Six novice male freshmen and several female freshmen have volunteered to become Tomko's newest batch of crew participants. Crew is a club sport at Susquehanna in which members of two, four and eight people per boat race against other teams. The occupants of the boat hold oars and row in sync with each other. Multiple boats compete at one time. There is a set amount of distance that the boats must travel to reach the finish of the race.
Many races are so competitive that the victor wins by mere yards.
The crew team's main focus is all about coordination. They run together, lift weights together, warm up together and row together. Crew demands that each member uses all of his or her physical strength in an effort to propel the boat forward. Strained muscles, bruises, blisters and bloody scrapes are all commonplace to the average crew member, who strains with all of his or her effort against the force of water while gripping a wooden oar for an hour at a time. The crew season doesn't begin until the spring.