Philadelphia City Rowing

Philadelphia City Rowing Names Stephen Ciraolo as Director of Rowing

Philadelphia City Rowing has named Stephen Ciraolo the organization’s new Director of Rowing. Philadelphia City Rowing (PCR) was established in 2010 to empower Philadelphia public school students through the sport of rowing.

Philadelphia City Rowing Boys 4+ was granted an entry into the Head of the Charles Regatta (HOCR) in Boston Massachusetts.  The HOCR founded in 1965 and is a challenging three mile race upstream in a river full of bends.  This Regatta has over 9000 competitors in the ultimate two day competition.  PCR sent 5 student-athletes and one alternate (Uriah Myers-Doyle, Mike Palamountain, Evan Harper, Lester Johnson, Gabe McGuoirk and James Garcia).  The Boys 4+ finished 64th out of 85 entries.  

Randell Daniels used to ride his bike across the Girard Avenue Bridge and stop in the middle to watch the rowers on the Schuylkill River.

"I always wondered what that was like," said Daniels, a senior at Parkway Center City High School.

Thanks to the Philadelphia City Rowing club, Daniels doesn't watch the sport from a distance anymore. The 18-year-old and his teammates were on water Friday at the 85th annual Stotesbury Cup Regatta.

The rowing clubs nestled along the
banks of the Schuylkill River on Kelly Drive in
Philadelphia haven’t seen a lot of change in the decades they have been there. It’s been the same with
the city’s rowing community.

As big as the sport is in the city, and as much
of a landmark as Boathouse Row has been, it has
never attracted participation from the Philadelphia’s
large urban high schools and neighborhoods.

Until now.

Starting with the passion of a past U.S. National Team athlete who was motivated by a bout

Libby Peters had a tough battle on her hands.

She had been an outstanding athlete at Columbia University, captain and two-time MVP of the crew team, twice a world indoor champion and a bronze medal winner in the World Rowing Championships.

She was headed for a shot at Olympic competition and, maybe, law school.
Then, in the spring of 2009, at age 25, she was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma.

When our youngest son, Benjamin, signed up for a two-week rowing camp sponsored by Philadelphia City Rowing, we thought it would expose him to something different, allow him to meet new friends, and keep him occupied for two weeks. It did much more.

The camp was one of three sessions designed to introduce students from Philadelphia's public high schools to rowing and prepare them to compete on a citywide team in the fall. The participants met daily at the club's yard on historic Boathouse Row, on the east bank of the Schuylkill.

The upcoming school year will feature a new sport in the Philadelphia school district. Rowing is now available for students at public high schools. The program is attempting to bridge the sport's deeply entrenched class gap.

Libby Peters is the founder of Philadelphia City Rowing. She's also the coach for the girls' team.

"It doesn't matter that you don't have rowing background. Just think about all the athletic experiences where you've had to really push yourself. That's what you've got to do now, OK?"

Olympic gold-medal champion Dan Beery was nervous.

There he was, 35 years old, 224 pounds, 6 feet, 7 inches of world-record-holding athlete. A man who had clobbered tough competition. But now he faced a classroom of skeptical, seen-it-all students.

Who wouldn’t be intimidated?

ABC6's Lisa Thomas Laury reports on Philadelphia City Rowing:

Philadelphia City Rowing, a youth rowing team in Philadelphia, placed tenth out of thirty teams last weekend (July 17th) in the first regatta in the team's short history. What makes this achievement truly remarkable is that two months ago none of these youngsters even knew what rowing, let alone the special place the sport holds in their city's sporting history.