Steady State Podcast

This is the second episode in a special series on gender identity policies in rowing. We’re getting to know some of the people behind initiatives challenging the notion of fairness and inclusion in our sport. Since December 2022, World Athletics, World Rowing, USRowing and other national governing bodies, have announced updated gender identity policies. The Biden administration is proposing change...

This is the first episode in a special series on gender policies in rowing. We’ll get to know some of the people behind initiatives challenging the notion of fairness and inclusion in our sport. Since December 2022, World Athletics, World Rowing, and USRowing (and other national governing bodies) have announced updated gender identity policies. The Biden administration is proposing changes to Titl...

We head to California and go behind the scenes of the San Diego Crew Classic, celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. Crew Classic Executive Director Bobbie Smith – also a masters rowers and coach in San Diego – for the past year has been planning this event with Associate Director Megan Kalmoe. Megan, who is currently training for an historic fifth Olympic team, began her racing career at Cre...

We believe whole-heartedly in inclusion at all levels of rowing. That’s why we created the Steady State Network Changemaker Scholarship initiative, designed to help up-and-coming leaders of programs, clubs, and small businesses to get the knowledge and skills they need. To support the development of these leaders in the rowing community, we provided scholarships to three deserving coaches to help...

The popularity of indoor rowing has exploded since the early days of the COVID pandemic in 2020. A whole new rowing community has come together around the erg, buoyed in large part by people who have never touched an oar.   On this episode we talk with John Steventon, a gold medal and world record holding indoor rower who made his way into the sport by way of squash and cycling. He started to make...

Donna Pili is a San Diego native whose childhood desire to play sports was restrained by the need to help her immigrant Filipino parents. She remembers watching rowing on TV during the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, but it wasn’t until nearly 30 years later, in an effort to retake control of her life, that she committed to learn to row. Since then, Donna’s found community at ZLAC and San Diego Rowi...

On today’s show we’re talking with Corin Wiggins. You might remember that we interviewed her back in 2021 for our "next generation of coxswains" episode . At the time, 17 year old Corin was a member of the Atlanta Junior Rowing Association and already had four years of coxing experience. But what really caught our attention was her Instagram account - @TheBlackCoxswain - which she began in an effo...

A former D1 volleyball player with an M.S. in Sports Administration, Jess Jackson joined USRowing in 2022 as a DEI associate. She hasn't learned to row (yet), but swears by Orange Theory workouts which incorporate indoor rowing. She's honest about her first impressions of rowing as exclusive and white, proud of the steps USRowing is taking around diversity and equity, and hopeful that today's juni...

Seattle has the Pococks. Philadelphia has the Kellys. And Boston has the Stones. We’re really excited to kick off season 4 with mother/daughter Olympians Lisa and Gevvie Stone. Lisa was a member of the first U.S. women’s Olympic rowing team in 1976. She married Gregg Stone (an Olympian and original founder of C.R.A.S.H.-B.s), and went on to a 42-year coaching career at the helm of collegiate and h...

If you were at the Head of the Charles in 2022 and stuck around Boston through Sunday afternoon, you might have caught a glimpse of a Community Rowing, Inc. crew with a combined 720 years of rowing experience. Coach Catherine Saarela put together what she calls her dream team – an Octogenarian 8. In this episode we’re talking with Coach Saarela, 86-year-old coxswain Bill Becklean, and 83-year-old...

When she learned to row in the late 1970s, Liz Winter was excited to have a place be “unladylike.” She fell in love with putting power behind the oar and moving boats fast. After landing in Pittsburgh in the ‘80s, Liz was involved in developing Three River Rowing Association, focusing on creating community. Now retired, she’s combined her experience as a lawyer, social worker, coach, and educator,...

Isaiah Harrison is a huge talent in the next generation of American single scullers. Born and raised in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, he started erging – and setting indoor records in 2016, when he was just 12. Today, this 6’9” 19-year-old currently holds 35 indoor rowing world records across multiple age groups. Isaiah made the transition from the erg to a single, coached by his Dad, and quickly started...

Allison Mueller is many things including: a highly competitive masters rower. A successful business owner. Former communications director for USRowing . Associate Faculty at Columbia University School of Professional Studies. We’ve followed her career trajectory for years, and her most recent marketing campaign has really got us enamored: Allison announced that she and her husband are expecting a...

Before he was the Director of Marketing for King Racing, 13-year-old Brent Keuch was watching TV when rowing came on the screen. That was when he knew he wanted to learn to row. Looking for direction, Brent found a boarding school 120 miles from home where he could study and row. Later, rowing helped him land his first job, and introduced him to the woman who would become his wife. He’s coached ju...

In [S3] Ep20 we interviewed New Zealand Olympic gold medalist Eric Murray, known for dominating in the men’s pair with partner Hamish Bond. The wide-ranging conversation covered his terrible novice season, impressive U17 erg splits, World Championship and Olympic training and racing, and a lot more. So much more we couldn't get it all into one episode. In this 15-minute bonus episode, Eric tells u...

When Sophie Brown wanted to learn to row a coach asked her, "why would you do this if you're disabled." Her reply was "why not?" More than a decade later, a drive to find the perfect stroke has brought her two Henley wins. She'll be checking off a bucket list item when she crosses the pond to race a para mixed double at the 2022 Head of the Charles.  We first met Sophie when she began working out...

New Zealand Olympic gold medalist Eric Murray is known for dominating in the men’s pair with partner Hamish Bond. We know. You might be saying: “An Olympian? I thought you were all about celebrating the everyday rower!” We are. And we always will be. But we have to admit that when Eric reached out and asked to be on the podcast, we had a total fan moment. There was no doubt we’d invite him for a c...

Like many women who grew up before Title IX, Kathy Frederick spent her young life studying ballet. When, at 42, she learned to row it felt like dancing with partners and she was immediately hooked. Just a few years later in 1993, the loss of a dear friend to breast cancer prompted Kathy to host a fundraising event on Portland, Oregon’s Willamette River. From those modest beginnings Row for the Cur...

Concept2 oars and indoor rowing machines are nearly synonymous with rowing. But did you know that it all started in the early 1970s with brothers Pete and Dick Dreissigacker? They were just a couple of grad students messing around with carbon fiber and fiberglass in a kitchen hoping to develop a better oar - their “secret weapon” for finding more speed on the water. And to keep training through co...

This is a wide-ranging, roundtable chat with East Bay Rowing Club President Denise Martini, DEI Committee co-chair Carla Jourdan, and Erin Cafaro, two-time Olympic gold medalist and new Head Coach of Oakland Tech Men’s Varsity program. Founded as a women's team, EBRC is growing to meet the needs of its Oakland, California community. Through recruitment, scholastic programming, and intentional DEI...

This episode revisits a conversation with Tom Rooks, the Director of Rowing at Williamsburg Boat Club, in Williamsburg, VA. When we talked with him back in 2021, we loved how authentic he was. From his "fun first" mantra to how he prepares his juniors athletes to be better humans beyond the boathouse. Tom was one of our favorite guests - sharing his philosophies about saving lives, being well-roun...

From walk-on at the University of Pennsylvania to gold in the LM2x at the 2020 U.S. Olympic Team Trials, Jasper Liu is an elite-level lightweight rower who’s worked hard on and of the water to learn about all aspects of our sport. As a U.S. Senior National Team member, Jasper and his LTWX doubles partner Zack Heese will represent the U.S. at the World Rowing Championships this September in Prague,...

It’s July, which means summer, which means vacations. And we’re taking one. Or, at least, a break. This special bonus episode was recorded live in May at Deer Apple Farm on Vashon Island, WA. After a long day – and a couple of local hard ciders – we started swapping rowing stories. So of course, we recorded it. We hope you have fun listening! Do you have any equipment breakage or river traffic sna...

From Fairmount Park rowing camp as a teenager, to team captain at La Salle University, to coach at BLJ Community Rowing – you could definitely call Marqus Brown a Philly guy through and through. But the chance to coach for the prestigious University of Washington Huskies recently took Marqus out to Seattle, where he’s digging into the details to help his motivated crews move boats even faster. In...

We are really interested in backstories – the experiences on and off the water that make people the rowers, coaches, and coxswains they are today. And when it comes to rowing programs and initiatives, we’re curious about who’s behind the scenes creating opportunities for their communities. With that in mind, we took a trip to the George Pocock Rowing Center in Seattle to talk with Zoe Vais, the or...