For regatta, volunteers pull everything together

By Dotty Brown

Forty-five years ago, several young members of the University Barge Club were mourning the lack of racing opportunities now that they were out of college. Sure, the Schuylkill had the Stotesbury Regatta, but that was for high school kids. And there was the Dad Vail, another whopper, but that was for college students.

There were a few other races these young men might enter, but not enough to satisfy their craving for a crew race with the adrenaline rush they had come to love.

So University Barge Club - founded in 1854 and one of the earliest clubs on Boathouse Row - initiated a "Graduate Race." In 1970, at the first regatta, 189 rowers showed up.

This weekend, 8,300 rowers will compete in more than 1,900 boats in the Head of the Schuylkill Regatta, the descendant of that original race. Those entering the two-day event - one of the largest regattas in the country - range from teens to octogenarians, from novices to Olympians, all competing against their peers in categories by age, gender, and size of boats.

Arriving with them will be thousands more friends and family members, a boon to the city.

For Philadelphia's rowing community, producing this extravaganza is a 12-month effort that, much like the Mummers, restarts each year almost as soon as it ends. Where once a handful of volunteers from the University Barge Club pulled it off, today about 300 people are needed to direct parking, drive launches, start and time racers, track results, monitor docks, hand out medals, and more. The organization also is now a nonprofit to better shoulder the effort.

"It's a tremendous amount of work - all volunteers," said Mitch Budman, past president of University Barge Club and women's crew coach at Philadelphia University. "No one is paid. I know: I've been treasurer for 28 years."

What it takes to put on this show is perhaps best seen through the eyes of Lisa Verges, who has parlayed her organizational acumen into orchestrating the many moving parts of the event. "It uses my skills for good that can be super-annoying in other things," said Verges, director of development at Community Legal Services of Philadelphia.

She calls herself an "adult-onset" rower, who first took lessons 10 years ago. Then, the regatta was a one-day event that had grown so large the races sometimes finished after dark.

As a member of University, which still ran the regatta, she pitched in. Immediately, she saw the need for a database to chart the deployment of volunteers.

"It was a common experience for volunteers to have a really rugged day with no relief because the schedule had not been done with somebody obsessive like myself insisting on imposing a level of order on the chaos," said Verges. Volunteers, she says, are like donors and should be treated as such. Their willingness to "put themselves out there is an incredible gift."

"It's a great event, a great race, and a great way to support Philadelphia," said John Strotbeck, founder and CEO of Boathouse Sports, which is donating jackets to this year's volunteers. Strotbeck, who rowed in the 1984 and 1988 Olympics, started the Philadelphia firm in 1985. It now produces clothes here for more than 20 sports and is the official partner of the U.S. Olympic rowing team. Donating the jackets, he said, with the regatta logo of two rowers echoing a Thomas Eakins painting, "is another way of volunteering."

Ellen Carver, who is codirector of the regatta, has been up until 2 a.m. on recent nights, finalizing details and answering hundreds of emails with logistical questions. A member of the Vesper Boat Club who fell in love with rowing in middle age, Carver stepped up in 2010, after the regatta had been canceled two years in a row for bad weather.

"It's always exciting to be part of making something happen, growing something, making a difference," she said.

The Head of the Schuylkill surely has. The number of entrants is up 19 percent from last year, among men and women in all age groups and categories. That many more friends and families will make it to Philly, spending nights and eating out. That many more Philadelphians will stroll along the banks of their river, perhaps also falling in love.

And hopefully enough volunteers will raise their hands.

Dotty Brown is writing a book on the history of Boathouse Row for Temple University Press. dotty.brown@gmail.com

To volunteer or for information about the Head of the Schuylkill Regatta, visit hosr.org.