About Our Club
Hickory Crew participates in rowing activities year-round. We have a busy schedule of regattas in the Fall and Spring, so our winter and summer conditioning programs are designed to maintain the fitness and skills that our rowers have expended so much to develop. Currently, the club is home to over 50 athletes, but we can always accommodate more!
We compete in scholastic and club regattas in southeastern, central, and northern Virginia. There are more than a dozen clubs locally and several more in the nearby region that we row against routinely.
Hickory Crew is a 501(c)3 organization and relies on revenue from dues, donations, and fundraising events to support the club's activities and expenditures, including new equipment, entry fees, insurance, rent, and maintenance.
Founded back in 1998, our mission is to be a place where anyone can come, get fit, and enjoy good sportsmanship, teamwork, and lifelong friendships.
The History of Crew
Rowing as a sport goes back quite a long way. It predates football, baseball, basketball, and most other sports that we think of today. It all likely began as a competition between the various boatmen and ferrymen providing services across the Thames River in London. The oldest race still in existence is the Doggett’s Coat and Badge race that dates to 1715. The first race in this country dates to before we were even a country, held in 1762 on the Schuylkill River in Philadelphia. Clubs developed, then college teams. By the 1830s the sport was quite popular. The Narragansett Boat Club is currently the oldest operating club in the United States, being continuously active since 1838.
Currently, rowing clubs exist throughout the US, and the world, with scholastic and college championships, in addition to national, world, and Olympic opportunities. We fall under the guidance and are a member of, USRowing, the governing body for the sport in the US. Locally, we are a member of the Eastern Virginia Scholastic Rowing Association (EVSRA) that pulls together clubs in our area for competitions.
Rowing Resources
