Rowing: NAC headed to Nationals

As far as the playing field goes, you could consider it on par with Dodger Stadium or the Riviera Country Club. Newport Harbor is an ideal setting for all kinds of boating sports, including sailing, kayaking and rowing.

With the Back Bay as its backyard, the Newport Aquatic Center has built a junior rowing program to rival the best in the country. Indeed, the NAC qualified five crews — three boys’ and two girls’ shells — to compete in the USRowing Youth National Championships Friday through Sunday in Sarasota, Fla.

The top six finishers from seven regional qualifiers across the country earn a bid to the national regatta. The NAC qualified both its boys’ and girls’ crews in the premier varsity eight division when each finished third at the highly competitive Southwest Regional last month in Rancho Cordova, near Sacramento.

“It’s been, in many senses, a rebuilding year,” said boys’ head coach Nick D’Antoni, who returned to the NAC this year after coaching the team from 2007 to 2010. “It’s been a rebuilding process for me, from the last time that I was here, and I think a rebuilding process as a team.”

The club program functions as the team for approximately 160 high school male and female athletes from the area that are interested in rowing but have no interscholastic outlet. With mostly students from Newport Harbor and Corona del Mar high schools, the NAC also draws participants from eight other local public and private schools.

“The junior programs on the West Coast tend to be club programs, more than the high school rowing all over the East Coast,” D’Antoni said.

The boys’ coach thinks his top-flight but inexperienced varsity eight crew will do well to earn a medal, or a top-six finish, at nationals. The expectations for the girls’ varsity eight might be a little higher.

“Our region is arguably the most competitive region in the country,” said Ben Hise, in his first year leading the NAC girls’ team. “So doing well in our region sets you up to do well at the national level.”

“They’re very excited about it,” Hise said. “It’s always kind of fun to be the underdog and that’s what I think we were at the beginning of the year. They really kind of held on to that and worked really hard and that set them up for success this spring.”

In addition to the hours of preparation all team members put in, Hise credited the leadership of captains Rylee Gladich, Dora Klein, and Alyx Golan for the crews’ better-than-expected season. Along with the varsity eight, the girls’ lightweight eight crew also qualified for nationals.

The boys’ varsity four and lightweight four round out the NAC boats that will compete in Sarasota. While relatively inexperienced, seven of the varsity eight crew are seniors, with D’Antoni leaning on captains Mychah Adelsohn, Jack Dole and Max Clemence to guide younger rowers.

“Six of the seven are going to row in college,” D’Antoni said.

Dole is headed to five-time reigning intercollegiate champion Washington, Adelsohn will compete for UC San Diego and Clemence is ticketed for the University of Santa Clara.

“We have a lot of positive energy going,” Clemence said while training for nationals. “We’ve come a long way from the beginning of the year. We definitely pushed the boundaries of what we thought we were going to do.”

“There’s a science to rowing, absolutely, but there’s also an art,” D’Antoni said. “Some of the art is balancing the personalities and managing the psychology of where to put people and how that helps get the most out of each other.”

“We teach character. We’re not just teaching them rowing,” is the mantra of NAC Executive Director Billy Whitford, a Newport Harbor alumnus.

“Our success stories are not the medals,” Whitford said.”Our success stories are the parents going, ‘Oh my God, I never thought I’d see my son or my daughter get up this early or make this commitment,’ What’s interesting is the dynamics of this sport, having a large team and you can’t just have first-stringers.”

With roots in British aristocracy, competitive rowing in the U.S. has seen a distinct power shift from a small pond of East Coast elite schools to major western athletic programs in recent decades.

“We have a great resource here in Newport,” D’Antoni said. “There’s a number of other programs on the West Coast that have pretty fantastic resources in that their body of water is large and never frozen.”

“Actually, it’s really difficult,” Whitford said, with all the seriousness of a protective drake looking out for his ducklings. “You know, it’s one of the busiest recreational harbor’s in the country. I’m a nervous wreck waiting for the phone to ring every afternoon. That’s one of the high priorities on the list, is safety, safety.”

So then, since there were no reported injuries on the water this year, one might say regardless of the results at nationals this weekend, it has been a successful season already for the Newport Aquatic Center crew program.