The Intercollegiate Rowing Association (IRA) governs intercollegiate rowing between varsity men's heavyweight, men's lightweight, and women's lightweight rowing programs across the United States, while the

NCAA The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates College athletics in the United States, student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, and Simon Fraser University, 1 in Canada. ...

fulfills this role for women's open weight rowing. It is the direct successor to the Rowing Association of American Colleges, the first collegiate athletic organization in the United States, which operated from 1870–1894. The IRA was founded by Cornell, Columbia, and Penn in 1894 and its first annual regatta was hosted on June 24, 1895. Today

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and Syracuse are also part of the association. Each year these five schools choose whom to invite to the IRA National Championship Regatta and are responsible for its organization. The IRA runs the IRA National Championship Regatta, which since 1895 has been considered to be the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

collegiate national

championship In sport, a championship is a competition in which the aim is to decide which individual or team is the champion. Championship systems Various forms of competition can be referred to by the term championship. Title match system In this sys ...

of men's

rowing Rowing is the act of propelling a human-powered watercraft using the sweeping motions of oars to displace water and generate reactional propulsion. Rowing is functionally similar to paddling, but rowing requires oars to be mechanically a ...

. This regatta today includes both men's and women's (lightweight) events for 8- and 4-oared sweep boats with coxswains and a women's lightweight double scull (two-oars for each rower) event. The IRA National Championship is the oldest college rowing championship in the United States.

History

Wisconsin varsity rowing team at 1914 Poughkeepsie regatta

Columbia, Cornell and

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a U.S. state, state spanning the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern United States, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes region, Great Lakes regions o ...

were the organizing stewards of the Poughkeepsie Regatta, the IRA Championship until 1949. The first edition was held on the

Hudson River The Hudson River, historically the North River, is a river that flows from north to south largely through eastern New York (state), New York state. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains at Henderson Lake (New York), Henderson Lake in the ...

Poughkeepsie, New York Poughkeepsie ( ) is a city within the Poughkeepsie (town), New York, Town of Poughkeepsie, New York (state), New York. It is the county seat of Dutchess County, New York, Dutchess County, with a 2020 census population of 31,577. Poughkeepsie i ...

, on June 24, 1895. The format through 1967 with the exception of 1964 was to line all the entries in the race onto stake-boats and fire a shotgun for the start. In the last race of this format in 1967 on

Onondaga Lake Onondaga Lake is located in Central New York, immediately northwest of and adjacent to Syracuse, New York. The southeastern end of the lake and the southwestern shore are industrial areas and expressways; the northeastern shore and northwestern ...

, in

Syracuse, New York Syracuse ( ) is a City (New York), city in and the county seat of Onondaga County, New York, United States. With a population of 148,620 and a Syracuse metropolitan area, metropolitan area of 662,057, it is the fifth-most populated city and 13 ...

, 16 varsity crews waited for the gun to begin their three-mile race—winner take all. The format was changed in the Olympic year, 1968, to heats and finals over a 2,000-meter, six-lane course. This

heat In thermodynamics, heat is energy in transfer between a thermodynamic system and its surroundings by such mechanisms as thermal conduction, electromagnetic radiation, and friction, which are microscopic in nature, involving sub-atomic, ato ...

- rep-final, six-lane, 2,000 meter format continues today. Since the 1920s, when the West Coast crews—notably

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

and Washington—began to attend and regularly win, the Intercollegiate Rowing Association's championship (known as the IRA) has been considered the national championship for collegiate rowing. Two important crews, Harvard and Yale, however, did not participate in the heavyweight divisions of the event for a lengthy period. (After losing to Cornell in 1897, Harvard and Yale chose to avoid the IRA, so as not to diminish the Harvard–Yale Regatta. The IRA championship was held each year preceding that regatta, which Harvard and Yale considered more important to their schools and alumni than the IRA event. It soon became part of each school's tradition not to participate.) Beginning in 1973, Washington decided to skip the IRA because a change in schedule conflicted with its finals. Washington, however, returned to the regatta in 1995. From 1982 to 1996, another event, the Cincinnati Regatta (which renamed itself the National Collegiate Rowing Championship), was held in Cincinnati with funding from a benefactor. It was viewed by some crews as an additional, quasi-championship, as the field included Harvard and Yale, as well as medalists from the IRA regatta,

Pac-10 The Pac-12 Conference is a collegiate athletic conference in the Western United States. It participates at the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I level for all sports, and its football teams compete in the Football Bowl ...

and Eastern Sprints. In 2003, after an absence of over one hundred years, Harvard and Yale decided to participate in the IRA championship. Before 2006, some competitive club rowing programs, which receive little or no funding from their university athletic departments, were invited to the IRA Championship. In 2006,

Rutgers University Rutgers University ( ), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a Public university, public land-grant research university consisting of three campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's C ...

cut funding from its men's rowing program, reducing it to "club" status. Part of Rutger's justification for cutting rowing was that clubs could compete equally with funded programs at the IRA Championships. To avoid other members from losing funding, the IRA excluded clubs from competing at its championship beginning in 2007, leading to the creation of the American Collegiate Rowing Association for clubs. The IRA regatta was cancelled in 2020 due to the

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Champions

Varsity Heavyweight Eights

Men '' * Not held in 1933 due to the Depression. However, the first college 2000-meter national championship ever held was conducted by local businessmen in Long Beach, California, as a substitute. Washington raced both Harvard and Yale for the first time at this event and defeated Yale by eight lengths to win the championship. Washington counts this victory among its string of Men’s National Varsity Eight Championships.'' † ''Navy was disqualified from the IRA Regatta for use of an ineligible coxswain. Trophies won by Navy were forfeited and not awarded. Cornell finished second.''

Number of Intercollegiate Rowing Association Championships: Men's Varsity Heavyweight Eights

1 Cornell University (26 championships) 2 University of Washington (21 championships) 3 University of California - Berkeley (19 championships) 4 US Naval Academy (12 championships) 5 University of Pennsylvania (12 championships) 6 University of Wisconsin - Madison (12 championships) 7 Brown University (7 championships) 8 Syracuse University (6 championships) 9 Columbia University (4 championships) 10 Princeton University (3 championships) 10 Harvard University (3 championships) 10 Yale University (3 championships) 13 Northeastern University (2 championships) 14 Dartmouth College (1 championship)

Ten Eyck Trophy

The Jim Ten Eyck Memorial Trophy is awarded to the school amassing the most overall points in a system based on the finishing places of three heavyweight eights crews. From 1952 through 1973, the winning team was the one with the most points in the varsity, junior varsity and freshman eights. Starting in 1974, all races counted in the scoring under a system adopted by the coaches of the Eastern Association of Rowing Colleges. More recently, the scoring system was revised to include only three of the four possible eights from each school in the points standings.

References

External links

*
IRA coverage on row2k

Regatta coverage on RegattaCentral
{{Rowing (sport) Camden County, New Jersey College rowing in the United States College rowing championships in the United States College sports governing bodies in the United States College sports in New Jersey Rowing governing bodies Rowing competitions

Rowing Rowing is the act of propelling a human-powered watercraft using the sweeping motions of oars to displace water and generate reactional propulsion. Rowing is functionally similar to paddling, but rowing requires oars to be mechanically a ...