport, the coach’s name fell off the list without explanation.)
USRowing’s new requirement that all member organizations adopt SafeSport policies poses a problem for rowing programs that are part of bigger entities that already have comprehensive abuse-prevention and reporting policies. SafeSport requires that participating organizations delegate authority to it, but universities have a non-delegable duty to ensure compliance with Title IX and report/resolve instances of misconduct.
The insistence by USRowing that varsity collegiate programs can adhere to USRowing’s SafeSport requirements for organizational membership, as well as the demand that all coaches be certified, is not playing well with coaches and the universities that employ them (the source of 100 percent of USRowing’s Olympic rowers in Paris, they point out).
An attorney from a university with a varsity rowing program (who was not authorized to give quotes for attribution) told Rowing News, “The schools will certainly not agree,” citing non-delegable duty specifically. The handling and reporting of allegations of sexual misconduct is “a very touchy subject,” the attorney added.
“It’s not that we’re against SafeSport or anything like that, it’s just the way it’s being handled,” said SRAA board member Dennis Smith.
“The arrogance factor is beyond comprehension,” said Gary Caldwell, the now-retired longtime IRA commissioner, rowing coach, and former USRowing board member who has worked on insurance, compliance, and membership issues on behalf of collegiate rowing for decades.
As the national governing body of the sport, USRowing is also the de facto insurance agency for rowing. Because of recent efforts by USRowing to make rowing safer, the association has gone from being told by its insurance carrier that it might stop offering coverage to having multiple carriers interested in serving USRowing.
Insurance costs have skyrocketed in recent years, and members of small clubs can pay more in insurance—$80 each, in one case—than they do for USRowing membership, which varies from free to $1,000 across 10 categories (Basic is $20, Championship is $65 for new members, $55 for those renewing). A smaller pool of member organizations participating in USRowing’s insurance program could lead to even higher rates.
“We were very specific about the way we worded it,” said Laura Kunkemuller, who recently succeeded Caldwell at the IRA, about leaving USRowing.
“We will not require our member organizations to be members of an outside organization to participate in the national championship or the qualifying regattas that we run. Every program needs to decide for itself whether or not being a member of USRowing is beneficial to them or makes sense based on what it is that they are trying to accomplish within their program.”
“Nobody is against USRowing; they just want to make their own decisions,” said Pfeil of the growing discord around USRowing’s new requirements. “I’ve never seen it so widespread, so unified.”
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