UT Rowing is looking to become a blockbuster hit

The University of Texas rowing team is easily the most dominant sport at UT that most Longhorn fans don’t know anything about.

“We’ve won NCAA championships three out of the last four years, we’re currently ranked number one,” said head coach Dave O’Neill.

The Horns could have possibly made it four in a row if not for a flock of geese landing in UT’s lane during the 2023 NCAA championship regatta.

If Texas is going to make it four championships in the last five years, they’re going to need some young rowers to step up.

“Coming into this year, I kind of thought this was going to be a little bit of a rebuilding year,” said O’Neill. “I think at one point I put a challenge out there like, ‘hey, if we keep on the pace we’re on I think we’re definitely going to be top four in the country, we can get ourselves on the podium.’ I could tell there were some kids that were like, ‘ugh, top four, that’s not our standard.’”

The Horns return only two rowers off their first eight boat from last season. It’s a team loaded with freshmen and sophomores. But O’Neill says the young rowers have developed quickly.

“Early on in the year there were some signs like, ‘hey, I think we can be pretty good,’” O’Neill said. “We had a really good freshman class and some freshmen stepping up and doing well, we had some really good leadership. So by the time we got to February, it was like, ‘I think we’re going to be ok.’”

As young as the team is, two upperclassmen are leading the charge for the Horns.

“Sue Holderness is the stroke of our first eight right now and she's turned herself into one of the best rowers in the country,” O’Neill said. “Marg van der Waal, you know, six seat of our first eight, and she might be the best rower, the best division one rower in the country right now.”

Holderness is an example of the depth of the Texas rowing team. As a freshman, she wasn’t even able to make a boat that raced in the NCAA’s. But she worked diligently at the sport and now, as a senior, is finally getting her chance to lead. She’s in the “stroke” position on the boat, the eighth seat, who sets the pace and the rhythm that the entire crew.

O’Neill, like every good coach, has made recruiting the lifeline of the program and he leaves no stone unturned to find the recruits.

“We're recruiting the best,” said ...