putting a name to it … The KU women’s rowing team dips into the power of Kansas imagery when it christens its boats— shells for racing teams of eight, four, two and single rowers. Names such as Toto’s Revenge, Ruby Slipper, Dorothy, Glinda and Scarecrow are inspired by the ultimate good versus evil Kansas fairy tale The Wizard of Oz. Themes of KU and Kansas history and landscape appear on boats named Ad Astra, Bison, Wakarusa, Jayhawker, Oread, Prairie Banshee and Wom-PaWa-Ra, the name of a Konza tribal leader. Jayhawk Nation, one of the eight-crew boats (58 feet long propelled by 121/2-foot oars), is a team favorite. It was named to honor KU students after they voted to add a fee to support construction of the new boathouse.
women’s rowing program has a varsity team competing at the NCAA level. Over the years, Catloth says he has grown to appreciate the natural setting where his work takes place. He recalls the day his team counted 11 eagles, mornings when beavers swim by and times when deer and fox appear at the water’s edge. Heron are frequent visitors, and in the fall, snowy egret land by the hundreds on nearby sandbars. He describes the sound the river ice makes “like glass cracking … and sometimes a crack in the ice will literally go up the river for miles, and you’ll hear it as it snaps and traces up the river.” Catloth trains, and shares this stretch of the river, with 70 to 75 women on the rowing team whenever the weather and winds allow.
“Sometimes a crack in the ice will literally go up the river for miles, and you’ll hear it as it snaps and traces the river.”
– rob catloth
“Anything over a 15 mph [wind] is really dicey as to whether you can row or not,” says Catloth. “Wind affects a lot, because obviously you have those boats that don’t sit very high out of the water. Here, we’re actually pretty protected unless we have a south wind … and Kansas is the land of the south wind.” Catloth uses a rough calculation of 70 degrees to determine whether the team will be on the water. That doesn’t sound too harsh until he points out that
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