Hours before the sun comes up, just as the dew is forming on the grass, members of the ISU Crew Club can be found crawling into cars heading to Hickory Grove Lake outside of Nevada, Iowa.

The 30-minute drive at 5:30 in the morning might be cringe-worthy to most, but to this dedicated group of seven women and 18 men, it’s a therapy of sorts.

“You need a break away from engineering,” said William Peter, third-year member and senior in industrial engineering. “It starts to melt your mind a little bit. You need to break away and do something that’s team-oriented, and all these people are great to be around.”

As the team pulls into the parking lot, it’s pitch black outside, except for a small exterior building light. It’s often 40 degrees or cooler, and the water feels more like ice than anything else.

Team members head to the trailer where the boats are stored. Peter, whose job is known as coxswain, is carefully telling each team member what to do through a microphone, from lifting the boat off the rack to setting the boat in the water.

“[The coxswain] is just the helmsman,” Peter said. “Steering, motivating, coaching, making sure the boat doesn’t split in half. Basically just making sure I have all four or eight rowers at the end of the race.”

As team members get in the boat, they slowly push off from the shore and wait for the commands from the coxswain. Then, in just seconds, the boat is gliding across the water almost silently with rowers in full bore.

The club was started in the fall of 2002 with about 10 members. With the help of the Des Moines Rowing Club, the team was able to get a boat in the water and race against the Iowa Rowing Club for the “Cy-Hawk Trophy” in the spring of 2003. Despite losing, the team was no longer dead in the water.

Fast-forward to 2013, the team has grown to 25 members and is competing in both fall and spring events across the Midwest. Consisting of a men’s and women’s team, the club is a diverse group that is open to any ISU student.

“It’s a great team sport and a great workout,” said Maria Rygh, first-year member and senior in mechanical engineering. “At first I was like, there is no way I’m getting up to practice at 6 in the morning. And then one Tuesday morning, I went to practice and I’ve been going to them ever since.”

The simple task of rowing a boat becomes much more complicated with a team, and new members have to learn the lingo before competing on the water. The coxswain and team members serve as teachers to new members as they expose them to new rowing vocabulary.

“There are training sessions and we try to loop those words into everyday conversation,” Peter said. “Seat numbers, parts of the boat, parts of the oar … there are a lot of technical terms. You mainly pick it up on the water with repetition.”

When the team is not practicing on the water, they can be found at Lied Recreation Athletic Center using the rowing machines and other equipment to train. Anyone is invited to attend practices and new members are always welcome.

The fall season starts at the beginning of the school year in August until the first week in November. The team competes in regattas, the term for the rowing events.

“It’s basically like a track meet,” said Jeffrey Heylmun, club president and junior in mechanical engineering. “You have all your clubs go and have a bunch of different races: singles, doubles, one, two, three, four and eight. There are different types of rowing called sweep and scull, which is one oar or two. There are different divisions from lightweight to novice to juniors. So there are quite a few different events.”

This season, the club made six trips to regattas across the Midwest. Iowa State usually has four or five different entries, usually a men’s and women’s boat of four and eight and then a mixed boat of eight. 

The fall season turned out to be a breakout season for the club, seeing the most success in its history. At least one men’s, women’s and mixed boat finished in the top three at every event this fall.

“The past few years, we hadn’t won anything, no medals or anything,” Heylmun said. “Our men’s [team] won a second and third place in a varsity event, which we usually place last in, so that was pretty cool. Our women’s novice and mixed boats have also won events.”

Most recently, the team traveled to Witchita, Kan., to compete at the 22nd Annual Frostbite Regatta on Nov. 3. The team’s Mixed Open 8 boat won gold in a field of 16 teams in the final race of the day.

Although the fall season is over, the team now will be practicing for the spring period. The “winter season” will be practiced indoors as a time for training, and anyone is invited to join.

“There is no superstar in rowing, no one person can stand out,” Rygh said. “It’s a team effort. Everybody is pushing each other, and the club is just really fun.”