ITHACA, N.Y. - The women of Ithaca Crew no longer row in hand-me-down, wooden shells, sized and rigged for the men's team, but the memory of heavy, ill-fitting equipment is as fresh as ever for the members of the 1976 crew. Rowing is one of the oldest collegiate sports in the country, but it wasn't until 1976 that women's rowing events were included in the popular Dad Vail Collegiate Championship, or even the Olympic Games. In that historic year, it was the newly-established women's crew from Ithaca College that stroked its way to Dad Vail gold.  
 
Last Thursday, the Dad Vail winners of 1976 gathered at the edge of the Cayuga Inlet to kick off a weekend of crew celebrations with a reunion dinner.  Also in attendance were recent medal winners: athletes from the 2016 squad who used the win from 40 years prior to inspire their season goal of repeating as Dad Vail Champions. Coach Becky Robinson arrived by coaching launch with the recent medalists, reading a statement of appreciation across the water. She thanked the original crew for their role in establishing the tradition of excellence in IC Women's Rowing, and then sent the 2016 rowers forward with commemorative medals for their counterparts. The '76 crew wasted no time in aiming questions about sides and seats rowed, heights and callouses at the '16 crew, demonstrating perfectly the sense of connection and community that rowers share.   
 
In these days of carbon composite boats and Title IX compliance, it's almost shocking to realize that the pioneers of women's sport are not only still here, but still fit, current, vital women, established in their careers and joking with their kids about the possibility of grandkids. They show up to dinner in their old racing jerseys with stories about world travel and current athletic pursuits. In 1976, they faced some resistance, but weren't specifically trying to be pioneers. They just wanted to improve and compete, to relish the joy that squeezes into the cracks of hard work. They assigned each other nicknames. They teased the Cornell coaches during practice for looking so serious. 
 
It wasn't so different or so long ago. 
 
A debt of thanks is owed to those first crews and their coaches.  Thank you to Jill Bartikowsky, Julia Rife VanHassent, Ellen Andrew, Margaret Cooney Kearns, Barb Brumet, Laurie Creelman Heflin, Mary Ann Sprague Erickson, Julie Volk Thorpe, Debbie Kimball, and coaches Jerry Dietz and John Romain, for celebrating with us and for believing that the benefits of rowing should be shared. Your resilience and success in the face of equipment sharing, surly professors, and the inevitable Ithaca weather is example to us all.  We couldn't be more proud to be Bombers like you.