Club Profile/ May 9

Getting to Know the Ridley Graduate Boat Club

To honour the history, dedication and current initiatives of each rowing community, Row Ontario will be producing a series of profiles on member clubs across Ontario. Today we get to know more about the Ridley Graduate Boat Club!

Ridley Graduate Boat Club
Established: 1972
Location: St. Catharines, Ont.
https://ridleyrowing.com/eng/

Located on the famed Henley Island in St. Catharines, Ont., the Ridley Graduate Boat Club was formed in 1972 by legendary Canadian rowing coach Neil Campbell.

After a successful rowing career which included competing at the 1964 and 1968 Olympics, Campbell transitioned to coaching and became the head coach of Ridley College in 1967. He would help lead the Ridley high school crews to numerous CSSRA and American School Boy titles during his time at the school and by the time he formed the Ridley Graduate Boat Club in 1972, was well on his way to becoming one of the leading rowing coaches in Canada. The initial reason for creating the club was to support the aspirations of a high performance rowing Campbell was coaching. The crew was scheduled to head overseas to compete in international regattas at the highest levels of the sport. Several rowing enthusiasts with the financial means to start a rowing club got together decided to establish the club to support the athletes. For the first several years the purpose of the club was to help rowers with national team aspirations reach their goals and support them as they went overseas to race.

Shortly after the club was formed Campbell recruited another legendary coach to the club. Jack Nicholson soon joined the Ridley coaching ranks and would go on to have one of the most decorated careers in the history of Canadian rowing coaches at both the club and national team level. Nicholson would coach at the national team level for over 20 years and would coach at the Ridley Graduate Boat Club for an incredible 42 years. With Campbell and Nicholson at the helm, Ridley’s rowers were in good hands and were lucky to be able to learn from such high level coaches. The early Ridley crews experienced a lot of the success, none more than the 1984 eight who would go on to become one of the most famous in club history.

“Neil was really interested in taking a school crew to English Henley and the crew actually carried on and stayed together for several years,” said Nancy Storrs, the club’s current head coach who has also been with the club for over 40 years. “There were a few lineup changes and it wasn’t fully Ridley rowers, but they ended up qualifying for the Los Angeles Olympics in the eight in 1984. They won the gold medal which was really exciting for the club. He always called them the ‘Ridley Grad Crew’ after that even though they had a few rowers who weren’t members of the club.”

Nicholson would serve as head coach with the national team program from 1981-94. During that time, he would often host training camps for the national team scullers in St. Catharines. The camps at Ridley not only served as great training opportunities for the national team members but great learning opportunities for the coaches and athletes at the club. Nicholson created an atmosphere of team coaching and working together and many coaches in the St. Catharines area during that era, including those at Ridley, learned a lot from being in the same environment as the national team athletes and coaches.

In addition to Campbell and Nicholson, there were a number of founding or early members of the club who also contributed greatly over the years. Several Club Presidents or members of the Board of Directors have had boats named after them. The founding members, who were jokingly referred to as ‘the cronies’, offered a tremendous amount of the support to the early crews and coaches at the club. The contributions of Presidents, the Board and the coaches has continued to present day as the club takes a great deal of pride in providing the best experience for their members.

“We’ve always had the idea that we’re trying to bring the athletes up to their highest achievements possible,” said Storrs. “Not necessarily saying that we’re trying to win every race, but we’re trying to think about what’s best for the athletes and trying to make it fun at the same time. We’ve always had a ‘rower-first’ mentality.”

With the club being located on Henley Island, the members of the club row daily on the Royal Canadian Henley Regatta Course. Usually called the ‘Henley Course’, the waterways’ official name is Martindale Pond, which is actually an old section of the Welland Canal. Ridley’s rowers train on a 2000m marked course with an island, where their boathouse is located. The water may or may not freeze over during the winter depending on how cold it gets. If it doesn’t freeze over, rowers have the ability to row at the club all-year round, but only a brave and very experienced few ever attempt that feat. Approximately ten years ago, the club used its endowment fund to concrete the floor of the boathouse, greatly improving its look and feel.

“Everyone who visits is usually impressed with how nice the boathouse is and how it’s set up,” said Storrs. “Jack was an engineer, so he had an idea of how best to set up racks. He designed the racks, the rolling carts for the singles, and the two trailers we had built. He had an eye for how best to use the space available and I’ve continued that as the person who looks at it as a puzzle. We have a lot of singles and doubles, so we just need to figure out how to organize everything to make it functional.”

From the beginning, Ridley has primarily been a sculling club with members typically from St. Catharines as well as some of the surrounding Niagara area such as Grimsby and Stoney Creek. Despite being a relatively small club, many of its members have gone on to compete with the national team and its crews have experienced a lot of success. Some years they won as much as six or seven medals at Henley and they’ve sent several crews to compete in either the junior world or world championships. They’ve had a lot of highlights from a competitive standpoint as their programming has evolved over the years. During the early years of the club there was more of a focus on Senior and U23 athletes, and then for a long time the focus shifted to their junior program. With the disruption of the last two rowing seasons due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the club is currently in a transition phase and will work over the next few rowing seasons to build back up and get back to their typical programming and routines.

The Martindale Pond plays host to the biggest regattas in Canada each year in the CSSRA Championships and Royal Canadian Henley Regatta. The Ridley Graduate Boat Club also hosts an annual regatta each year on Martindale Pond, the Head of the Martindale. The Head of the Martindale was started at some point early in the club’s history and traditionally was always held on the day before Mother’s Day. The regatta was cancelled in 2020 due to the pandemic and last year with a truncated rowing season that saw only late-summer and fall regattas, the event found new date in September. The timing was very popular in the rowing community, so the club plans to stick with the September date for the foreseeable future and will host the 2022 Head of the Martindale on Sept. 17. The event has always been a singles-only race, with the full complement of categories from senior, masters, and juniors racing in open weight and lightweight categories. The regatta typically features a 5km one-lap race for masters and a 10km two-lap race an hour later for the other competitors. Afterwards there’s a barbecue and medal ceremonies.

The club also hosts a major indoor event in the Ontario Ergometer Championships, which they’ve run for over 30 years. The Ergometer Championships have grown into a large event that indoor rowers look forward to each season. The club hosts the event at the Ridley College Fieldhouse and the school is one of the biggest supporters of the event. In addition to the events’ they host for all members of the Ontario rowing community, they also typically run an event just for club members on Canada Day, where the members come for a row and a fun race followed by a barbecue for the participants afterwards. It’s a good opportunity to build some teamwork and togetherness within the club.

This year the Ridley Graduate Boat Club will celebrate its 50^th anniversary. They have a lot to celebrate as the club has accomplished a lot during its time on Henley Island.