Center Court October Spotlight: Lake Phalen Community Rowing

In February, 2020, Power Ten, also known as Lake Phalen Community Rowing -- powerten.org --set out to bring youth of all backgrounds together to learn and enjoy the sport of rowing.  The club’s slogan:  Changing the Face of Rowing.  

Quad, Four, 8+.  Slow the slide.  Weigh enough.  Power Ten!  Rowing, like all sports, has its own lingo.  Who gets to be part of it all --   the challenges, the satisfactions, learning a new verbal and physical vocabulary?  Rowing can be expensive: club membership and coaching fees, transportation to regattas.  It can be a highly competitive sport, and competitive rowers may not be patient or friendly with novices.  Then, too, most rowers are white, and clubs aren’t always welcoming to rowers of color.  The documentary, “A Most Beautiful Thing,” tells the story of a team of Black high school rowers on the West side of Chicago.  They’re skeptical about the sport.  As one of the crew says, “We just don’t do that.”   But they find that -- given the support of time, energy, transportation and coaching -- they do, and build both confidence and unexpected, long-lasting bonds with each other.  

Ixchel McKinnie, Grace Gardner, Katya Reimann, Mike DuPont, and Jodie Mattern, rowers coached by the legendary Miriam Baer at the Minnesota Boat Club, spearheaded the organization of the new team.  Power Ten’s vision:  to create an uncompromising competitive program that reflects the rich diversity of our community. We know inherently that working and playing together is the way to make change.  Gardner, an MIT student taking a year off, is now head coach.  

Most rowers in Minnesota are on the water no earlier than April, dreaming in March about ice  melting, water warming.   2020, year of COVID-19, meant the new organization had to pause, adjust, adjust again.  Learn-to-Row classes were delayed. Novices are usually taught in large boats or even a barge, rowers less than a foot apart.  Power Ten forged ahead creatively:  masked instructors taught masked learners in singles.   In July, Power Ten sponsored Row 4 Change, inviting rowers from other clubs to Lake Phalen for socially-distanced sprint races -- singles only!  This winter, training will move to an indoor location on Rice Street.  Like Lake Phalen, it’s on a busline, easily accessible to rowers.  

Pre Title IX, and never an athlete, when I learned to row in middle-age, I found my body, its strengths and limitations.  I found the never-ending challenge of setting (balancing) the boat, and the deep pleasure of working with someone else --  or three or seven other someone elses --  to match our strokes:  hands away, shoulders over, catching at exactly the same moment.  To move as one.  In rare moments, the outside world floated away and I was simply there in my body, with my teammates, on the water, moving the boat.  I learned to listen to my first coach, then another, and another.  (John Davis on gripping the handle of the blade:  Pretend it’s a kitten.  You don’t want to choke that kitty.)  I learned to take that critique, to get past an internal flare.  I learned that I would always be learning!  All this, and the water, besides.  Power Ten brings those opportunities to BIPOC youth.  

PS Power Ten! Is the coxswain’s command to rowers:  Give me 10 full-power strokes!  This club has chosen a name that reflects its confidence in building a diverse, inclusive community of motivated, accomplished, rowers in the Twin Cities.