The varsity lightweight crew team kicks off its racing season Saturday against Rutgers at home on the Schuylkill river as one of the youngest teams in the league.
Still, according to sophomore Michael King, it is a team "full of energy and enthusiasm."
King, who will be rowing on the varsity eight Saturday, is one of five sophomores on that boat. These sophomores all rowed together last year on the freshman team that finished with an impressive 5-2 record in cup races and a sixth place finish at Eastern Sprints -- arguably the Quakers most important race of the season -- against some of the best competition in the country.
The much-heralded sophomores will need to step up this season to replace some key losses due to graduation.
They, along with senior captain Tevis Jacobs, senior Dan Thistle and junior Jonathan Macknin, will try to improve a varsity eight boat which had a poor 2001-2002 season, ending with a 1-6 record and a ninth-place finish at Sprints.
This disappointing regular season record was due, in part, to an extremely difficult racing schedule, one which will be repeated this year.
"We race almost everyone who traditionally makes it to the final at Sprints and IRAs," King said. "All of our races...are pretty big."
Those races will be against Harvard, Navy, Columbia, Princeton, Cornell and Rutgers -- all of whom are nationally competitive.
"We're all really psyched about the season," King said. "Everyone is just really optimistic."
While some of this optimism might be a result of a new, younger team, Penn is also beginning the season with a younger coaching staff.
Mike Irwin leads the team into the season as the new varsity coach. For the past seven seasons, Irwin has been in New Haven. He coached the freshman lightweight team and then the freshman heavyweight team at Yale. Irwin had a great deal of success at Yale and will try to continue his winning ways at Penn this year. The freshman team also has a new coach, former Penn heavyweight rower John Fife.
The new coaching staff will have access to a Quakers team with "a lot of talent," according to King.
