CRCA Leaders Head to Congress to Advocate for Rowing

Leaders of the Collegiate Rowing Coaches Association are heading to Washington September 25th and 26th to advocate for collegiate rowing directly to members of Congress.

After last May’s House vs. NCAA settlement agreement, in response to antitrust lawsuits filed against the NCAA, the CRCA, representing college coaches of women’s rowing, joined seven collegiate coaching associations in asking Congress to protect Olympic sports and academic opportunity for athletes.

“The CRCA is going to Congress now because the college sports landscape is shifting at an unprecedented pace,” said Liz Tuppen, president of the CRCA and associate head coach of the University of Michigan women’s rowing team.

“With the potential impact of the House vs. NCAA settlement, and the growing possibility of athletes being categorized as employees, the future of collegiate athletics is at a critical juncture.”

The agreement, if approved, would allow universities to pay student-athletes directly—an enormous departure from the amateur model of college athletics that has existed since the first intercollegiate sports contest, the Harvard-Yale boat race of 1852, long before the founding of the NCAA in 1906.

Specifically, university athletic departments could give student-athletes up to 22 percent of the average annual revenue of the Power Four conferences from media rights, ticket sales, and sponsorships (an estimated $20 to 23 million per school in 2025-26). The agreement also would increase scholarship limits; more than tripling the number for each school’s rowing team from 20 to 68.

Additionally, the NCAA will be responsible for paying $2.75 billion in back-pay damages to former Division I athletes.

These changes alone represent huge amounts of money, and that money would need to come from somewhere. The fear among leaders of non-revenue-generating sports such as rowing is that the money will come by reducing financial support, including funding for scholarships, coaches’ salaries, facilities, and more—if not cutting teams outright.

“The costs that could come with such a shift would undoubtedly lead to drastic cuts, and likely the elimination of most college Olympic sports programs altogether,” the Intercollegiate Coach Association Coalition (ICAC) warned in its letter to Congress.

Some schools are discussing a “tiered” approach to funding sports. Ted Carter, president of The Ohio State University, told The Columbus Dispatch recently that the Buckeyes intended to keep all 36 of their varsity teams but that “some of those sports may start to look and act a little bit more like a club sport, but yet compete at the Division I level.”

In the wake of the potential settlement, major questions revolve around its effect on Title IX requirements and the employment status of college athletes.

Against this backdrop, and in collaboration with seven other coaching associations within the ICAC and FGS Global, a strategic advisory and communications consultancy, Tuppen and Marnie Stahl, CRCA’s executive director, are traveling to D.C. to build relationships with congressional leaders and lay the groundwork for future communication and collaboration in defense of Olympic and non-revenue sports.

“These programs, including rowing, are essential not only for developing future Olympians but also for providing transformative educational opportunities, fostering gender equality, and shaping future leaders,” Tuppen said.

Added Stahl: “It’s really an educational mission of sharing what our sport looks like, what Olympic sports look like, why it’s important, and what unique value it brings.”

The potential loss of Olympic sports on the college level will mean that “thousands of students, including students who might not otherwise have stepped on a university campus, will lose out on scholarships and other life-changing opportunities,” the ICAC pointed out in its open letter. These student-athletes bolster the academic and cultural mission of higher education “by exemplifying excellence in time management, teamwork, leadership, and resilience.”

Stahl and Tuppen plan to help members of Congress  understand more fully the broader stakes of the proposed changes to collegiate athletics, which may come before Congress eventually for approval.

While football and basketball get most of the attention, the vast majority of college athletes compete in other sports and  play a major role in embellishing our national reputation on the global stage.

“Do you like that we are top of the podium in the Olympics? Is that a point of national pride? Because if it is, we want you to think about this,” Stahl plans to say.

To the surprise of some, the NCAA is supporting the ICAC’s efforts to lobby Congress. In a meeting to discuss the upcoming congressional visits, NCAA representatives thanked the coaching associations for taking action and encouraged them to continue advocating for their sports and athletes into the future.

Stahl and Tuppen believe they must take whatever action possible to defend and promote rowing.

“Liz and I agreed philosophically that we don’t want to be sitting there in the future saying, ‘The opportunity presented itself, and we didn’t do it for our sport,’” Stahl said. “That’s not a position we felt that the CRCA could take. At the end of the day, we’ll at least be able to say, ‘We tried.’”

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