Posted: 5/4/07 Section: Sports

Media Credit: Beck Diefenbach Isaac Bloom, sophomore in FAA, rows with his teammates of the Illini crew team on Homer Lake, near Homer, Ill., on Thursday. The Illini crew team just finished its first year of competitive racing and spent Thursday's practice as a chance to recruit new members for the team.

"All eight! Squared and buried at the catch ... Sit ready ... And full! Half! Three quarters! Full!"

The coxswain's voice echoes over the 80 acres of the vacant Homer Lake in Homer, Ill., as the Illini crew team heads full-speed in a practice-race start.

Its 45-year-old fiberglass boat rumbles the steady waters for the last time this semester.

But it's only the team's first school year rowing - the Illini crew is new to the University.



"Either I was gonna start it or it wasn't gonna happen," Dan Walsh said, the founder of the team.

After rowing for two years in high school, Walsh, a sophomore in LAS, was disappointed that the University didn't have a team of its own.

"It is really fascinating how far we've gotten just from a dream of Dan's and a problem - that there wasn't any crew team - to actually having boats and a trailer and a lake for us to row," Isaac Bloom said.

All of the other members didn't have any prior rowing experience, but they were dedicated. They spent the winter waking up at 5 a.m. to train on the machines at CRCE and finally got to go out into the water this spring.

"It's pretty crazy that from going to CRCE, just practicing on the (equipment), to actually going out in the water, we were able to pull off a team," said Bloom, one of the coxswains and a sophomore in FAA.

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