Rowing Video Of The Week: Wisconsin Badgers Help Keep Austin Weird

Wisco training on Lady Bird Lake (Screen Capture)

This week's featured video comes to us from Austin, Texas, where the Wisconsin men's rowing team spent their training camp this winter.



While the weather appears to have been, well, changeable, during their week in the Lone Star State, the Badgers are more than familiar with challenging conditions, and made the most of their time away from home. The video includes a few references to life off the water, but the focus remains on side-by-side pieces (with no fewer than six eights—nearly matching a recent viral video posted by Oxford Brookes) and hard strokes, coupled with one of our favorite training jams.

Wisco is a program that is among the few at the elite level that puts a huge premium on developing walk-ons into varsity oarsmen. In fact, going back to the 2008 IRA National Championship Regatta*, the victorious Badger men's varsity eight featured no less than six walk-ons (though some were recruited out of high school from different sports)—that win over no. 1 Washington and the rest of the field capped an undefeated season for Wisconsin. Certainly a significant feather in head coach Chris Clark and his staff's collective hat.

*The only instance in the last 10 years that a team other than California or Washington has won the IRA title.

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-RR

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