By Ray Brewer (contact)
Jim Andersen was in Arizona to watch his beloved Oakland A’s during spring training and had a few hours to kill before his flight back to Oklahoma.
He went looking for a nearby lake, because when you’ve been coaching rowing for more than 30 years, even your vacations seem consumed by the sport.
He found his way to Lake Las Vegas and fell in love. The weather here is great, the uncrowded lake provides a training area and the nearby village had space for the Las Vegas Rowing Club to establish its headquarters.
“This is the best lake for rowing that I have seen,” Andersen said. “If you looked at the top 25 metro areas (nationally), this was the lone one without a rowing club.”
He soon realized his next adventure: developing a competitive rowing organization in Southern Nevada, similar to his previous stops in California and the Midwest. The club was founded about a year ago, and already has a success story.
Andersen previously developed athletes who went on to represent their countries in three Olympic games and guided clubs to national high school championships. In just a few months after starting the local club, Foothill High School senior Isabella Fimbres earned a partial scholarship to join the University of Texas rowing team.
To read the full article, please visit: https://lasvegassun.com/news/2017/sep/17/watershed-moment-rowing-club-at-lake-las-vegas-bui/