The Program
The Oakland Strokes is open to full-time high school students who are interested in learning to row and compete in the sport. The program is made up of Junior Men's and Junior Women's crews (Men's Varsity, Women's Varsity, Novice Men's and Novice Women's crews). In addition to rowing technique, the coaches emphasize our values of teamwork, leadership, initiative, dedication and fellowship.
In addition to successful rowing, our team members have also enjoyed successful academic achievement. Each year a great majority of our graduating seniors matriculate to prestigious colleges with strong rowing teams. Strokes alumni are currently attending Yale, Princeton, Dartmouth, Cornell, University of Washington, U.C. Berkeley, U.C. Davis, Penn, trinity College, Boston University and Bates College.
With the growing importance of Title IX, a great many universities are adding a women's crew as a varsity sport and offering scholarships to support the rowers in reaching their academic goals. 1997 was the inaugural year of NCAA Women's Championship.
The Oakland Strokes is a long established and very successful Junior level rowing club. Membership in the Oakland Strokes is open to all high school students and financial aid is available to those who qualify. There are some races in the fall, but the main racing season is the spring, between March and May and the season culminates in a two-day meet, the Southwest Junior Regional Championships, held in May at Lake Natoma in the Sacramento area, plus possibly national championships in June and international championships for qualified rowers. In 2000, at the US Rowing Junior National Championships, the Men's Lightweight team placed second and Men's Varsity team placed third.
The USRA publishes a directory of rowing organizations including schools and colleges.
The Legacy of Ed Lickiss
The Oakland Strokes was founded in 1974 by Ed Lickiss, a local electrical contractor, who, as a student at Cal, had won the Pacific Coast Sculling Championship for three years in a row and by 1940 was chosen to represent his country at the Olympic Games. Because of the war, the games were cancelled and Ed joined the Army Air Corps instead.
After the war Ed returned to Oakland and to rowing, founded the Lake Merritt Rowing Club in 1960, and established a program of crew for high school students. Historically, crew had been a men's sport. Believing that women would also enjoy crew, Ed began training young women and, with Joanna Iverson and Ted Nash, founded the National Women's Rowing Association in 1964. Today the USRA honors him with the annual Edwin E. Lickiss Trophy for the Lightweight Women's Four Championship.
Ed envisioned crew as a sport that could provide young athletes with both excellent physical training and the confidence to succeed in life's most challenging endeavors. To provide a framework for that vision, he incorporated the Strokes as a California nonprofit corporation and it became chartered as Explorer Post 8 and 9 of the Boy Scouts of America, Piedmont Council.
On Ed's death in 1985, a group of his family and friends joined together to keep alive his dedication to rowing. Today, the Oakland Strokes is operated by a board of directors that include former coaches and rowers and the parents of former rowers and current rowers. The board sets the policies and carries out the responsibilities of the rowing program.
Competition
- Racing schedules vary each year but regattas have
included the Head of the Oakland Estuary, the Head of the Charles in Boston, the Stanford Autumn Classic, the Newport Autumn Rowing Festival, the
Long Beach Invitational, the San Diego Crew Classic, the Southwest Regional Junior
Championships at Lake Natoma near Sacramento, the Lake Merced Novice Regatta, the
Windermere Cup (opening day) in Seattle and the U.S. Rowing Youth Invitational in
Cincinnatti.
- The Strokes compete locally against the Los Gatos rowing
Club, Berkeley High School, Pacific Rowing Club of S.F., Saint Ignatius College
Preparatory, Marin Rowing Club, Serra / Notre Dame High School, Capitol Rowing Club, and
River City Rowing Club.
- They also compete on the West Coast against Greenlake of Seattle, Newport Aquatics, the Long Beach Rowing Club, ZLAC of San Diego, San Diego Rowing Club, Mt. Baker Rowing Club of Oregon and Brentwood of British Columbia.
