University of Virginia Library

Virginia Crew Opens March 19

By PETE GLUBIAK

After last year's successful
season the University's Crew
team begins its 1973 season
Monday, March 19 against
Marretta College, a traditional
rival and small college rowing
power.

Faced with the problem of
having to find a new coach
after the retirement of former
coach Panos Eliades, the team
and its Board of Stewards were
glad to obtain the services of
Bob Tansik. Coach Tansik was
the coxswain of the University
of Pennsylvania's 1968 IRA
Champion crew and comes to
Virginia after a number of
years coaching experience in
Florida.

The new coach is faced
with some problems after
arriving at the University in
late January and thus was not
able to use the normal fall
season as a training the
recruitment period. Virginia's
crew team has risen to
notoriety in the south over the
past few years under Coach
Eliades, winning for two years
running the Southern
Intercollegiate Championships
and the Mid–America Rowing
Championship. With the loss of
a fall season and a new coach
the team has an uphill battle to
retain its position in the
tougher Dad Vail Conference.

One of the major
advantages of Coach Tansik's
new regime has been much
better communications
between the oarsmen and the
coach. In the past there was a
problem of team morale and
the new spirit of
communication should serve to
make the work-outs that much
easier.

Broken Boats

A varsity eight, a varsity
four, a lightweight eight and
possibly a freshman eight, right
now appear to be the boats the
team will be fielding. With
three returning varsity oarsmen
including this year's captain
Larry Davis, the first eight
should be an excellent boat
with a strong chance to
lengthen its two year
dominance at the Southern
Championships in Atlanta.

Virginia's varsity eight
will have to go against some
stiff competition this season,
facing : Marietta and
Georgetown three times with a
race against nationally ranked
Navy later this month, all
concluding in the small college
national championships at
Philadelphia in May.

All three of the other boats
will participate in this tough
schedule and face the even
more pressing problem of
getting their manpower aligned.
Competition for spots in the
various boats is still going on
and the success of the relative
boats depends on this rivalry.
Indeed, the only
disappointment thus far this
season has been a lack of
personnel to fill the hoped-for
boats including a now defunct
J.V. boat.

Crew Captain Davis

At the moment the team is
also beset by a number of
technical problems. In a sport
such as crew, equipment is
highly important and while the
teams facilities on the reservoir
are adequate, problems of
keeping the various boats in
racing shape are constantly
cropping up.

With the beginning of the
season only two weeks away the
team is practicing three hours a
day on the Rivanna Reservoir
and on Thursday mornings at
6:30 a.m. The team will hold a
Blue-Orange intersquad regatta
next Saturday the 17th of
March at 11 a.m. and as a
warm-up for the season will be
staging a number of races.

New Coach Tansik Will Field Four Crews This Spring In Effort To Maintain Cavalier Dominance In Southern Championship