Sweat – That icky, salty, smelly liquid humans release when under physical duress.

There was definitely a lot of it in the Terry Center on February 3, 2018, but that’s not the reason for the name. Last Saturday, Jesuit crew hosted the 10th annual Southwest Ergometer Amateur Tournament (S.W.E.A.T.)

This indoor regatta (rowing competition) attracted  465 athletes from all over the Southwestern United States. Competitors ranged from middle schoolers to 85 year-olds.

“The standard race in rowing is 2000m,” began head coach Randy Dam. “We spend all winter on the machines. It’s a good way for the individuals to gauge what their fitness levels are.”

Coaches from UT Austin, Tulsa, and SMU made appearances. Since this is the only individual competition of the year, recruiters come to evaluate the athletes’ individual performances.

“My experience was I would always get sick to my stomach freshman year because I would get really nervous,” said rower Robby Freimuth ’19. ” Physically it’s very tiring and you’re gonna probably just wish you weren’t doing it. I almost cried the first year I did it because it was just so hard trying to do the whole race because it’s just 6 minutes as hard as you can go.”

“It’s like a full-out sprint for 6 minutes.”

Recent school sicknesses left many Jesuit rowers unprepared for such strain. Some recovered from the flu only a week before the regatta.

“I think it’s gonna be tough for us to go out and have our absolute best day today, but I think we’ll do well and we’ll have a lot of room for improvement when everyone is back healthy again,” commented Dam beforehand. 

The regatta went as Dam expected, with many varsity rowers not quite reaching their potentials.

“Some guys came back really underweight and malnourished,” Dam explained afterwards. “But everybody went out with the goal trying to do the best they could. Some guys were able to do better than others and at the end of the day they were all solid scores.”

In the end, Jesuit won the men’s team point trophy despite sickness. Thanks to an outstanding freshman performance and a number of 2nd-8th finishes, Jesuit came out on top overall.

As our Ranger rowers get healthy again, we look forward to March when Jesuit crew will begin its spring season at the OKC invitational.

Wish ’em luck and stay tuned on The Roundup for more crew news!