University of Louisville
Head of the Hooch
Saturday’s Head of the Hooch to Open the Fall for Louisville Rowing
November 04, 2016 | Rowing
Cardinals will have varsity eight, varsity four, novice eight and doubles crews competing in Chattanooga
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - The University of Louisville rowing team will compete against outside competition for the first time this season as the Cardinals travel to Chattanooga, Tennessee for Saturday's Head of the Hooch regatta on the Tennessee River.
One of the world's largest regattas, the Head of the Hooch features more than 2,000 boats racing over two days and is hosted by the Atlanta Rowing Club in Roswell, Georgia and the Lookout Rowing Club in Chattanooga. The Cardinals will compete on Saturday only with four varsity eight boats, two novice eight crews, four doubles entries and five varsity four boats.
"This is our first race of the year and we follow it up with our last race of the fall next week at Virginia, so this is a busy couple of weeks for us to see where we're at," said Louisville head coach Derek Copeland. "We've been managing some changes in our training and practice program and excited to gain some tangible feedback on that. The progress feels good, especially with the extended stretch of training time we've experienced at home, so we're very optimistic that we'll be able to transfer what we've been doing on the Ohio River to this weekend's racing on the Tennessee River."
The Head of the Hooch will include numerous collegiate crews from around the nation, including Clemson, North Carolina, Alabama and Tennessee. The racing begins for Louisville in the women's championship 8+ event at 12:56 p.m., ET and will continue with the women's college and club 8+ at 2 p.m. The women's championship 2x is set for 3:58 p.m., while the women's championship 4+ event at 5 p.m., will conclude the racing for the Cardinals.
"We have some new staff members in program who have been in place for only a couple of months but feel like they've been here for a couple of years, so there is great cohesion between the coaches and the student-athletes," Copeland said. "I also give a lot of credit to our captains and leadership group, who have taken ownership of this team and have really pushed hard without missing a beat in our training."
The Cardinals will conclude their fall racing schedule next week at the Rivanna Romp, hosted by the University of Virginia on Nov. 13 in Earlysville, Virginia.
Fans can follow Louisville rowing on Twitter (@UofLrowing) at http://twitter.com/uoflrowing, on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/UofLRowing and on Instagram at http://www.instagram.com/uoflrowing.
