ROWING ON A
THE RIVERS
Local Rowing Club
brings a new sports opportunity to
students of the South Hills.
BY NICOLE TAFE
PT Rowing Club founder, Judy Alexander.
56 724.942.0940 TO ADVERTISE | Upper St. Clair
s a two-year member of the Pittsburgh
Rowing Club, Judy Alexander would
watch two high school teams row out
of the same boathouse each day and began to
wonder why Peters Township did not have a
rowing team of its own. She started to look
into rowing teams in the area and learned that
a multitude of surrounding boroughs had
teams available to their communities. With
this, Alexander decided to put her ideas into
action and establish Peters Township’s very
own rowing club.
Rowing is America’s oldest intercollegiate
sport and crew teams have been established
throughout the greater tri-state area,
nationally and internationally for over 130
years. Locally there are approximately 17 high
school competitive rowing teams in addition
to 147 postsecondary schools that offer
rowing and team scholarships.
While Alexander really enjoyed rowing, her
expertise in organized sports was a bit lacking,
so she enlisted the help of Pittsburgh Rowing
Club’s Director and 2012 Romanian Olympic
Rower Florin Curuea to help her get started.
Curuea has been an athlete and coach in both
Romania and the U.S. for many years. “We
were incredibly fortunate to have someone
with his level of success and Olympian-level
experience work with our upcoming team,”
says Alexander.
Together, Alexander and Curuea hosted
a two-week “Learn to Row” camp in May
2015 to enlist members for the new club.
Thirty Peters Township students attended
and instantly fell in love with the sport. While
Curuea returned to Romania to continue
coaching the Romanian National Team,
Alexander officially founded the Peters
Township Rowing Club and began working
with a few very devoted parents—Lorie
Strennen, Kevin and Colleen Hannegan and
Marlene Luster—to continue to build the
club and get things rolling for a number of
students who had participated in the camp
and were eager to join the club.
Meetings became more frequent and
the group expanded its membership
opportunities by sending informational fliers
about the team to students in the Canon Mac,
Elizabeth Forward, Trinity and Bethel Park
school districts, as those were the closest to
Peters Township. The club rows under the
umbrella of Pittsburgh Rowing Club, which
has provided coaching, equipment and
expertise, enabling the group to grow.
Being a club sport, The Peters Township
Rowing Club has no direct affiliation with