St. Louis Rowing Club

In 1990, SLRC dedicated two rowing shells to high school rowing programs at eight St. Louis schools, in an effort to push interest in the sport down to St. Louis high schools. The high school component of SLRC took off, and has never looked back, as the program for high school boys and girls now numbers student-athletes from more than 25 high schools in the area every year. In July of 1993, the Boathouse flooded - not once, but twice - and the second time was devastating. Only a few shells could be saved, and the Boathouse was lost. But back came the rowing programs of Juniors, of Masters, and of Washington University, with shells stored in fenced areas at the Lake. In July of 1995, a Junior Women's four with coxswain won a second-place medal at the US Rowing National Junior Championships in Gainesville, Georgia. The following summer, a SLRC Junior Women's lightweight four with coxswain won a gold medal at the Royal Canadian Henley Regatta in Ontario. With the success of the St. Louis Rowing program, fundraising and donations picked up in the late 1990s, St. Louis County Government agreed to lease park land to the Club for it to build a new Boathouse, and by 2003, 10 years after the floods that devastated the previous Boathouse, a new one in its place was being constructed. Now, more than a decade later, SLRC boasts a Juniors rowing program of more than 125 young women and men, an adult Masters program of more than 100 women and men, a full-time head coach and multiple men and women assistant coaches, two recent Juniors national championship boats in 2013 and 2016, and multiple Masters national championship boats in recent years.