Cleveland Verdin
May 26, 2008
Dr. Charles "Chuck" Binford
May 28, 2008
It was their first competition. The coach hesitated, but his team wanted to go.
So the Bayou Rowing Association sent six members – Hattie Templet, Jeanne Gros, Dennis Molaison, Sandra Molaison, MacKenzie Molaison and Marion Todd – to Houston for the Space City Sprints at Mud Lake, May 3.
They had been rowing together less than a year, and were going up against Texas rowers who had been competing for years.
“We were nervous, but the adrenaline from being here helped us pull through,” said Templet.
That they did, winning silver medals in the four-person, 1,000-meter mixed and women’s team events.
“I was just looking for them get exposure and have fun,” said coach and association cofounder Charles Mosley. “I’m so happy for them.”
Todd and the Molaisons finished the mixed team match race in 4:43:23. The team of Templet, Gros, Todd and Sandra Molaison, with MacKenzie as coxswain (the person who steers the boat) finished in 5:31:63, nearly 90 seconds faster than their previous best.
Strong winds and rough waves caused the rest of the contest to be cancelled, but team members’ spirits were still high.
“We met people who were from or had connection to the South Louisiana region,” said Templet. “They were glad to see us rowing.”
The Bayou Rowing Association began two-and-a-half years ago in Thibodaux. Mosley and cofounder Dr. Tim Mead, chairman of the Health & Physical Education Department at Nicholls State University, had a common complaint.
“This is a wasted resource,” said Mosley, referring to Bayou Lafourche. “No one uses it recreationally. People sometimes ride their motorboats up and down it, but that’s it.”
After Hurricane Katrina, Tulane was selling some of its racing shells. Mosley and Mead bought them and, in December 2005, established BRA as part the American Rowing Association.
It took them a few more months to find a willing property owner to get permission for a place to dock. They found it on Highway 308 across from Greenwood Plantation Road.
The Bayou Rowing Association is open to all and costs $35 a month per person to join. The team practices Tuesday and Thursday afternoons and Saturday mornings.
Members practice in the 2.1-mile span between the St. John Bridge and Highway 3185. The team rows in single person, four-person and eight-person racing shells and both types of rowing: sweep rowing and sculling.
“Sweep rowing is when the rowers have both hands on one oar,” explained Mosley. “Sculling is when you have an oar in each hand.”
Before coming to Thibodaux a decade ago to coach the Nicholls tennis team, Mosley coached rowing in his native Ohio at the 2000-member Cleveland Rowing Federation.
New participants will practice proper rowing technique on the ERG (ergometer) machine before taking to the water.
“There’s a lot to the rowing stroke,” said Templet. “The catch position (putting oars in the water), the drive which is a slide with the legs, then the back, then the hands. Then you do it in reverse.”
Balance and unison are the keys to success in rowing.
“Everyone’s oars should go into the water together and come out of the water together,” insists Mosley. “Everyone’s hands and heads should be level to keep the boat balance.”
The BRA has had as many as 20 members but currently has 12 regulars who have can’t get enough of the sport.
“This is the first time in my life I feel like an athlete,” said Templet, a Labadieville native who has been with BRA for over a year. “It’s a full body, non-impact activity so it doesn’t jar the joints.”
The Molaison family, also from Labadieville, became active rowers on Father’s Day last year.
“It was ‘Learn To Row Day,'” recalled Dennis Molaison. “MacKenzie and I took canoe lessons. I went home and told my wife, ‘I found the perfect exercise. We’re all going rowing.'”
The newest members, Cory Boudreaux and 12-year-old son Logan, joined to do something different and to provide the younger Boudreaux with some discipline.
“It’s an accomplishment I can have for myself,” she said. “It’s really a cool feeling when you’re in that boat with seven other people plus the coxswain and you’re just like ‘whoosh,’ and that boat just goes.”
Mosley badly wants to get more young people involved in rowing. He has given demonstrations in high schools, at Nicholls and open houses.
Those who show interest either do not attend or come by and soon quit.
MacKenzie Molaison, 15, and Marion Todd, 13, are the only teenage rowers in Louisiana, and there are no high school programs in the state.
“I try to get my friends to come,” said MacKenzie, a sophomore at E.D. White. “They tell me they’ll come, but they usually don’t show up.”
“He (Logan) gets excited when he comes and tells his friends, ‘We’re rowing today. It’s pretty cool,'” said Boudreaux.
Mosley claims he has had hundreds of thousands of dollars in scholarship offers from college coaches looking for teen rowers.
“The demand for rowers is tremendous,” he said. “There is so much opportunity that could be for kids in the bayou region. I could teach a kid to be coxswain and guarantee they get a scholarship.”
“At the [Space City] Sprints, the coach at Texas A&M said he’d give MacKenzie a scholarship if she sticks with it through high school,” said Sandra Molaison.
With its recent success, the Bayou Rowing Association is making plans to gain more exposure.
It hopes to put on a regatta in the fall. Mosley has already contacted Texas teams interested in participating.
Some BRA members want to compete in the Marathon Championships, a 26-mile rowing regatta on the Cane River in Natchitoches this November.
“I don’t know if they’re ready for that yet,” said Mosley. “But if they keep training like they have, I wouldn’t be surprised if they did well.”
For information, call Mosley at (985) 859-0766.
Members of the Bayou Rowing Association – front to back: Sandra Molaison, Kim Smith, MacKenzie Molaison, Cory Boudreaux, Hattie Templet and Dennis Molaison – practice on Bayou Lafourche. * Photo by KEYON JEFF
