Boats

Boat Name: Wilma Rudolph

 Wilma Rudolph

(June 23, 1940 - November 12, 1994)

• Due to pneumonia and the polio virus, at age 4, she was left temporarily paralyzed

• Competed in her first Olympics at age 16 in 1956 where she won bronze in the women’s 400-meter relay

• At the 1960 Olympics she won gold in the 100-meter race, the 200-meter race, and the 400-meter team relay. 

• Became the first woman from the US to receive three gold medals in a single Olympic Game

• Nicknamed “the Tornado, the fastest woman on Earth”

• Required that the parade and ceremony held to celebrate her accomplishments in Clarksville, Tennessee was to be unsegregated.

Boat Name: Tori Murden-McClure

Tori Murden-McClure

(March 6, 1963 - present )

• First woman and first American to ski to the South Pole (1989). This expedition took 50 days and covered 750 miles.

• First woman to climb the Lewis Nunatak in the Antarctic (1988)

• First woman and first American to row solo across the Atlantic Ocean (1999). The row took 81 days and covered 4,767 kilometers from the Canary Islands to Guadeloupe.  First attempted in 1998 but had to stop due to a hurricane.
  

Boat Name: Emily Catlett

Emily (Plesser) Catlett

• Novice coach of the UC Davis Women’s Rowing team (1990-1992)

• Head coach of the UC Davis Women’s Rowing team (1993-2006). Coached for 15 seasons, including the team’s first 10 seasons as a UC Davis varsity sport

• Four-time winner of the Division II National Coach of the Year by the Collegiate Rowing Coaches Association

• Led UC Davis Women’s Rowing to NCAA Division II Championships in 2002 and 2003

• Pacific Coast Rowing Championships (PCRCs) team points winner for seven consecutive seasons (1993-1999)

Boat Name: Colleen Marie (2022)

Colleen Marie Chelini

• Rowed for UC Davis for four years (1990-1994)

• Led the push for funding $50,000 for the UC Davis Women’s Rowing team’s endowment (2022) which results in an annual payout for the team

• Has a sports medicine background as a certified athletic trainer and works with Stanford’s rugby teams

Boat Name: Mary McBride

Mary McBride Saumure

(1982 - January 20, 2015)

• Rowed for UC Davis in 1990

• Belonged to the Ophir-Milan Women’s Cycling Club - biked through Italy in 1996

• Battled breast cancer for four years, passed at the age of 33

Boat Name: Midori Mason*

Midori Mason

• Rowed for UC Davis for four years (1977-1981)

• Coached for UC Davis Women’s Rowing from 1981-1983

Boat Name: Ann Bancroft

Ann Bancroft

(September 29, 1955 - present )

• First woman to reach the North Pole (1986) The “Will Steger International North Pole Expedition” was made up of six members and took 56 days using dog sleds. 

• First woman to reach both poles (1992)

• Leader of the first all-female expedition to the South Pole (1992-1993)

• Inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame in 1995

• Bancroft and Norwegian adventurer, Liv Arnesen, became the first women to ski across Antarctica (2001)

• Led an expedition on the Ganges River as part of the “Access Water Initiative Series” to raise awareness of the importance of clean water and that waste will travel downstream. This expedition took 60 days and covered 1,500 miles.

Boat Name: Pam Gill-Fisher

Pam Gill-Fisher

(June 1949 - present)

• A student-athlete (BA 1971, Credential 1972, MA 1975 - field hockey, basketball, softball, tennis, and volleyball), coach (volleyball, basketball, and tennis), teacher, and administrator at UC Davis

• Inducted into the Cal Aggie Athletic Hall of Fame in 1984

• Coached the Tennis team who won the NCAA Division II National Championship in 1990

• A champion of equity in athletics and a national leader in Title IX compliance

• Helped initiate UC Davis’ move to Division I athletics

Boat Name: Teegy Weegy (2017)

Teegan Gatta Medcalf

(May 6, 1993 - present)

• Rowed for UC Davis for four years (2011-2015)

• Coached for UC Davis Women’s Rowing from 2015-2017 and 2022-2023

• Led Novice 8+ to gold at ACRA in 2016

• Active member and Secretary of the UC Davis Women’s Rowing Alumni Board

Boat Name: Charybdis (1994)

A sea monster in Greek mythology, located in the Strait of Messina off the coast of Sicily. She was believed to live under a small rock on one side of a narrow channel. Opposite her was Scylla, another sea monster, that lived inside a much larger rock. The sides of the strait were within an arrow-shot of each other, and sailors attempting to avoid one of them would come in reach of the other. To be "between Scylla and Charybdis" therefore means to be presented with two opposite dangers, the task being to find a route that avoids both. Three times a day, Charybdis swallowed a huge amount of water, before belching it back out again, creating large whirlpools capable of dragging a ship underwater. In some variations of the story, Charybdis was simply a large whirlpool instead of a sea monster.

Charybdis aided her father Poseidon in his feud with her paternal uncle Zeus and, as such, helped him engulf lands and islands in water. Zeus, angry over the land she stole from him, captured and chained her to the sea-bed. Charybdis was then cursed by the god and transformed into a hideous bladder of a monster, with flippers for arms and legs, and an uncontrollable thirst for the sea. As such, she drank the water from the sea thrice a day to quench it, which created whirlpools. In some myths, Charybdis was a voracious woman who stole oxen from Heracles, and was hurled by the thunderbolt of Zeus into the sea, where she retained her voracious nature.

Additional Boats:

Coxed Eights (8+)

Chutzpah* - Extreme self-confidence; nerve, gall. The quality of audacity, for good or for bad. Derived from a Hebrew word meaning “insolence”, “cheek” or “audacity.” [Donated to Cal Poly SLO to help start their program in March of 2024]

Á Coup Sûr (1986)* - French for “with sure blow,” definitely, certainly, without doubt, without fail, for a certainty.

Murphy’s Law (1988)* - An adage that states "Anything that can go wrong will go wrong."

Tsunami

Robert B. Shea*

Synchronicity*

No Excuses*

Loyal Norris*

Coxed Fours (4+)

Class of 2020

Smooth and Generous

Lagatto*

Pairs/Doubles (2x/-)

The Mac (2021)

The Harvester ‘96 (1996) - Red

Carlyn (1996) - Blue

Genevieve (1996) - Green

Jasper (1996) - Yellow

(year acquired)

*No longer in use/at the boathouse