In Focus: Steel City Rowing Club

On an un­sea­son­ably warm No­vem­ber morn­ing, Lucy Tut­tle-Smith steps into a small mo­tor­boat to head out on the Al­le­gheny River to coach a group of in­ter­me­di­ate and ad­vanced row­ers from the Steel City Row­ing Club.
“This may be our last time on the river,” she shouts to the two quad sculls pre­par­ing to launch.
“You have been say­ing that for weeks!” re­plied a group of row­ers as they pushed off the dock.
Ms. Tut­tle-Smith has been in­volved with the group since 2003 when her son be­came in­ter­ested in row­ing in high school. Since then she has spent much of her time mak­ing sure the club pros­pers through vol­un­teer work and even­tu­ally be­com­ing a staff coach. The club’s three-story boat­house on the bank of the Al­le­gheny River in Verona opened in 2010 and, in ad­di­tion to over 200 mem­bers, it serves as home base for five high schools. Ms. Tut­tle-Smith now spends much of her time as a coach talk­ing about style and tech­nique of row­ing, but her pas­sion for the sport is rooted in the sense of com­mu­nity that de­vel­ops in the club. “You de­velop strong bonds with the peo­ple here, it’s a very wel­com­ing group.”
For some club mem­bers, the spirit of com­pe­ti­tion keeps them go­ing. “It’s very ad­dic­tive,” said Karla Isen­berg of O’Hara. “It’s the elu­sive 10 per­cent. The first 90 per­cent is pretty sim­ple to fig­ure out. It’s find­ing the lit­tle things that make it per­fect. And you get to be with your friends work­ing to­wards a com­mon goal.”