Small Club Saturdays: Tulsa Youth Rowing Association

USRowing will feature a new small club on a Saturday once a month to highlight their achievements and mission. Today we are highlighting Tulsa Youth Rowing Association.

Club Background

Tulsa Youth Rowing Association become a non-profit in 2014. However, the youth club has existed under the banner of Tulsa Rowing Club as Tulsa Rowing Club Juniors since the late 1990s. The club provides young athletes with the opportunity to train and race while building teamwork, dedication, and respect in a supportive and competitive environment. TYRA was the first youth program from Oklahoma to attend the Henley Royal Regatta (2013).

Mission

• Teach proper rowing technique and race against other junior crews.

• Work as a team to promote dedication, sportsmanship and commitment into every practice and race.

• Participate in regional and national level regattas to establish Tulsa Youth Rowing Association as a nationally competitive program.

• Challenge athletes in physical training to achieve maximum development and performance.

• Provide programming to put athletes in good standing for rowing scholarships at colleges and universities.

• Provide STEM integrated rowing opportunities for underserved youth and promote the sport of rowing in the community.

• Motto: "One Team".

Program Structure

We offer a competitive program that trains five days a week. We also offer a recreational program that practices twice a week. We are also partnered with the George Pocock Rowing Foundation and USRowing helping to manage an Erg Ed program. We have yet to roll that out because of COVID protocols in the Tulsa Public Schools but hope to do so soon.

Initiatives to Bring in Participants

We have offered free learn to row clinics to both adults and youth rowers. We typically spent three hours teaching basic rowing technique and how to use the Concept2. We have also offered summer camps. Additionally, we have partnered with community organizations such as the Opportunity Project to provide after school programming/club which involves providing public schools with Concept2 rowing machines, training for faculty and a comprehensive STEM program. Through these efforts we have been successful in recruiting athletes to our competitive and recreational programs.

gROW Details

Our gROW Tulsa program is a RowingSTEM outreach initiative that provides more access to the sport of rowing for underserved youth. Typically a school is provided four to six Concept2 rowing machines and faculty at each school sponsor and supervise the club. The faculty member is provided training on how to instruct rowing on the machine and how to implement our RowingSTEM curriculum and how to use the technology (an app for data collection) to implement the curriculum.

We are currently serving four schools. Three schools in the Tulsa Public School system and one alternative school in the Union Public Schools system. The schools in Tulsa Public Schools are afterschool programs and the Union Public School is a program that runs within the school day.

We plan to have our first outreach on the water summer camp this June or July.

The STEM app is available in the iOS and Android app store in all markets. It contains the full STEM curriculum we have created with new material being added continuously. All of our curriculum can be found here. Clubs are welcome to use our app, make copies of our activities or edit as they see fit!

For more on Tulsa Youth Rowing Association, click here.