Weekly Release #1

Upcoming Schedule
Sunday, Oct. 22 -- at Head of the Charles (Boston, Mass.)
Sunday, Oct. 29 -- at Head of the Elk (Elkhart, Ind.)

Michigan Rowing This Week
The University of Michigan women's rowing team heads to Boston to participate in the Head of the Charles regatta on the Charles River. Club events take place Saturday (Oct. 21), but Michigan will not race until Sunday (Oct. 22) in the open races. Michigan will be taking two boats (one eight and one four) to the Head of the Charles.

Head of the Charles
The Head of the Charles regatta is the world's largest two-day rowing event. The first race took place October 16, 1965. In its 34-year history, the race has grown into a 19-event regatta which draws over 300,000 fans and over 5,400 athletes from around the world. Head of the Charles on the Internet -- www.hocr.org.

The Forecast
The forecast calls for partly cloudy skies and a high of 56 degrees for the races on Sunday.

The Last Time at the Head of the Charles
Last year, Michigan's varsity eight finished sixth in the women's Championship Eight race with a time of 17:16.83, while the varsity four finished with a top-three time of 19:24.53 but fell to 14th after receiving a one-minute penalty for colliding with the University of Massachusetts boat during the race. Among collegiate teams, the Wolverines fared well with the varsity eight finishing third and the varsity four finishing seventh.

A Word About "Head" Races
"Head" races are a class of regattas generally three miles in length where the boats race against themselves and the clock. The boats start approximately 15 seconds apart, and the winners earn the honorary title of "Head of the River."

Head Coach Mark Rothstein
Michigan head coach Mark Rothstein is in his fifth year as the head of the Michigan rowing team. Rothstein was instrumental in helping the club team become a varsity program in 1996 and has been the only head coach in the program's history. Rothstein has led the program to three consecutive fifth-place finishes at the NCAA Rowing Championships the last three seasons. In the summer of 1999, he was chosen to coach the U.S. Under-23 team at the Nations Cup in Hamburg, Germany. After guiding the Wolverines to the inaugural Big Ten championship and an automatic bid to the NCAA Championship last spring, Rothstein was selected as the Big Ten Co-Coach of the Year and the Midwest Region Coach of the Year.

Probable Lineups

VARSITY EIGHT Coxswain Helen Dalis Stroke Liz Nelson Seat 7 Kate Johnson Seat 6 Sera Coppolino Seat 5 Christina Meyer Seat 4 Laurel Donnell-Fink Seat 3 Alison Hickey Seat 2 Melanie Duncan Bow Angela Bierhuizen VARSITY FOUR Coxswain Fazeela Siddiqui Stroke Kate Maxim Seat 3 Sophie Roberge Seat 2 Jenny Bryant Bow Tami McBratney