Mid-Atlantic Rowing Conference Founded

Nine Schools to be Charter Members

LANCASTER, Pa. -- Intercollegiate rowing programs at nine NCAA Division III institutions have formed the Mid-Atlantic Rowing Conference (MARC), which will sponsor a conference championship in both women's and men's rowing beginning in 2009. Bryn Mawr College (Bryn Mawr, Pa.), Franklin & Marshall College (Lancaster, Pa.), Johns Hopkins University (Baltimore, Md.), Marietta College (Marietta, Ohio), the University of Mary Washington (Fredericksburg, Va.), North Park University (Chicago, Ill.), the Richard Stockton College of New Jersey (Pomona, N.J.), Rutgers University-Camden (Camden, N.J.), and Washington College (Chestertown, Md.) are the founding members of the conference and will compete for the MARC Championship in women's rowing. Seven of the nine schools (all but Bryn Mawr and Marietta) will also compete for the MARC Championship in men's rowing.

The conference was formed, in part, to formalize the relationship between the rowing programs at the nine charter member schools, which, for the past two years, have held an annual regatta called the Mid-Atlantic Division III Rowing Championships at Gifford Pinchot State Park in northern York County, Pa. (That regatta was the descendant of an earlier regatta known as the Atlantic Collegiate League Sprints Championships.) The regatta will henceforth be known as the Mid-Atlantic Rowing Conference Championships and the first-ever MARC Championships will be held on Saturday, April 25th, 2009, at Gifford Pinchot.

“This is an important development for the sport of rowing,” said Franklin & Marshall Director of Athletics and Recreation, Patricia S.W. Epps. “I am proud that F&M is to be a charter member of the MARC.”

Competing in the MARC will afford rowers at the nine charter member schools the same opportunities already available to many of their peer student-athletes, including the potential of receiving All-Conference honors and the chance to compete for a Conference Championship.

“Establishing this conference allows the participating institutions to recognize their rowers in the same manner that their athletes from other sports are accorded recognition and honors,” said Director of Rowing and Head Coach, Claus Wolter. “It is a move that further legitimizes an intercollegiate sport which until as recently as 1997 has been outside the bounds of the NCAA.”

The conference is currently developing a web presence at http://MARConline.org.