Cooper River a top rowing venue

With its his­tor­ic boathouses and mon­u­ment to Olym­pic gold med­al­ist John B. Kel­ly, the Schuylkill has been at the epi­cen­ter of Amer­i­can row­ing going back to the 19th cen­tu­ry.

But when it comes to the realities of mod­ern racing — with records on the line and arguments over slow lanes — many race or­gan­iz­ers now­a­days head across the Ben Frank­lin Bridge to the Coop­er River.

This week­end and next the Coop­er will host scho­las­tic and col­le­giate na­tion­al championships — bringing thousands of rowers and spectators to a riv­er that many of the sport's elite have come to know in­ti­mate­ly in re­cent years.

"It's one of the top venues in the coun­try. Wheth­er I want to rank it first, sec­ond, or third depends on who you talk to," said Anne Cutler, a former col­le­giate row­er from Haddon Township and the former president of the Coop­er River Row­ing Association. "The com­mu­ni­ty isn't as strong as the Schuylkill be­cause the Schuylkill has been around for­ev­er. But we're getting there."

The rise of the Coop­er as a top-ranked crew ven­ue is not ac­ci­den­tal.

For years most of the big na­tion­al races passed Phila­del­phia by be­cause the Schuylkill — with its meandering cur­rents and sig­na­ture bend — did not con­form to mod­ern racing standards.

"The Schuylkill can't host an in­ter­na­tion­al or na­tion­al-lev­el event; the course has to be straight, and it has to be fair," said Ed Mo­ran, com­mu­ni­ca­tions di­rec­tor for U.S. Row­ing, the or­ga­niz­ing body for the sport.

The Coop­er's 2,000-me­ter course is straight.

The riv­er got its big break in 1993 when Lake On­on­da­ga in Up­state New York flooded, prompting or­gan­iz­ers of the In­ter­col­le­giate Row­ing Association cham­pi­on­ship to find an al­ter­nate race site. With­in two years, the Camden County riv­er had be­come the fixed site for what most con­sid­er col­lege row­ing's most im­por­tant race.

Heath­er Brooks, who rowed reg­u­lar­ly on the Coop­er while at Moores­town High School be­fore going to the University of Tulsa on a schol­ar­ship, said the riv­er was known for its con­sis­ten­cy. In com­par­i­son to places like the Schuylkill, where var­i­able conditions can wreak hav­oc on races, the Coop­er is rel­a­tive­ly protected from the weath­er — and the dam al­lows officials to ad­just the wa­ter lev­el depending on the rain.

"Some­times we'll get pret­ty strong winds, but with the trees on the out­side, the conditions stay rel­a­tive­ly the same year round," Brooks said.

But for a long time, conditions were far removed from Phila­del­phia's Boat­house Row. Lo­cal teams kept their shells and gear on the riv­er's banks — with noth­ing more than a chain-link fence to pro­tect them. When thunderstorms rolled in, racers and coaches would go running for their cars. That improved in 2004 when con­struc­tion began on a $5.4 mil­lion boat­house.

The 23,000-square-foot wood and stone struc­ture houses sev­en lo­cal high school, col­lege, and club row­ing teams, and its bal­co­ny — overlooking the riv­er and ban­quet hall — has be­come a point of pride for lo­cal rowers, not to men­tion politicians.

"The Schuylkill is very pop­u­lar with the Dad Vail, but in terms of na­tion­al events, the Coop­er River is more sig­nif­i­cant," Camden County Free­hold­er Jeff Nash said. "We're there."

Using a 2004 Row­an University eco­nom­ic study as a guide, coun­ty officials es­ti­mate regattas on the Coop­er bring $10 mil­lion a year into the lo­cal econ­o­my through ho­tel stays, team dinners, and the like.

"People all come in for lunch, some­times for din­ner," said Tom Delimaris, own­er of the riv­er­side res­tau­rant the Lob­ster Trap. "The last four or five years, it's been building. More races, more peo­ple."

The Coop­er now sees about 12 regattas a year, bringing an estimated 35,000 racers and spectators to the re­gion each year.

County officials are looking to build on that mo­men­tum as they pre­pare for a $5 mil­lion dredging pro­ject on the Coop­er, which will add a lane to the course and bring the riv­er in line with in­ter­na­tion­al standards to­ward one day bringing Eu­ro­pe­an teams to race in South Jer­sey. In ad­di­tion, a $5 mil­lion over­haul of Coop­er River Park — which Camden County is bor­row­ing to pay for — includes plans for deck­ing for spectators to watch regattas. The work is expected to be com­pleted next year.

Wheth­er the dreams of one day be­com­ing an in­ter­na­tion­al ven­ue will ever be re­al­ized is dif­fi­cult to say, Mo­ran said.

"There are oth­er courses in the Unit­ed States that are making bids," he said. "The Unit­ed States is not a big row­ing coun­try. It's much bigger in Eur­ope, gen­er­al­ly speaking. The world championships are there; the sport's more pop­u­lar."

The Coop­er al­ready is taking on the Schuylkill in Phila­del­phia row­ing circles. Two races tra­di­tion­al­ly held in the city — the Frost­bite Re­gat­ta and the Bill Brax­ton Memorial Re­gat­ta — moved to the Coop­er last year to save mon­ey.

"There's a lot of costs in Phila­del­phia, with the po­lice and the parks de­part­ment and EMS," said Clete Gra­ham, a re­gat­ta or­ga­niz­er and former com­mo­dore of the Schuylkill Navy, which oversees racing on that riv­er. "The costs are sig­nif­i­cant­ly lower on the Coop­er."

In 2009, the his­tor­ic Dad Vail Re­gat­ta, the largest col­le­giate race in the coun­try, threatened to leave Phila­del­phia over a cost dis­pute with Mayor Nutter's of­fice af­ter the loss of some sponsors.

Still, for many racers, the Schuylkill holds a cer­tain al­lure that no amount of cost savings or in­ter­na­tion­al rec­og­ni­tion can match.

Jack Gal­lo­way, chair­man of the Dad Vail, compared the Schuylkill to the famed Hen­ley-on-Thames in Eng­land, which has fierce cur­rents and accommodates only two boats at a time yet remains a fix­ture in the row­ing cal­en­dar.

"From a his­tor­ic point of view, [the Schuylkill] is a great place. If you're a coach down in Aus­tin or Flor­i­da and you're going to trav­el to Phila­del­phia, you want to be on Boat­house Row," he said. "If you're row­ing into a cur­rent, oh well."

The Coop­er has lit­tle to no cur­rent, the prod­uct of fed­er­al workers building a dam across its banks af­ter the De­pres­sion, according to the Coop­er River Yacht Club. That ef­fec­tive­ly turned the Coop­er into a lake and an ide­al ven­ue for row­ing.

Row­ing as a sport didn't re­al­ly get going there un­til decades later, and even then it was a lone­ly pas­time.

Now on spring af­ter­noons, the cry of the cox­swain over the wa­ter has be­come a fa­mil­iar sound. For lo­cal rowers, the out­side at­ten­tion on their home turf has proved wel­come.

Brooks, 23, described fond­ly her high school years on the Coop­er, be­ing out on the wa­ter on frig­id spring af­ter­noons when most peo­ple stayed in­doors.

"That was be­fore the boat­house," she said. "We re­al­ly didn't care one way or an­oth­er. If it's rainy or cold, we're going to be out there any­way. Now it's ranked as one of the top courses in the coun­try."