Two Santa Barbara County high schoolers took Santa Barbara Community Rowing’s Junior Racing Team to nationals for the first time, where the girls took seventh place in the United States, head coach Gracie Barbara told the Sun.
“I was crying all weekend because I was so proud of them,” Barbara said. “To make it to nationals my second year with this program was exciting because it showed that we were going in the right direction and providing a program that excites parents and kids.”
Originally established in 2019 as Mission Rowing, the nonprofit closed down in 2022, but its mission to bring rowing to Santa Barbara County continued through Santa Barbara Community Rowing, which began operating with a new board of directors and Barbara as head coach.
“We want to take advantage of Lake Cachuma and what it offers. There’s no rowing provided for the Santa Barbara area at all,” Barbara said. “Rowing is for everybody—it can be for any age, any gender, any ability—and I think that’s been our push since October.”
Santa Barbara Community Rowing offers rowing opportunities for people of all ages. Families can sign their kids up for summer day camps, or adults can hop in the boat themselves and try the sport through the nonprofit’s eight-week learn-to-row programs, which meet twice a week. For youth looking for more of a challenge, they can sign up for Santa Barbara Community’s competitive teams for kids 11 to 18.
“The program is structured with the intent to compete, to become a faster, better athlete and a faster, better rower,” Barbara said. “Of course the goal is to become more technically sound, … but the overall goal is to be a better athlete and team, learn to problem solve and learn how to be a professional athlete.”
Barbara grew up on the East Coast and has been rowing for 20 years. She’d been coaching at a Division 1 college when she took the Santa Barbara Community’s head coach position with the goal to get more kids in the juniors program.
“There’s a lot of sports offered to youth out there and there’s a lot of youth who haven’t found a sport that works for them. A lot of times it’s those youth who try rowing and it just clicks for them,” Barbara said. “They never considered themselves an athlete, they were on the bench, but they come to rowing, get in the boat, take a couple strokes and fall in love.”
Kids from Santa Barbara, Santa Ynez, and Lompoc meet after school at Lake Cachuma three days a week for practice and compete several times a year in the fall and the spring, she said. The team travels to Sacramento, Long Beach, San Diego, and San Francisco for competitions where team members compete against other kids their age in programs throughout the state in the USRowing Southwest Youth region.
“The southwest region is one of the most competitive regions when it comes to junior rowing. … We have the opportunity to race against them, and it makes us better athletes as well, especially since we’re such a small program,” Barbara said. “Ultimately, we also have fun while doing it—it’s fun to race.”
This year, 14-year old Jacie Dingman and 16-year-old Elsa Loya represented Santa Barbara Community Rowing in the 29th Annual USRowing Youth National Championships in Sarasota, Florida. The two competed in the youth under 17 double (racing in a two-person boat), where they placed fourth in regionals—qualifying the duo for nationals.
Throughout May, Barbara said, the two trained before and after school to get more meters and mileage in and wore sweatshirts in the afternoon to train for competing in a hot and humid environment.
“Both of them have such mature views on being competitors, being athletes. They were focused in, extremely confident, and excited to be there,” Barbara said. “Our goal was to make it out of the time trials. Out of the 25 boats in the category, we had to make top 16; we made seventh in the trials. We surprised ourselves.”
Dingman and Loya got third place by 0.3 seconds in the semifinals and walked away with seventh place after the finals, she said.
“This is the best of the best in the country. So many athletes move on to the Junior National Team,” she said, adding that others go on to compete at the college/university level. “They said, ‘We’re going to get a medal next year.’”
Barbara said she hopes more juniors will join the team in order to offer four-person and eight-person boats, help some team members train for college or future opportunities, and help more people discover the sport.
For more information on Santa Barbara Community Rowing’s adult and/or kids programming, visit rowsbc.org.
Highlight
• The Santa Maria Public Library summer reading program—Read, Renew, Repeat—is underway through July 31, with a program for every age level, from toddlers to adults. Each program offers activities, challenges, and prizes for reading based upon age level. Participants may sign up at any of the five Santa Maria Public Library locations. Adults can sign up at the second floor information desk, and families, children, and teens can sign up on the first floor in youth services at the Main Library. Youth participants may sign up for the youth summer reading program online at sm.blackgold.org/srp2024signup.
Reach Staff Writer Taylor O’Connor at toconnor@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Jun 20-30, 2024.